Technicians per PC ratio gudielines?

[kingswood]

It's the bloody printers and idiots that can't use computers that take a toll on your time. Along with peorple castrating mice, mangling the pins in PS2 plugs, stealing ram(!)...

 

How true!

 

Well said sir.

 

Paul

[john]

Castrating Mice is something that seems to be catching on at our place at present. The 1st year we get optical mice in classrooms, offices etc (appart from the IT tech offices) and the castration increases! Why not just steal them is what we say then at least you got something usable at the end of it in the end.

[featured_spectre]

Reviving this thread for 1 purpose...What is the situation like now for most of you?

[Sirbendy]

Myself and the NM. Current count of 500ish PCs, plus laptop fleet. Plus digital signage, servers, security systems, CCTV operation when needed, IP phone system, BMS control, and so on, and so forth. I think it's pretty fair to say we have some level of involvement in every system in this place.

 

Kids, over 1000 as I recall...staff are in 3 figures. All systems spread across 3 buildings on 1 site.

 

It's..busy..!

[Gonk]

For me: Currently we're at 300ish desktops/laptops, 670 Pupils and about 80 staff...

 

and me.

 

My technician applied for and got a job doing the same hours with the same responsibilities for £4k a year more. We're currently 'seeing how we can get along' without replacing him. Which translates as - we've got the money but we want to spend it somewhere else.

 

Ross

[localzuk]

My new place, about 400 machines all in, 1 tech and me (network manager). BSF building (ex-bsf managed contract), so infrastructure is managed by the company (ie. all cat5 runs, fibre runs, projector looms etc...), about a dozen servers, couple of dozen network switches, 60ish IWBs and projectors, half a dozen display screens, half a dozen printers. About 1100 kids, and a couple of hundred staff.

 

We manage well I think!

[JonWPS]

Just me here. 1100 users, six servers, 270 desktops, 85 laptops, and 50 tablets, and everything that entails. Thankfully the AV side of things is done by someone else though.

[korova_blue]

400 computers, 100 ish staff 1000 kids, just me (part-time technician 25 hours a week term time only) and one full-time network manager. Kept very busy!

[Shuriken1]

Me (NM) and one full-time technician. Nearly 400 computers/laptops including 4 laptop trolleys (they're sh*t), 100ish staff, 750ish students, approximate 11 servers, CCTV, Assembly/After-school AV requirements. Tiny office. In the words of the premises manager, we are unofficially responsible for "anything with a plug on it" - a sentiment which I'm sure you can all imagine how much I enjoy.

 

Looks like I'm roughly in line as the last few guys that posted.

 

Edit: Only recently removed school-wide PAT testing and inventory from that list too.

 

Edit Edit; Include in that 25 odd printers, IWBs, sound equipment etc

Edited October 19, 2011 by Shuriken1

[Disease]

We have 600 machines 20 servers 1100 users, we have me (NM) and 2 full time Techs.

 

Non BSF.

[dayzd]

Two techs. ~1600 users, ~850 computers, ~15 servers and appliances and an EMC SAN.

We're also responsible for projectors/IWB/sound equipment in all out classrooms and have partial responsibility for our Cisco VoIP system.

 

It feels like we're pretty put upon most of the time, as we spend so much of our time fire-fighting, we haven't been able to develop the system or plan upgrades for the last couple of years, so everything gets rushed and we're very behind the times. --We still don't have a plan in place for Server 2k8 and Windows 7 deployment, despite mission-critical software requiring it from 2013. Eep!

[Chuckster]

Only me. 200ish network users, 120 desktop PCs, 40 laptops, 30 iPads, 3 photocopiers, 35 printers, 25 IWBs, 25 projectors, 7 physical servers with 2 running 12 VMs hosted locally between them, CCTV, assembly and after school funtion requirements, school bell system, VoIP, a multi-sensory room and a soft gym with state-of-the-art rubbish, school website etc...

 

Unofficially I also do a data manager's job, e.g. assessment manager, marksheet entry, CASPA et al.

[glennda]

Me senior tech and 1 tech - 900 desktops clients 29 servers, too many printers a load of photocopiers and a shed load of IWB's probs about 60

[JoeBloggs]

View Poll Results: What do you think is the correct ration for Techiniicans to PC in School?

 

over 50% put 1-100. So a School with 1000 kids would have 10 techies??? They would have nothing to do!!

[glennda]

View Poll Results: What do you think is the correct ration for Techiniicans to PC in School?

 

over 50% put 1-100. So a School with 1000 kids would have 10 techies??? They would have nothing to do!!

 

no a school with a 1000 pcs would have 10 techies

 

it doesn't mentioned the amount of students

[featured_spectre]

1 tech to every 150 devices if the network was poor

1 tech to every 300 devices if the network was great

 

BECTA guidelines right there (even though they are now defunct)

[JoeBloggs]

no a school with a 1000 pcs would have 10 techies

 

it doesn't mentioned the amount of students

 

Cheers! Not sure why I read it as students lol.

 

1 to 100 devices seems a lot too.

[Mr.Ben]

1 tech to every 150 devices if the network was poor

1 tech to every 300 devices if the network was great

 

BECTA guidelines right there (even though they are now defunct)

 

Just me and we have a great network:

 

We have 148 PC's (including 90 Laptops)

27 Projector /AV installations

10 Servers (8 Guests running on 2 Hyper-V Boxes)

3 Xibo Displays

10 Tablets

A fully managed Wireless Network

Website/VLE all managed by me

And all of the AV is my responsibility (around 80 Cameras, Video Cameras etc)

 

 

+40% of my time should be in the classroom.

[Flatpackhamster]

Cheers! Not sure why I read it as students lol.

 

1 to 100 devices seems a lot too.

 

That was pretty standard a decade ago but with so much automation now it's simply not necessary. The donkey work involved with setting up a ghosted NT4 workstation, which had to have half a dozen restarts and had to be manually told where each of the drivers was for each device, is totally different to the unattended installations of Windows 7. Although I haven't worked on a large network for a few years I'd guess that 300 devices per tech would be closer to the mark.

 

Of course it depends on whether or not those techs are also having to do stuff like write code or design websites.

[kilroy79763]

no a school with a 1000 pcs would have 10 techies

 

it doesn't mentioned the amount of students

 

5500+ students plus global students , 3 campuses within 90 mile radius, although the majority are on the main campus (only max 100 off main campus)

at our community college we have 1500 personal computers (1000 lab and 500 staff(ws and lt)) 30 smartboards many many projectors tvs.

Our network is great - we have two separate departments PC Services and Network services

PC does from the wall to the user - we have 3 techs, an installer, an A/V clerk, director (me)

Network does from the wall to the world - Network network manager(brilliant), server manager, security tech, phone tech(voip), and cable puller - there are 60 servers - which actually 2 people take care of the server manager and Director

 

We all love our jobs, at least I do :-)

 

we are usually backed up and it seems like it is getting worse and has seemed that way for years

 

this is how it stands 1 tech to 500 workstations...sometimes some a/v and oh did not mention the ipads (30 and more to come)

 

what should the PC to tech ratio be?

Edited March 30, 2012 by kilroy79763
added clarification

[kerryturner]

this is how it stands 1 tech to 500 workstations

 

Is my maths really that bad that I work out 8 techs for 500 workstations? That's 1:187?

[kilroy79763]

Isn't that 1:62.5 ?

[glennda]

My last place we where 1 - 450 but all machines where less then 4 years old and all had next day warrantied. Hardware wise the support needed was minimal.

[kilroy79763]

My last place we where 1 - 450 but all machines where less then 4 years old and all had next day warrantied. Hardware wise the support needed was minimal.

 

The hardware issues are not usual time consuming it is the software issues, and the re-imaging and subsequesnt software installations and individual customizations. Some of our machines are 6 and 7 years old and the complaints are really slow speed (which I remedy with added memory) but when they see that someone else has a brand new PC there is envy and they of course have to have a new PC since they "can't do their job because of their PC being so "old"". Reliability is a requirement so they use that as a reason to have their PC replaced...sometimes it is just basically politics also. Glennda do you work on any thing else besides PC? Printers scanners? LCD projectors? iPads?

[glennda]

The hardware issues are not usual time consuming it is the software issues, and the re-imaging and subsequesnt software installations and individual customizations. Some of our machines are 6 and 7 years old and the complaints are really slow speed (which I remedy with added memory) but when they see that someone else has a brand new PC there is envy and they of course have to have a new PC since they "can't do their job because of their PC being so "old"". Reliability is a requirement so they use that as a reason to have their PC replaced...sometimes it is just basically politics also. Glennda do you work on any thing else besides PC? Printers scanners? LCD projectors? iPads?

 

Used to, moved out of education now - software is only an issue if its a: setup wrong b: just rubbish software c: user incompetence.

 

It was a school with 900pcs (19 suites) 120 projectors about 80 IWB's. 12 MFD's, 30 odd printers. 35 servers mix on Linux and windows. using kvm for hypervisior. voip ip phone system.

 

We had a set policy that your machines got replaced on a schedule. No individual user in a dept got new pc before another. therefore they only see other subjects getting them and complain less.

 

Fog for deployment so if a machine was broken refog and it's back online within 40mins.

Edited July 8, 2012 by glennda