sysadmin responsibilities

[Elena Leontieva]

Hello,

I wonder to what extent you are involved in maintaining HP support contracts and purchasing additional HW. Please, share.

Thanks,
Elena.

[Tony Scully_2 · Accepted solution]

Certainly when I have been in sys ad roles I have been responsible to greater and lesser degrees for both these activities. For the support contract the main thing was working with the HP technical account manager to ensure all the h/ware and s/ware we had purchased was on the contract at the appropriate level. Purchasing hardware has tended to depend on the size of the customer. In smaller shops the sys ad usually has to be involved, larger shops tend to have purchasing people/departments to handle the negotiations, and the sys ad just has to assist in the requirements specification.

That's been my experience at any rate.

Tony

[A. Clay Stephenson]

I am solely responsible for the support contracts (except for printers) and for purchasing HP-UX related hardware within budget constraints. In addition, I manage a number of software support agreements (e.g Vsi-FAX, UnForms, databases, etc.).

I really wouldn't trust a non-technical type to manage support contracts.

[David Child_1]

Elena,

I have recently moved to a new company and responsibilities are still being worked out, but I can tell about my last position.

It was often a pain, but I was involved heavily with our HP, EMC, and Sun support contracts. We had a software/contracts compliance group that actually was responsible for the contracts, but it was up to me to get all the information, double-check all quotes, write up business cases and PO requests, etc.

For purchasing new hardware; I was involved with this as much as possible. Unfortunately there were many groups in our company that would go out and purchase all types of hardware/software/support and drop it at our feet to get it installed and maintained. This caused us a lot of grief and if you have the chance to be in the loop for purchases it should help you out in the long run.

David

[Brian Butscher]

Elena,

It is very beneficial to you as the sys admin to be involved with the hardware and software maintenance renewals. In every position I have had as a unix administrator (multiple flavors, latest being HPUX) it is a part of my responsibilities as an admin to purchase additional hardware and software for my servers. As the admin., you will need to determine the need for additional memory, disk space, fiber or fddi adapters, tape drives, upgrade to a faster, newer model. Then you will need to order, install, configure, and maintain the additional hardware. I have on many occasions ordered a new server to upgrade the existing production server to meet the needs and demands of the business.

My first support contract renewal was to combine the maintenance on four hardware/software support contracts. Combining them under one contract and renewing this contract for a three year term saved us just over $50K during the life of that contract. As a result of those savings, it became a part of my responsibilities to renew all of the software and hardware contracts within the IT department. I have saved our department many $K's, still no free lunch from the boss!

Regards,

Brian

[Tom Henning]

Elena:

For my small group as part of a much larger company, as the sys admin, I am responsible for initiating the purchase of new hardware. I do the research, write the specifications, make recommendations for specific part numbers, and turn this over to another department for them to start the purchase process. Sometimes they even buy what I recommended.

As for the software contract, I review the HP qutoes for correctness, and the turn over hte rest of the process to another department.

[doug mielke]

for internal use ( since we are a reseller as well) I am 100% responsible for for all system purchases and maintenance. Requirement definition, product ID, Selection, eval and purchasing are all under my realm.

While sometimes it seems a pain, there is benefit in controlling my own destiny.

[Victor Fridyev]

I am responsible for the support contracts for almost all HP equipment (except for Windows Netservers and printers) and for purchasing of HP-UX HW. My responsibility also includes support agreements for Informix and Oracle.
I'd like to mention that the final agreement steps (financial etc.) is not exactly my part. 8))))

Cheers

[Geoff Wild]

I assist with support contracts.
I recommend new hardware/software purchases.

Some of this comes out in a quarterly Performance and Capacity review meeting that I am responsible for.

Rgds...Geoff

[Steven E. Protter]

I am responsible for all HP contracts, except printers.

For reasons that are unclear I'm also responsible for Oracle support contracts, even though I'm not primary on that.

I am responsible to plan, specify, write budget requests, physical accommodations, installation, testing and production planning on all HP-UX systems.

SEP

[Dave La Mar]

Elena -
In our shop the SA is responsible for review and updates to support contacts. Since we are a publicly traded company, all major hardware purchases require a minimum of three bids. The SA responsibility on hardware acquisitions is to obtain the competative bidding on like equipment and to size the equipment according to the needs.
Any actual purchases are reviewed by the Systems Programming manager, DBA Manager, IT Director, and utimately approved by the CFO.

Sounds like your prepping for SOX.

Best of luck.

No points please, glad to contribute.

Regards,

dl