[SunHELP] Guidelines on the number of sysadmins need to support aserver.

[Sheldon T. Hall]

Quoth Grindell, Joan M. ...
>
> 	Is anyone aware of any guidelines that address the appropriate
> staff size based on the number of servers in the environment?
>  We would
> like to know for example how many system admins are needed to
> support a
> server taking into account the requirements for patching, monitoring,
> and securing a server.

I'm not aware of any guidelines, and, frankly, I'd be suspicious of any
published guide of that sort, because the effort required to run a single
"server" depends on what it's doing.  The effort required to run multiple
servers depends on things like whether they are identical spec or not,
running identical applications or not, sharing storage or not, and, above
all, on what sort of scaleable administration tools are available for the
chosen HW/SW mix.

Then there's the question of what the servers' users are doing with it, how
many there are, what their skill level is, etc.

And, of course, setting one up takes a lot more effort than running it.

Two large machines (primary and backup) serving several complex applications
to a large number of naive users 24/7 might require two admins around the
clock, while a whole farm of identical machines running identical
applications might require an occasional visit from one.

It all depends ....

-Shel