Sun Managers,
Thanks you all for your responses. I know this "survey" is not very scientific but it
will provide some arm-twisting statistics I can show to our Dean. Almost all respondents
indicated they were overworked (misery loves company??). Several indicated their
dissatisfaction with purchase/funds management and excessive meetings that keep them
from real work.
One respondent, Gene, pointed out that "as the amount of things you are called upon to
do goes up, your productivity and the functionality of the system have to go down.
Even with the best of people, there are limits as to how much they
can actually do. The real answer isn't are you being asked to do too
much, it's what will fall on the floor as you are asked to do more and more.
At some point, more people have to be added to deal with the demands of
the user base."
I realize that there are other factors the will determine the amount of staff
and level of expertise needed to run a shop. Factors such as complexity of
network (homogeneous/heterogeneous), complexity of software, etc. This is a good
start though.
If anyone would like a file containing the email responses minus email return addresses
that I used for this sumary, please contact me directly.
Tom Walter
Director
Spatial Analysis and Remote Sensing Laboratory
Geology and Geography Department
Hunter College of the City University of NY
695 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10021
(212)772-5457 Office
(212)772-5268 Fax
tbw@everest.hunter.cuny.edu
=============================================================================================
P.S.
Copies of "Job Descriptions for Systems Administrators" can be purchased from:
USENIX Association
2560 Ninth Street, Suite 215
Berkely, CA 94710
(510)528-8649
office@usenix.org
$5.00 for SAGE members/ $7.50 nonmembers
=================================================================================================
Site # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
# Suns 12 11 140 12 40 19 3 16 65 41 15 20 71 40 42
# Other UNIX 13 2 50 28 3 25 104 7 17 11 20 9
# PCs 4 15 50 6 160 170 30 31 25 8 12 6 20 12
# Macs 3 25
Site # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
# Users: Power 6 3 50 10 600 30 10 70 50 23 10 15 10 15 20
Moderate 17 8 250 5 280 50 20 60 100 8 20 75 40 40
Light 10 20 200 5 120 70 40 50 10 400 300 55 85
Site # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Full-Time Staff:
# Sysadm: Jr. 1 1 3 1 1 1
Intermediate/
Advanced 1 3 5 4 2 1 2 1
Senior 1 4 1 1 2 1 2
Hardware Staff 1
Site # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Part-Time Staff:
# Sysadm: Jr. 2 1
Intermediate/ 1
Advanced 2
Senior
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