Is this excessive?

[Colin Higgins]

My company has 9 primary locations around the United States, and 4 secondary locations.

We have 2000 internal users, 500 external

There are 2 guys in the Networking Department working out of one location.

We manage:

900 IP Phones

120 switches (to the 6500 level)

45 WAN circuits (MPLS, PRIs, etc.)

38 routers (from the 2800 series to the 7500)

6 Analog gateways

12 ASA firewalls

18 wireless controllers

160 wireless access points

3 UCM servers

2 Unity servers

2 IPCC servers

2 Presence servers

2 CER servers

1 WCS server

1 SolarWinds server

2 Symantec AV servers

2 RightFax servers

Does this seem excessive? Or is this where the industry is going? I don't even know how we are manging to contend with all this stuff.

[Rob Huffman]

Hi Colin,

That seems pretty excessive to me! We have 5 Network staff + 1 Security person

managing slightly more than that in 2 locations and it's hard to keep up.

In many companies the network and network groups have become a necessary

aggravation (evil) to the CEO/CFO's.

I feel for you man! But you can only do your best

Cheers!

Rob

[Ven Taylor]

Colin:

It's really just a sign of the times.  Companies think they can work us to death because they think we won't jump ship.

A lot of engineers feel that it's hard to find a job and therefore are afraid to even consider leaving a company that's abusing them.

On the other hand, it sounds like you've got a pretty good thing going.  A lot of technology to play with.

I bet it's hard to take time off.

I hate to say it this way, but as long as you outperform expectations, you won't get help.

Sometimes you have to push back or let SLAs slip to get the help you need.

Ven

[Ben Lavender]

I’ve noticed over the last 5 years, especially with the current economic climate that we’re expected to manage a lot more now with less staff or time for example. That’s my view and experience, however the question you need to ask yourself is do you think you actually manage the workload fine?

[Leo Laohoo]

Hi Colin,

Can you please name your company so I don't have to send my CV in that direction?

I hope you are paid well because it looks like a job for at least 7 staff members.

[artorange]

Yep , definetly , companies usualy tend to do this , put 50 man work into 2-3 people , ask for a raise , either they'll go down )