How Many IT Guys Needed To Support A Small Business?

[legion]

Originally Posted by KaptKaos

Lastly, while it is an elementary school, 6th thru 8th graders can wreak havoc on a PC. They're natural hackers.

I remember in 10th grade not wanting to take a test in my Word Processing class (using WordPerfect 5.0, and Windows 3.5 on top of DOS). All of the computers were networked to each other so computer D was the D: drive for all of the other computers and so on... "Security" simply did not exist in a Windows/DOS environment.

Anyway, it only took me five minutes to edit the Autoexec.bat file on every computer on the network. Well, by "edit" I deleted the contents of the file and saved a blank copy. Everything continued to run fine that day and the computers were shut down at night as usual...

The next day, they day of the test, it had to be postponed. None of the computers in the lab would boot up. In those days, the idea of a "standard image" did not exist. I think it took another week for the IT staff to figure out how to install DOS on computers that wouldn't boot up...

[svandamme]

90 pc's and a few servers ??? 3 people??? They should hire somebody extra, it works out better when playing cards

[HardDrive]

Absurd. One compotent person should be able to run the environment, maybe even part time. I've run a hell of a lot larger environments by myself.

Originally Posted by jyl

Don't think it is very intensive or kid-messed-with, this is an elementary school and very few of the PCs are used by kids - just the ones in the computer lab. Some 50 of the other PCs are in the classrooms, where they are used lightly - track grades and upload assignments etc, but all after class hours. Several more PCs in conference rooms, all they do is pull files from server and display on projector. So only about 20 of the PCs are used all day as a traditional office worker would.

I don't know what the server/storage architecture is. Nor any details about the network.

I know we have three full-time IT people running this.

[legion]

I think it's a lot to demand that one person do hardware, software, and networking, but I work in a very different environment.

[MysticLlama]

I'd have to agree, 3 is too much, though at the level those 3 are at, any one of them may or may not be able to do all of it.

I ran an environment with 25+ servers, 50 workstations, and 25 remote locations with networked POS systems as one person, but no real forward development got done. I hired a Junior guy to free myself up for upgrades, doing more architect type work, etc. and we made huge progress, to the point where I actually worked my way out of a job, whoops.

If it was pre-planned well enough, everything could be shut down a the end of the school year, systems updated, some images created, file store streamlined, etc. Then some software like deep freeze or MS's steady state to make sure the machines are nearly unbreakable and it should be easily a one person + backup job.

Remember though that you're talking one person at 50% or so more pay than the highest of the three. That still saves near half the salary cost and 2/3 the benefits cost over the long run though.

In my current position I've slashed outside support by nearly half my own salary vs. what the last person was paying, brought some things in house, added some self-help type resources, and written some documentation. I then reinvested the savings into hardware, so within a year most of the office now has good new machines with clean installs, bigger screens, more automation, etc, which in turn makes my life that much easier not trying to make old P3s with 512mb magically run faster.

[jyl]

Thanks for all the thoughts. I talked w/ my company's CIO/head of IT and got a reaction similar to what you guys have.

I plan to PM some of you for advice over the coming weeks. I know I need to get and give some answers about the specifics, but I kind of worry about getting too detailed about the situation in a BBS.

[PcarPhil]

I own an I.T. consulting company that specializes in small business I.T. support, generally for businesses with 3-50 employees.

My ratio is 100 workstations (with a few servers thrown in) to 1 full time I.T. consultant. Occasionally a consultant will need some additional help (covering vacation, large equipment rollout, etc.) but generally this number works well for us. Also this includes allowing the consultant to occasionally subcontract some projects.

[myamoto1]

John - ping me off-line. My brother-in-law used to run everything for COE Mfg, from telecom to servers to desktop support. COE went under (not due to lack of IT support ) a while back and he's been w/o a "real" job since. I'm sure he could easily handle supporting the school's IT needs.