I just *had* to comment.

[dsr at tao.merseine.nu]

On Wed, Jun 02, 2004 at 12:58:46PM -0400, Derek Atkins wrote:
> dsr at tao.merseine.nu writes:
> 
> IMHO it's desirable for ANY large-scale production deployment, not
> just universities.  The financial institution is larger than all of
> the aforementioned universities, and even larger than many of them put
> together.  You've ignored this example twice now.  Selective reading
> problem?

No, I just don't believe in unnamed sources. They're hard to
verify.

> As for why it's desirable, how many sysadmins do you think it takes to
> manage 1500 client machines and a couple dozen server machines
> 24/7/365?  The number might surprise you.

Exclusive of help-desk activities and specialists like DBAs, that could
be handled by a team of 6 or so. You need 2 people during the
day, 2 more to handle two additional shifts, and 2 to cover
vacations/sick days/conferences. Another one is probably
advisable, so I'll say 7.

The number of client machines is not important to anything
except hardware replacement and initial install. 

-dsr-