When to gain a full time Backup Admin?

[MattS]

Hi all,

I am curious as to how your companies handle the backup administration role.  At what point do you decide to hire your first or another backup admin?

I currently have about 100 servers and 3-6 TBs of data to backup.  2 NetApp VTL's at 2 locations with 2 Storagtek SL500 libraries attached.  This is not my sole responsibility.  It is getting a little hard trying to balance backup administration and being a sys admin to our production environment. 

So basically, what is your backup admin to data/server ratio?  Please feel free to post any thoughts on the general topic.

Thanks in advance,
Matt

[kumar_Arumugam]

Have you using veritas Netbackup?

[MattS]

Of coarse

I know this question may seem a bit misplaced in this forum but i do could not find a better place on forums.symantec.com.

Matt

[Chris_Babcock]

Well, I thought I would reply.

I am the NetBackup administrator for our site with only 25 clients, but 3.6 tb's of data for a weekend full.  We use DataDomain Disc and IBM tape and do HEAVY archiving for our client data.  I am the network engineer managing Cisco siwtches, troubleshooting network problems, running cable, moving users.  Also, I am the PBX/voicemail engineer, again user moves, configurations, video conferencing, etc.  I backup the SAN administrator, too.

So, I don't have enough time to get everything done and as long as you have the data for the restore requests that come in, then I assume management thinks they don't need anyone else for backups.

Chris

[MattS]

Thanks for the reply Chris.  You seem to be in the same boat i am.  The problem here is that we are growing very fast.  When i was hired 3 years ago they didnt even have any admins checking the backup server and that enviroment was only a 1 server 1 tape library with no offsite rotation.  I being a worry wart type kind of took over the backup processes and noticed almost nothing was being backed up!  Since then our data has quadrupled and growing.  I too have a difficult time explaining backup related process to management. 

Message Edited by MattS on 03-27-2008 01:42 PM

[J_H_Is_gone]

We have just over 200 servers we backup plus a dr site.

we have one unix and one windows person who wears the netbackup hat.

we are both sysadmins as well (this allows me to take PTO).

I have found that I spend most of my time on netbackup, while still being able to do some unix admin work.

But I do see the future of my job being just netbackup with windows and unix expericence.

[Andy_Welburn]

---

@J.Hinchcliffe wrote:

We have just over 200 servers we backup plus a dr site.

we have one unix and one windows person who wears the netbackup hat.

we are both sysadmins as well (this allows me to take PTO).

I have found that I spend most of my time on netbackup, while still being able to do some unix admin work.

But I do see the future of my job being just netbackup with windows and unix expericence.

---

That sounds spookily familiar - do we work in the same place?!!
The only difference is that our DR site is more of a D site at the mo.

I also agree with Chris: "... don't have enough time to get everything done and as long as you have the data for the restore requests that come in, then I assume management thinks they don't need anyone else for backups."   -  but you can't let things fail to prove a point, you just have to get the job done.

Finally, Matt, "... a difficult time explaining backup related process to management"  -  it's all magic, with rabbits & hats etc!

[MattS]

lol Andy,  You don't know how many times i hear "Can't you just do a full backup and send it offsite?"  I die a little inside whenever i hear that.

[Rakesh_Khandelw]

It will be hard to set a cookie cutter for this. It all depends what kind of environment you have, I mean how demanding are your users, how stable is your infrastructure. If everything runs smooth and you get new Backup request only once a week or so and restore request once a month then one person would be able to handle 1000 clients and multiple TBs  but if your backups are failing left and right and your users have new request everyday then it's hard to even manage hand full of clients.

You are the best one to know whether or not you need another person or Full time person. Keep log of how many requests you get and what kind and how long it take to address, how long it takes to do tape management etc and you would easily be able to justify additional or Full time headcount.

[Omar_Villa]

I will suggest that get a Netbackup Admin, when you are getting to many errors or backup failures and you dont have the time to fix them because the other production issues are more important to troubleshoot in that moment you may need someone else to help you with, at least get a contractor who can fix all the issues you got so you get good backups.

regards

[Stumpr2]

I think you should get one now!...you hiring?