Number of Admin's per Server

[Database Administrator]

I'm new to the group. I've looked at the FAQ's and archives and can't
find anything referencing this so I have a question.


Have you seen in any of the industry mags with a survery or article that
talks about the
optimum number of unix or AIX admins per server?

I know servers have different levels of complexity etc. but I'm looking for
some data to see
what is generally done in the "real world."

If you recall seeing something and are not really sure, would you tell me
where you likely saw it, ie. what
mags you might have seen it in or website etc.?

VCrenshaw

[Database Administrator]

V Crenshaw writes:

> Have you seen in any of the industry mags with a survery or article that
> talks about the
> optimum number of unix or AIX admins per server?

Unless the workload is very heavy, a single administrator should be
optimal. For mission-critical machines, two people with root access
would probably be wise (although only one might normally carry out all
the administration duties).

For large systems and in cases where responsibility must be divided for
security reasons, you might want several administrators with different
duties. The UNIX architecture doesn't lend itself to this, though,
since you're either root or you're not, so it's all or nothing as
privileges go. There are some creative workarounds, but they involve
allowing ordinary users to run a few privileged programs; the only real
administrators are those with the root password, and anyone with the
root password can do anything.

One of the problems I've always had with UNIX is this all-or-nothing
sysadmin privilege, but it's a problem shared by a great many operating
systems.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

[Database Administrator]

I guess I wasn't clear in what I was asking. We have thousands of midrange
unix
servers: SUN, AIX, PYRAMID and HP in the company I work for.

I'm asking how many AIX servers should one admin be responsible for - max.

I'll take opinions, but I'm really asking if anyone has seen any written
opinions from industry
writers and magazines.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
news:epga01511pms0jve0vdislg6809m2v51ck@4ax.com...
>V Crenshaw writes:
>
>> Have you seen in any of the industry mags with a survery or article that
>> talks about the
>> optimum number of unix or AIX admins per server?
>
> Unless the workload is very heavy, a single administrator should be
> optimal. For mission-critical machines, two people with root access
> would probably be wise (although only one might normally carry out all
> the administration duties).
>
> For large systems and in cases where responsibility must be divided for
> security reasons, you might want several administrators with different
> duties. The UNIX architecture doesn't lend itself to this, though,
> since you're either root or you're not, so it's all or nothing as
> privileges go. There are some creative workarounds, but they involve
> allowing ordinary users to run a few privileged programs; the only real
> administrators are those with the root password, and anyone with the
> root password can do anything.
>
> One of the problems I've always had with UNIX is this all-or-nothing
> sysadmin privilege, but it's a problem shared by a great many operating
> systems.
>
> --
> Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

[Database Administrator]

In article ,
"V Crenshaw" wrote:

> I guess I wasn't clear in what I was asking. We have thousands of midrange
> unix servers: SUN, AIX, PYRAMID and HP in the company I work for.
>
> I'm asking how many AIX servers should one admin be responsible for - max.
>
> I'll take opinions, but I'm really asking if anyone has seen any written
> opinions from industry writers and magazines.

"That depends" (the standard answer to overly general and not well
understood by the the Original Poster)

There's no hard and fast formula and most PHBs are looking for one
thinking sysadmins are like widgets. Guess what, they aren't. Good
ones know the systems they run and keep them running well, like a Kabuki
stagehand who's seen on stage but not really seen.

Factors that affect sysadmin ratio:

- environment and service level expectations (7x24 production under
tight change controls with measured up-time (4 Nines 5 or better=130s
downtime/month), development, or available during standard business
hours)
- workload (heavily used mission-critical with HA, critical -
infrastructure system like directory services or web, or developer
systems),
- utilization patterns (system load creeps toward double digits just
before lunch, dips, then goes back up until about 5pm),
- applications care and maintainance ("Oracle is running slow", "Why is
the company web page so slow today", "I need files restored that were on
my PC")
- hardware configuration (disk space requirements, memory utilization,
older or questionable hardware)
- software configuration (OS version and patch levels)
- degree of infrastructure automation and monitoring (if there isn't
any, you're in deep dodo!)

If you have groups of systems that are similar running about the same
hardware, then one or two people could handle the similar systems (say
the DB2 systems). The more different the systems are, the less overlap
you'll be able to depend on. It also depends on the degree of
cross-pollination that occurs between the various sysadmins. If they
are a cohesive group and work together as a team, then you get synergy.
If they're scatter all over the enterprise, there's probably very little
overlap, except for various infrastructure services like the Datacenter
and Network people that can mandate various things.

The Practice of System and Network Adminstration by Thomas Limoncelli
and Christine Hogan (ISBN 0201702711) has an excellent discussion of
this whole topic from a general, system-independent architecture.

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...

[Database Administrator]

In comp.unix.admin Michael Vilain :
> In article ,
> "V Crenshaw" wrote:

>> I guess I wasn't clear in what I was asking. We have thousands of midrange
>> unix servers: SUN, AIX, PYRAMID and HP in the company I work for.
>>
>> I'm asking how many AIX servers should one admin be responsible for - max.
>>
>> I'll take opinions, but I'm really asking if anyone has seen any written
>> opinions from industry writers and magazines.

> "That depends" (the standard answer to overly general and not well
> understood by the the Original Poster)

Or just refused, cowardly unwilling to except reality.

> There's no hard and fast formula and most PHBs are looking for one
> thinking sysadmins are like widgets. Guess what, they aren't. Good
> ones know the systems they run and keep them running well, like a Kabuki
> stagehand who's seen on stage but not really seen.

100% ack. There's no way of determining this in a general way,
even if management would like to. It could be 150 or more systems
in an easy environment or just 25, with a bunch of developers on
them, keeping the admin pretty busy.

[..]

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo zvpunry@urvzvat.qr | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 31: cellular telephone interference

[Database Administrator]

I found some good information in
. Granted it
assumes the org has bought into using Tivoli, but there's some good
content in there that can give rise to thoughts that should be applied
to an organization, irrespective of whatever tools (or tool suites) are
actually deployed. They provide some good analysis of the different
trade spaces that occur in any environment.

Recently, I was able to play around with AIX's System Manager. I'm not
saying it's any kind of silver bullet, but IMO they've done a nice job
of allowing multiple nodes to be centrally managed. I haven't played
with it extensively, but I'd like to see a similar interface work in a
heterogenous environment, for at least the portions which are common
across many a Unix platform.

Regards,
Jon

[Database Administrator]

Michael Vilain wrote:
> "That depends" (the standard answer to overly general and not well
> understood by the the Original Poster)

Agreed; that's the only real answer. Just to go into a little more
detail on this, a large factor is the homogeneity of the hardware and
software, and the existence of tools for managing large numbers of
servers (or the lack of such tools). If you're running 500 identical
web servers, and they all have nicely set up centralized authentication,
and a kickstart server for new ones, and shared storage for shareable
stuff, then you could probably get away with two admins! On the other
hand, if you're running ten systems but they have nothing in common and
no means of centralized administration, you might need five admins.

You also always want a safety factor too, in case, say, one quits
and another one comes down with the flu before you find a replacement.
Junior admins or newly hired ones of any skill level will also be less
productive, and may be a short-term drain on the productivity of those
who are teaching them. As with hardware, you have to consider what you
need to cover your average workload, what you need to cover 95% of
situations, what you need to cover 99.99% of situations, and so forth.

Also consider how many problems there are and how often your admins
will get paged in the middle of the night. Getting woken up three times
a night every night with no perceivable chance of this changing will not
do good things either for productivity during the day or motivation to
actually stay at such a job.

JDW

[Database Administrator]

V Crenshaw wrote:
>
> I'm new to the group. I've looked at the FAQ's and archives and
can't
> find anything referencing this so I have a question.

There are sources you haven't found yet.

> Have you seen in any of the industry mags with a survery or article
that
> talks about the optimum number of unix or AIX admins per server?

Look to the professional society for sysadmins SAGE.
www.unenix.org/sage
Consider paying for the annual surveys going back several years. One
of the questions asked is how many servers per admin. The real answer
can range from several admins on the same box for one that could be
listed on the Top 500 Supercomputers web site through a thousand
identical workstations all doing the same thing. The surveys take all
of those answers and average them out. If your site isn't average
(who's is?) this answer could help or hurt, so look it up first then
decide if you want to use it.