IT Staff

[theworm91]

I need some help from all of you. Could you please share with me the number of employees in your staff, for your IT department. I want to get the number of users that each position can support.
Please consider we have about 100 computer users. We are a large construction company. So there is drafting, accounting, etc. I want to get a feel for how many IT peole you have in each department. IE do you have 2 admins, 1 webmaster, 1 support. Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

[svanels]

Why would you need a webmaster? for 100 computers?
What about the folks that don't have a computer?
How are they knowing what is going on?

Steven

 

[rcpis1]

We have about 350 people employed at our business. There are about 120 computers and 12 servers. The majority of our programs are written internally. Our IT staff is 5 full time employees. 3 programmers, 1 Help Desk, and 1 Network/Equipment/Internet person. However, all 5 people can do the majority of anything, jacks of all masters of none.



rcpis1

 

[MasterRacker]

My current situation is somewhat unique so I won't break it down. In my last job we hade 120 computer users spread across 3 sites served by about 10 file and application servers. We ran a standard mix of business applications with some CAD, ERP, MS Office. We ran Exchange and had an Intranet as well. This was supported by myself as admin, 1 technician for desktop issues and support from our parent company that broke down to about 1-2 people worth.

There are no hard and fast numbers for staffing. It really boils down to how PC literate the staff is as well as what kinds of back-end applications you are running and how much administration they require.

[sub]Jeff
[purple]It's never too early to begin preparing for [/purple]International Talk Like a Pirate Day

"The software I buy sucks, The software I write sucks. It's time to give up and have a beer..." - Me[/sub]

 

[aquias]

Currently, about 60 Systems and 8 servers, and it's just me.
It all depends on the environment (including the number of systems). My last job, 250 systems on site, and probably another 400 off site. In addition to being a "hub" of technology, which meant at four AM we might have a person from Hong Kong calling with a problem.

1 E-Mail Admin
1 Network Designer
1 Network Admin
1 HelpDesk
3 Desktop Support

We were very understaffed. I was the supervisor of the low level staff, additionally, I was also the junior Designer/Network Admin. Lastly, I managed MOST of the projects (some were just way out of my scope and over my head) that our department did. For that environment we should have had another three or so hands.

 

[jaymaechtlen]

For that environment we should have had another three or so hands."
is that one and one-half people?

 

[aquias]

BAH! Damn people and your logic...

 

[mrdenny]

Company has 1300 Employees in two offices.

We have about 600 servers between the two offices.
5 Windows Admins
1 Unix Admin
1 Exchange Admin
2 Network Admins (Switches, routers, etc)
3 DBAs
20-30 developers
5-10 EDW developers
~4 Help Desk guys (They take the help deskcalls)
~3 Desktop support guys (they go to the peoples desks and fix the machines)

Denny
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

http://www.mrdenny.com

 

[MasterRacker]

mrdenny, are you a server hosting outfit? If not, you basically have a server for every 2 employees, which seems kind of strange.

[sub]Jeff
[purple]It's never too early to begin preparing for [/purple]International Talk Like a Pirate Day

"The software I buy sucks, The software I write sucks. It's time to give up and have a beer..." - Me[/sub]

 

[mrdenny]

Nope, we aren't a hosting company. We're an auto finance company. We've got dev, qa and production enviroments for all our systems. Lots of database servers, and application servers for running the back end.

Denny
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

http://www.mrdenny.com

 

[MasterRacker]

Hadn't thought of that one. You're a service provider. You have 2+ employees per server but your number of users per server is much higher. That makes more sense.

[sub]Jeff
[purple]It's never too early to begin preparing for [/purple]International Talk Like a Pirate Day

"The software I buy sucks, The software I write sucks. It's time to give up and have a beer..." - Me[/sub]

 

[mcadek]

130 PC systems, 10 servers, spread over 5 locations , I'm the only IT guy.

It's way too much to take on for one person IMHO.

 

[JimmyZ1]

120 pc's and 15 servers in 1 location and i'm the only IT guy.

it's seasonal, some bad days some good... but i can handle it

 

[Kozusnik]

I work for a hospital with 5+ sites, over 2500 users, 600+ pcs, 1 AS/400, 2 VMS servers, 4 linux interface servers, 1 linux web server, I don't know how many M$ winblows machines probably 50 or so. (I avoid the incredible rebooting machines). We use at least 15 healthcare apps, plus some inhouse apps. I am the senior Systems analyst and programmer (by senior, I don't mean age. Everyone else in my group is older than me, I've just been doing it there longer.)

Here's our breakdown...
4 Systems
5 Network
3 PC
3 Telecomm
2 Helpdesk
6 Operators (24 x 7)
5 Application
1 Assistant
4 Managers

I think we're staffed alright for now. Some days are busy, some not. It really depends on how much support your situation needs. If you use mostly Microsoft, you need more people. If you use Linux, you need less. Not a troll, I read that 1 Windows admin typically supports 7 machines, whereas 1 Linux admin supports 20.

Mark

SELECT * FROM management WHERE clue > 1
> 0 rows returned

--ThinkGeek T-Shrit

 

[mrdenny]

If you use mostly Microsoft, you need more people. If you use Linux, you need less. Not a troll, I read that 1 Windows admin typically supports 7 machines, whereas 1 Linux admin supports 20.

Where did you see this? We currently have 5 windows admins for ~250 Windows Servers and 2 *nix admins (1 currently, with an opening for another) for ~10 *nix servers.

I don't know of any Windows admin that is any good that can only support 7 windows servers.

I would venture that that stat is based on all the small companies that have a windows admin and are running Windows SBS with a single server.

Denny
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000) / MCTS (SQL 2005)

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

http://www.mrdenny.com

 

[Kozusnik]

mrdenny,
I have no idea where I read it, probably from a link within some slashdot thread. I don't believe much in any stat, I was just suggesting the fact that some OSs need more attention than others. I just picked the Win/Lin to explain my point. I would say the numbers would be more like Win = 40 to 1 and Lin = 60 to 1. If I had to guess. I didn't mention iSeries (AS/400) because there are so many variables probably 10 to 1 depending on what they do, how many users they support, and what apps they run. I'm a big fan of automation, so I can support more servers than someone who manually monitors their systems.

I also believe that M$ software causes more issuses which, in turn, need more people to support. I can't tell how many times our staff has had to reboot a domain controller, a fileserver, and so on. I'd love to switch it all to Linux, but management isn't ready for that yet. None of our linux boxes ever need to be rebooted. These machines pump 10s of thousands of transactions through per day. Why must we keep rebooting a simple fileserver??? Sorry for the rant, back to the subject.

I may have brushed over the point I was trying to make. The simple fact is every shop is different, every user base is different. You need to find what works for your situation. If you're getting 50 calls offshift and someone from dayturn has to answer them, maybe you will need to staff appropriately and have someone there offshift too. That's all I was trying to say. There are more factors which come into place than how many machines you support.

Mark

SELECT * FROM management WHERE clue > 1
> 0 rows returned

--ThinkGeek T-Shrit

 

[robbieguy2003]

Managing systems can be made easy or hard. Theres no real rule of thumb.

Working for an ISP (which only involves servers/routers/switches) there are various things we do to make management easier (which isnt down to the OS).

Management & Monitoring - Using CactiRRD with SNMP gives us CPU, Memory, Disk Usage on all machines and also CPU Use, Memory Use, Throughput on switches and routers - saves logging onto them all and manually checking, flags can be set to email if >90% of / or C: fills for instance.

Reboots - Get an APC Masterswitch

Rebuilding Servers - KVM them up with cascading managed KVM's and stick an IPKVM on it.

Backups - Use cron/scheduler to backup important files or use automated backup software.


Suddenly the guy that could only manage 20-30 servers and ran around like a nutter can manage 50 servers and have time for coffee

More importantly, he can know that something is going to break (disk space, cpu going through the roof) and fix it before people notice - which does wonders for the users, in turn giving your helpdesk less calls and creating a happier workplace

I wish someone would just call me Sir, without adding 'Your making a scene'.

Rob

 

[Grenage]

20 servers.
120 workstations.
3 sites.

We had 2 exployees until very recently, myself as NW admin and my boss who deals with the databases and programming. We have recently recruited a trainee to assist as it was all getting a bit much.

Horses for courses I think!


Carlsberg don't run I.T departments, but if they did they'd probably be more fun.

 

[lespaul]

Situation: Courthouse with 24/7 operation

1 AS400
4 Windows Servers
Cisco Unity (Call Manager) Server
Domino (Lotus Notes) Server
400 PCs

Staff:
1 Division Director
2 Software Application Managers
4 Software Application Developers
1 Network Adminstrator
1 PC Technician/Help Desk Attendant

Current Openings
1 PC Technician/Help Desk Attendant
1 Network Manager

The S.A. Managers and Developers are split between AS400/RPG and Delphi/Java/Web Development.

Mostly in-house development, lots of video equipment. The Intake Officers interview prisoners via video and all arraignments are done via video in each courtroom.

Leslie

Anything worth doing is a lot more difficult than it's worth - Unknown Induhvidual

Essential reading for anyone working with databases: The Fundamentals of Relational Database Design

 

[MDXer]

Bi/Data Warehouse development department.

Build Analytics for a specific vertical market integrating multiple source systems as various customers contract us for.

5 Analytic Report Developers
2 DB Developers

Open Positions
2-3 DB Developers

I pretty much can do eveything in my Department and often do.

QA and Support handled in other departments. Currently I have approx 12 months worth of work for current Staff already scheduled, while additional work is being contracted.

Shoot Me! Shoot Me NOW!!!
- Daffy Duck