I'm sure it varies greatly based on the type of work that's being done, but my experience with another company led me to think that one set of eyes could handle up to about 200-300 devices, purely for monitoring and outage management. Configuration and support was another matter. (When I say devices I mean routers, servers, and manageable switches) To get at a 24x7 figure, I generally multiplied by about 4 or 5 (taking into account shifts, vacations, weekends, etc.) So, for about, say, 1,000 manageable devices, I would expect to need about 16-20 people. The curve improves significantly as you grow and get to use more sophisticated problem isolation methods and tools. -----Original Message----- From: Irwin Lazar Sent: Thu 2001-10-04 14:26 To: 'nanog@merit.edu' Cc: Subject: staffing guidelines Is anyone aware of guidelines for IT staffing that are freely available on the web? In particular, I'm looking for guidelines as to the number of staff required to support "N" amount of routers, servers, users, etc. Any links are appreciated. Thanks in advance, Irwin