get points and answer one question (2)

[Thomas Schler_1]

Hi,

you will earn points on this topic, please, give me your answers.

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Sorry, I forgot one thing: It is a 90% position (not 100%). That's because he has to do 10% (of 100%) of his time a complete another job.

(Thanks, for the first answers.)

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We are investigating how many people we should hire for some specific tasks on HP-UX/Oracle. We are not sure if one person (90%) is enough
or if we need two or more. So, I think in this forum, there are many experienced specialists, that can give their valuable thoughts to this problem.

The environment is: Two K460 servers: 4 CPUs each, 2 Gb memory each, 16 Gb and 25 Gb internal disks, respectively, 120 Gb disk capacity shared between both servers, 280 Gb external disks attached on one
server, 660 Gb MOD jukebox attached on one server.

The running software are: HP-UX 10.20, MC/ServiceGuard with three packages configured, HP MirrorDisk UX, sendmail, Oracle 8.0.5.0.0,
AMASS (Archival Management and Storage System) used along with the 660 Gb MOD jukebox, and some other software.

130 users are listed in /etc/passwd.

The tasks are:
- complete administration of both servers (backups, recovery scenarios, security, keeping the OS up to date, OS upgrades, problem and system
analysis)
- complete administration of AMASS, that is used to have normal access on a 660 Gb filesystem that is built by 128 MODs (backups,
recovery scenarios, SW upgrades if necessary, problem and system analysis, media rotations: i.e. archive and delete old files to get free space for new data -- 1.5 Gb new data are received every day)
- administration and configuration of MC/ServiceGuard (three
packages are configured, problem analysis)
- performing hardware upgrades and replacements, when
necessary
- administration of up to three HP-UX workstations
- administration of an HP-UX SW depot for three different OS releases for the whole company

In addition, due to Oracle, the tasks are:
- designing a database for a complex database structure (it is expected to have more than 70 tables), both, logical and physical design
- deploying and building the database including deployment/testing of
software for data exchange and web interfaces for users
- complete administration of the Oracle system (backups, recovery scenarios, upgrades, security, problem and system analysis)

Do you expect, that these tasks can be handled by one person?

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

You probably would have been better off just replying to your previous thread.

My previous reply still stands; AS LONG AS the other 10% is really JUST 10%. Those things have a way of turning into 50-75% sometimes.

So anyway, as I said before probably 1 person could handle it, if it gets to be too much try getting another person. AND if you do have 2 people make sure their talents, knowledge and experience overlap so that they can back each other up.

If you have one person and he/she gets hit by a bus.......

[Robert Gamble]

I would use two people maninly for human resource redundancy.

I would hire one HP-UX person with MC/SG training/experience, and one DBA that could be trained in HP-UX.

[Sajid_1]

hello,

I would say two persons in this case too. If in case needed, you can always eliminate one (DBA) position.

HTH

[Christopher McCray_1]

I'm in total agreement with Patrick... on all points made. I guess the only other question is what is the other 10% that the person(s) in question need to accomplish? That should be something to consider, especially if you are responsible for that project as well.

Chris

[Martin Johnson]

Definately at least two 2 people - with overlapping expertise. They should be each others backup during sickness and vacations.

Whether there should be more than 2 people depends on how stable your environment is. Lots of calls in the middle of the night would require an oncall list and probably another person.

HTH
Marty

[Dietmar Konermann]

Thomas!

Just the same answer as to your other thread (sorry, I called you Ralph there :-).

This depends definitely on the skill set of that persons. I thnik it could be done by a single person, but you think also about holidays, illness and other resons why there should be a substitute.

Having 2 persons is more expensive, of course. But the tasks look important (and businees critical) enough for me to justify 2 people.

Regards...
Dietmar.

[Pete Randall]

I'll still stick with my two person answer. My DBA still does programming work - maybe as much as 25 or 30% of his time and he still manages.

Pete

[Kelli Ward]

Hi,
Sounds like a consensus.
It sounds like your situation, (2 servers, 130 users) could be run by one admin, but it could be labor intensive. If management is concerned about cost, ask them which is worth less money, a server going down while the sole admin is out of town (and reach) or the salary of 2 admins to ensure system stability.
If I had my drothers, I would have the 2 admins, each with main duties, but cross-trained to back each other up. (More cost-effective in the long run)
I know my "10%" projects, tend to eat more than 10% of my time and new projects seem to spring up easier than the plants in my garden.
Good luck,
Kel

[Victor_5]

Interesting topic!

From technical point, I would like to say two people: one focus on HP-UX, but he/she need some basic Oracle knowledges; another one focus on Oracle, with some unix experiences.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

The job could be done by one rather talented person. I actually prefer that complex tasks like database backups be the responsibility of one person to eliminate the finger-pointing.

The glaring problem with the one-person scenario is the lack of a backup. My solution would be to hire one Sr. Admin (and to find someone who knows Oracle, HP-UX, MG/SG, etc - this ain't gonna be cheap) and then hire a Jr. Admin to serve as backup.

I would certainly implement IT/O (VP/O) and NNM so that problems are detected and handled almost instantly.

[John Bolene]

Ah, now we get to OTHER tasks as required by management--the catch phrase that always requires more than 50% of a person's time.

My other answer of 2 just went to 3, and the 3-4 people went to 5 or 6 to cover the other shifts and other people outages. Yes, people have outages also--vacations, sick, kids, doctor appts, etc.

On the bright side, this team of people can handle many more machines if you decide to add them.

I will also assume that test machines are available? This cuts way down on the production outages when things can be played with on non-production machines.

[harry d brown jr]

I hope you are putting "fluff" (time set aside for nothing important)into the mix, unless you are trying to build a sweatshop.

Are you saying that you want this person to be responsible for doing backups, like putting the tapes in the tape drives??

Will this person also be responsible for USER account setups, Changes, and Deletes??

Hardware upgrades should be done by, in most of our cases, HP.

Actually, I'm seeing at least five people, if not more!

live free or die
harry

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

I'd suggest two people -- one to serve as the primary system administrator and the other as the primary database administrator.

As noted, some ability by both individuals to do the other's job in their absence in an emergency or during planned "away" time is very important. The skill level does not need to be complete, rather just enough to be capable of basic support. I don't see a good SA necessarily having to design an optimal database schema, but certaily a good DBA should.

As for hardware support, the system administrator should be able to do basic diagnostic troubeshooting so that when a support call needs to be placed as much information as possible is known about the problem.

I also agree with Harry, insofar as a certain amount of "fluff" or free time is desirable. Time to reflect, explore, and experiment are very important to skills development and ultimately reward both the individual *and* the individual's employer.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Thomas Schler_1]

Harry and James,

your idea of having "fluff" time is very interesting and new to me. But it seems, you're completely right. Reflecting, exploring and
experimenting are necessary, but bosses think these tasks are not productive. How to explain that to a boss?

Looking at the ITRC forum messages is a typical action during "fluff" time, but it costs time. I need it, to be up to date with actual OS problems, reading interestings articles that somehow affects my actual problems and questions (gathering information) and sometimes exercising in trying to help on someone's problem (especially, when I already
solved the same or a similar problem). In some cases, I avoided running into a problem by looking at the ITRC forum messages. So, at the end "fluff" time seems to be even a must.

Harry,

yes, he should put tapes into tape drives, execute commands doing the backup (tar, fbackup, (vx)dump, make_recovery), verify the backups, document and archive them. I think, that's all dealing with "backups".

In addition, he must perform Oracle system backups (hot and cold) and verify them.

This person will do USER account setups, changes and deletes (both on HP-UX and Oracle).

Up to now, you are the only one that would need to hire at least five people. Most contributors say two are enough, because some are wondering if one person really can have enough skills on all these tasks, or because of redundancy (hit by a bus was mentioned many times, [I'll never use a bus any more, from now on ...]).

[Nick Wickens]

Hi Thomas

You appear to be in a similar situation as us (130 users, two "K" series machines etc) but we use informix instead of oracle with I think about 300 tables and an in-house 4gl system.

We manage with one system admin and one dba with each of us backing the other up for holiday, sickness etc. Each of us specialises in our own field but has enough knowledge to get by in the others field if we have to (I am at a disadvantage because the Informix (IBM) forums are no where as usefull as this of course !!).

We do all of the upgrades and most of the hardware installation work ourselves, calling on outside support only in the initial stages of anthing "new" to us such as Fibre SANS etc. However as soon as we can we take over that role ourselves. We also maintain a number of older "D" "G" and other "K" class machines for testing purposes.

Most of our work comes from the programme developers as our system is still fairly new and being updated regularly but I do find time to also provide a limited support to our Microsoft systems guys and handle some of the computer room environment problems having been the Computer services controller in an earlier life. One of the Microsoft guys also acts as a holday backup for the HP-UX systems and together the three of us provide out of hours support for HP-UX on a rota.

So I would concur that your absolute minimum is two but ongoing training is essential at this level in order to cover absence of staff. You must also have support contracts with both HP (Not some dodgy fly by-night maintenance company)and Oracle for this to work as its quite possible that both DBA and Unix Sys Admin might be off at the same time (Ie what if they get married to each other :@) )

[John Payne_2]

Let me tell you about my situation:

I am the only HPUX guy around here. I administer about 50 servers, 10.20, 11.0, and 11.11 Soon they want to bring itanium servers in and bring in YAOS (Yet another Operating System).

The past 6 weeks have been Very Bad for me. We had a major database problem here. We have 10 DBA's, and in an effort to recover, they were working around the clock in shifts. I fielded calls at all hours of the day and night. At this point, I am wiped out.

On top of that, we moved all our servers from our old data center to our new data center...

I now feel totally burnt out, and need a break. Hopefully, I will get the break I need, but there is no one to back me up. If something happens, I have to work on it.

The forum here have been the only time I have had to do any 'fluff.' There are times when I do not even have time to see what the posts are in the forums. (Much less see my family...)

We have a couple of lab machines that I should be using to try stuff, develop skills, learn about stuff we don't currently use works in case it would be helpful, etc. There just isn't enough time. Now, after about 1 1/2 years of all that, we might get someone to help. I am just glad that HP servers and HPUX does really need as much overhead and babysitting and some of the other OS's...

You really need more than 1 person. 1 person really can't be all things for you. It just doesn't work that way.

Hope it helps.

John

[Dave Chamberlin]

I am also the only HPUX guy where I work. I am also the DBA. I have two K boxes and an N, the N is production. the K boxes are development and sandbox. I have < 5 users who log in to my servers, usually just to ftp something away. Our system is quite stable - we dont develop on production and testing is thorough. The HPUX side of things I can easily handle. The Oracle side can be much more demanding. If I had to handle dealing with lots of users - It would be too much. I agree that you want a backup person. Even though one person can probably handle it - I think they will burn out and It will cost more to replace them than it will if you use 2 people.

[PIYUSH D. PATEL]

Hi,

2 PEOPLE - ONE FOR HP-UX AND OTHER FOR ORACLE.

Since they can concentrate properly on their basic skills. Just to add- if HPUX guy has some Oracle experience and the same with the other guy also then it will be an added advantage.


Piyush

[Tom Geudens]

Hi,
I agree with the "2 people"-line. One major database problem (and you can expect +/- 2 of those each year) and your SysAdmin will be a fulltime DBA for several hours/days. He/She will be "wiped out" (as John put it) before you know. One major disaster on a system and it will be the other way around (I've been a DBA and I'm a SysAdmin now ... I know how it feels).

Our "fluff"-time is counted as "educational" time. Both your DBA and SysAdmin will need that time to keep abreast of latest developments/patches/strategies (and yes, browse the forums ;-).

Make sure the two people can be each others backup (you do want them to have holidays ... yes ?). It would be mandatory that they work together well.

Put into percentages, my company counts a week as having ... 4 actual days. This is a very good number to go by.

Regards,
Tom

[Reinhard Burger]

Hi Thomas
Reading about a 90 to 10 % relation of work makes me afraid. Reason :
Usually that does not really work.
Whats the definition of 100 %?
In such situations this definition is very flexible. Having 90 % workload on one job is a full time job because of 90 % workload does not leave any space for unforseen cases.
In addition you will run into problems with unsatisfied users. How to explain them that you have to work now on the 90 % part of your job and leave them alone with a problem until the next 10 % window is reached ?
What i mean is : There si no way to strictly divide the resource into such peaces. Most often that cause the 100 % mark to move to higher values having weekly hours of up to 20 -30 % more then normal working hours.
resulting in :
stuff overloaded with work
no time to maintain the system
most often "react" instead of "act" ( thats usually caused by the users not by the system itself)
That will probably very quickly cause your staff to be frustrated.
Unfortunally i was working in such an environment for some years and to be honest as i got an offer which was interesting i did not think a long time about staying or leaving.
Anyway you need at least two people. Be aware about such "unlikely" things like Holidays illness ...
Finally your decision on how many people to place is depending on a very important questions :
Whats the impact on the buisiness if the system or the application is not available for more then half a day ? Or in other words :
How much money is lost during unexpected downtimes of the system or application ?
Based on the answers to that question you may possibly get a hint to define how much staff are required to reach a usefull answer.
For somehow buissness critical systems i would say : 2 people is an absolutly minimum situation ( still leving lot of space for our well known "friend Murphy")

[Michael Tully]

Definitely two people. What happens if the first person get sick, has annual leave or gets run over by a bus..... after hours support. etc
These two people should be cross-trained, and know each others skills to a certain degree.

There should also be time to experiment, self-training, training courses and testing.....

I feel for the guys in the one-person shop....

Harry's shout for the beer!

Cheers
Michael

[Alexander M. Ermes]

Hi Thomas.
Go for two people. If the water starts boiling and you have only one, that might increase the error rate. I have done a job like this for approx. three years. If anything happens
( Unix, Application, Oracle ) this one person
has to work day and night.
We now have two individuals and we have split the job. If we have a disaster, one takes over the routine jobs, the other works on the hotspot and can even ask the other one to support him, so that work can be done in parallel.
If you need more details, contact alexander.ermes@europe.ups.com

Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

[Sharvil Desai]

After looking at the job requirements, and the business criticality of the system I definitely think you need at least two people. Though, it is understandable that in this tough economic time you would like to save every cent you can, the requirements of this job is way too much to be handled efficiently by one person alone.
While some may argue that all this can be done by one person who is an expert, my answer to that would be while that person may get it done, he will definitely not be able to perform at his best since the workload will be exhausting, and he will have no life. Having an employee who is feeling that way and is in charge of your business' critical system, will cost your company more in the longer run.
So without any doubts I say, you have to hire at least two people. If you are still debating, then to that I say,
COMEON MAN! DO IT FOR YOU COUNTRY! :-)

[Wodisch_1]

Hi again,

as I wrote on your first posting, this is only more reason for two persons (at least).
But what IS the 10% job you mentioned?
Sounds like there is another skill-set needed, in addition!
Maybe help-desk, or something like that?
That would let the list of candidates shrink, really, as most help-deskers I know don't like to do that work forever...

Just some more $0.02,
Wodisch