staffing guidelines

Fri Oct 5 16:16:06 UTC 2001

On Thu, Oct 04, 2001 at 07:27:56PM -0500, Murphy, Brennan wrote:
> I am interested more in how many *engineers* are needed on 200, 500, 2000
> device
> networks, where "device" means routers, switches and any servers that
> support
> the routers/switches such as HP Openview, Sniffers or ACS servers,
> ...Firewalls, etc.  

That's rather like asking how many cars a mechanic can service.
At Jiffy Lube it's 100's a day.  At Ford it's 10's a day.  At the
Ferrari shop it might be one a day.  Race teams might devote several
mechanics to one car for days at a time.

I can invision networks of 2000 devices that one engineer runs,
and networks of 200 devices that require 2000 engineers.  There is
very little to link the number of devices to the number of people
needed to run them.  The time people spend is dominated by rate of
change, rate of failure, scope of work, redundancy of design, and
the level of support you want to offer.  The time spent installing
devices, or upgrading them is rather small in most networks.

-- 
Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org
Systems Engineer - Internetworking Engineer - CCIE 3440
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