How large is your IT department?

I just started a new job this past Monday. I'm doing desktop support, but would really like to move into networking eventually. I'm working for a hospital in an IT department of ~60 people that support 1500 machines. The department breaks down like this:

Helpdesk - 2
Desktop - 6
Systems - 15
Applications - 20
Network - 2
Telecommunications - 2

The remaining people have misc. jobs or work at some of our remote sites. I'm at the main hospital. I was kinda disappointed to find that the network team consists of only 2 guys. I guess I was expecting something a little more impressive. How does this compare to some of you who work in medium-large organizations? How many people are on the network team specifically?

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ColbyG

Depends on how you look at my company, we are owned by a big conglomerate with individual companies underneath. The company I mainly support is something like:

Server - ~15 (this is AD, Exchange, SAN, whatever - it's all the same to me, lol)
Network - 3 (total bullshit)

Offshore NOC - ~10? (These guys are in India and the Philippines, they support my company and several others)
Offshore Network - ~10 (India, supporting my company and several others)

The offshoring didn't exist until about six months ago, before it there were four of us on the network team, which was still ridiculously understaffed. At one point, before my time, there were 10 people for network alone. So now there are three of us for my company (plus the offshore guys, but they're terrible) supporting 1000+ routers, switches, firewalls and a network of 50K+ users, 200+ sites, with lord knows how many nodes.

Just thinking about it gets me riled up.

stuh84

I couldn't say down to the exact number as there are many people in our offices around the world that I've never even met, but I'd be willing to bet that at least 25% of the staff are purely network based, and that may be a way conservative estimate.

The business we do is based upon selling networks and selling managed services over networks, so pretty much everything we do comes down to whats on the network and how it runs.

msteinhilber

Have more than doubled the number of supported branch locations and number of users, while introducing more and more technology to support. Staff size has remained the same throughout the years. Up to 41 offices including our corporate HQ and users around 1200 I would guess.

Jack of all trades - 2 (myself and my boss)
Idiot - 1 (the other guy)

dorawe

It's not the SIZE of your IT department, it's how you use it......

Sorry, I just couldn't help it....

erpadmin

dorawe wrote: »

It's not the SIZE of your IT department, it's how you use it......

Sorry, I just couldn't help it....

lol.

In any event,
2 Database Administrators (me being one of them).
5 Help Desk (Level 1 and Level 2 guys...they will work the phones, and go out in the field....ahhh memories....but they are encompassed as the Help Desk)
3 Network/System Admins (I do have sys admin knowledge, but not my primary function).
1 Video Conference dude (plus other duties as required.)
1 Webmaster
2 Operators (Backup and anciliary backoffice work help)
2 Security Admins
2 PBX Techs
9 Developers

Not counting head honchos and secretaries (yes, secretaries...plural...lol

)

tomahawkeer

3 for me.

(1) IT Manager (Me)
(1) Webmaster
(1) Help Desk

We all tend to do help desk crap if we get a lot of stuff happening at once. But I handle everything from Servers, to Printers, routers, switches, copiers, as well as specialized propitary software and hardware, not to mention oversee the other 2.

zerglings

More than 2000 IT employees.

NinjaBoy

In our's, there will be 4 on Monday (new guy starting then).

IT Manager (Me)
Senior IT Tech
IT Tech
IT Tech (in training)

We support 1 Secondary School/Sixth form (main place, aka high school) that has approx 1400 users. We also support 3 primary school's (elementary school's) and 1 private engineering firm. We also do project work on an ad-hoc basis for other organisations as and when.

-ken

BradleyHU

my IT dept is spread out over a bunch of countries. me personally i support both the NYC & White Plains NY offices of my company. right now, At my location its 2 desktop pplz(me included), my manager, server manager, 1 unix server guy, 1 network guy and the Regional IT Director. All this supporting a ton of servers, PCs, VMs & 650 employees.

NetAdmin2436

I AM the IT department

I'm an IT consultant now and I have a few small companies with 1-50 end users that I manage.

it_box

9 buildings, 600 users, 2500 computers with a grand total in the IT department = 3

We are all jack of all trades.

elphrank0

in my location: 2, IT Mgr and Me. There are other locations with more people around. Depends I guess on what is happening in the location. I have 150-170 end users.

[Deleted User]

Just me and another guy. We support about 150 users.

xenodamus

Wow...sounds like we're pretty overstaffed compared to alot of you. I guess I shouldn't whine about the size of the network department and just be glad there is a network department AT ALL.....

Mishra

Decided this would be a good time to finally do the numbers myself for my knowledge.. And this would help you out with your question.

Be aware that this staff is production support only. No engineering is done by any of the staff. I can't really give good numbers on the engineers of the project.

All across 3 shifts to provide support

Site 1 - 16 admins = 1 network, 4 helpdesk, 3 leads, 10 monitors
Site 2 - 17 admins = 2 network, 2 helpdesk, 2 tech leads, 11 monitors
Site 3 - 17 admins = 2 network, 2 helpdesk, 2 tech leads, 11 monitors
Site 4 (my site) - 14 admins = 2 network, 2 helpdesk, 2 tech leads, 8 monitors

I'm a tech lead which basically deals with all systems,storage,network,desktop issues that come up.

vCole

IT Manager
Network Administrator - Me
2 Developers

shodown

current job

8 WAN engineers
20 LAN engineers/Network Ops
50 NOC
20 Firewall/IDS/IA
80+ Helpdesk/Dekstop/Server guys

Last job was around the same

deneb829

dorawe wrote: »

It's not the SIZE of your IT department, it's how you use it......

Sorry, I just couldn't help it....

Funny!!

1 School - 1 full time IT person
3 Schools - ea. w/ 3 Teachers doing part time IT
2 Schools - 1 full time IT person for both
1 School & District Office - IT Director/Network Admin (me)

ColbyG

shodown wrote: »

current job

8 WAN engineers
20 LAN engineers/Network Ops
50 NOC
20 Firewall/IDS/IA
80+ Helpdesk/Dekstop/Server guys

Last job was around the same

Wow, that's impressive. How big is the network?

thenjduke

xenodamus wrote: »

I just started a new job this past Monday. I'm doing desktop support, but would really like to move into networking eventually. I'm working for a hospital in an IT department of ~60 people that support 1500 machines. The department breaks down like this:

Helpdesk - 2
Desktop - 6
Systems - 15
Applications - 20
Network - 2
Telecommunications - 2

The remaining people have misc. jobs or work at some of our remote sites. I'm at the main hospital. I was kinda disappointed to find that the network team consists of only 2 guys. I guess I was expecting something a little more impressive. How does this compare to some of you who work in medium-large organizations? How many people are on the network team specifically?

I work for a Medical Group and we have the following 200 Doctors and 1800 employees.
Helpdesk - 4
Desktop - 3
Network Administrators - 4 ( I am one of these 4)
Telecommunications - 4
Project Managers - 4
System Analyst - 2
Programmers - 3
Managers - 3
IT Director - 1

We have a rather large group if you ask me.

thenjduke

ColbyG wrote: »

Depends on how you look at my company, we are owned by a big conglomerate with individual companies underneath. The company I mainly support is something like:

Server - ~15 (this is AD, Exchange, SAN, whatever - it's all the same to me, lol)
Network - 3 (total bullshit)

Offshore NOC - ~10? (These guys are in India and the Philippines, they support my company and several others)
Offshore Network - ~10 (India, supporting my company and several others)

The offshoring didn't exist until about six months ago, before it there were four of us on the network team, which was still ridiculously understaffed. At one point, before my time, there were 10 people for network alone. So now there are three of us for my company (plus the offshore guys, but they're terrible) supporting 1000+ routers, switches, firewalls and a network of 50K+ users, 200+ sites, with lord knows how many nodes.

Just thinking about it gets me riled up.

Wow you are really understaff on the network side of things. My last gig we had over 1000 routers and they had a min of 8 guys when staffing was low.

shodown

ColbyG wrote: »

Wow, that's impressive. How big is the network?

Few hundred sites. Some of the sites are just a few users a lot of them are massive over 1000 users. I just took this job a few months back. Its actually only 6 WAN engineers now that I've thought about it. 4 local and 2 more on the coast. We have so many NOC engineers due to rotating shifts and other requirements that they take care of besides circuits .

arwes

At current job, it's just me & the CTO. We're a combo of IT and building maintenance. One minute I'm working on Exchange, the next I'm mopping up someone's coffee that they spilled and didn't bother cleaning up (yes I thoroughly hate that part of my job).

At my last job, a 400 workstation not for profit hospital, we had 11 IT employees:

1 IT Director
1 PC Techs
1 Help Desk/PC Tech
1 Network Administrator
2 Computer Operators (my job)
3 Programmers
1 Affinity Analyst (their patient accounting system)

They were bought in early 2007, and became a for profit hospital. The IT department was reduced to 4 employees:

1 IT Director
1 PC Technician
1 Help Desk
1 Network Administrator

They switched their software to McKesson (an all in one healthcare provider software system), with the exception of their lab system which remained on an AS/400 (though I hear it may have been replaced recently). That did away with the need for the computer operators (backups & night support handled by corporate office, and we weren't offered transfers), programmers (no need since they switched) and the Affinity analyst (no more Affinity).

Zartanasaurus

thenjduke wrote: »

I work for a Medical Group and we have the following 200 Doctors and 1800 employees.
Helpdesk - 4
Desktop - 3
Network Administrators - 4 ( I am one of these 4)
Telecommunications - 4
Project Managers - 4
System Analyst - 2
Programmers - 3
Managers - 3
IT Director - 1

We have a rather large group if you ask me.

When I worked for a city government, we had about that many users or more with 1 LAN manager, 2 website guys, 3 helpdesk/tech guys and about 5 programmers. By comparison your group looks ridiculously large.

ColbyG

shodown wrote: »

Few hundred sites. Some of the sites are just a few users a lot of them are massive over 1000 users. I just took this job a few months back. Its actually only 6 WAN engineers now that I've thought about it. 4 local and 2 more on the coast. We have so many NOC engineers due to rotating shifts and other requirements that they take care of besides circuits .

How many users total? Nodes?

Edit: Sorry to be nosy, I just want to know if you're bigger than us. If so, cool. If not, I can be more depressed, haha.

ColbyG

thenjduke wrote: »

Wow you are really understaff on the network side of things. My last gig we had over 1000 routers and they had a min of 8 guys when staffing was low.

I think we're probably understaffed across the board. Obviously I care most about network because that's what I do, heh. But, I think the server/client/etc guys have it just as bad probably.

shodown

ColbyG wrote: »

How many users total? Nodes?

Edit: Sorry to be nosy, I just want to know if you're bigger than us. If so, cool. If not, I can be more depressed, haha.

I don't know. We actually don't talk about that and wiki says its classified

J/K We are a global corp so we have over 30K users

BTW is your server up I just tried to log in for one of the labs it cant be found.

ColbyG

shodown wrote: »

I don't know. We actually don't talk about that and wiki says its classified J/K We are a global corp so we have over 30K users

BTW is your server up I just tried to log in for one of the labs it cant be found.

The site itself is up according to Down For Everyone or Just Me?

I have to use that site to get an accurate up/down since I host it locally. What are you going to specifically?

shodown

ColbyG wrote: »

The site itself is up according to Down For Everyone or Just Me?

I have to use that site to get an accurate up/down since I host it locally. What are you going to specifically?

Just the Dynamips server.

But I already recreated the lab in GNS3 with the .net files you provided.

Thanks

ColbyG

shodown wrote: »

Just the Dynamips server.

But I already recreated the lab in GNS3 with the .net files you provided.

Thanks

Oooh, oops.