Standard support ratio?

I recently analysed my own companies situation and we are close to that benchmark, but there are lots of things to consider.

1) number of admins - this is the number of person years not the number of bodies who do some admin functions as part of their job. You will find a lot of part time admins out there.

2)WAN. Companies with extensive WANS need more admins than companies with LANS or Campus LANS.This goes to complexity - the higher the level of complexity, i.e. number of different types of devices, the more bodies you need to support them.

3) Amount of change. Leading edge companies who are in a constant state of flux need more support than status quo companies with stable environments.

And that probably just scratches the surface but I hope it helps.

James

We operate a WAN with three different State's each operating their own LAN.. The site that I'm at has roughly 4500 NT client systems and 300 NT server systems. We have about 15 people on our client support staff, and 5 people on our server support staff. This does not take into consideration any of our application analysts, network support staff, help desk, or management. Just support personnel.

I would say that the 'Norm' will be different for every situation based on the level of management of the clients, and the knowledge of the people supporting them.. Not necessarily a 'years of experience' knowledge, but down-right intellegence of the technologies being supported.

Under our situation the numbers are more like 300 clients per person, and 60 servers per person. We can do this because the staff is knowledgable and well-informed in those areas.

Hope this helps.