Realistic Sysadmin Workload for a Company of 30?

An anonymous reader asks: "My company was recently sold to a new owner. Currently I am working as a programmer using a number of languages (Java, C, C#, PHP). I am the only maintainer/developer on a number of important code bases. The new owner wants to add 'Network Administration' to my list of responsibilities. We are moving locations and our infrastructure needs to be rebuilt from scratch. He claims that after being set up (something I am also responsible for) our company IT needs can be met using only 1% of my work week. Our user base will be 30 people, mostly programmers, with a minimum of non-techie staff. I am a professional programmer, but have no real sysadmin/network admin experience. His solution is 'We'll get you a book'. Learning new things is great but, I just want to be a programmer. I'm worried that this network admin responsibility will become my new full time job. Does this 1% statistic hold water?"

Comments

short answer: no

[DJProtoss]

Whilst i'm not convinced about the 1% value, It is possible that that might work in a correctly, carefully set up network environment where each users accesses & rights is carefully set up, and you have a hardware support contract with someone, but I doubt it
However, irl this is *not* going to happen.
for a start, you are not going to be able to plan and set it up right first time (thats where the experience bit comes in ;) ), plus i'll wager that those 30 odd people will mostly be running windows, and will have local admin rights - that really increases the difficulting in managing them, especially if they are connected to the internet in some way.
Basically, your boss is being a cheapskate. You *need* a sysadmin, or at least someone whose job is officially part sysadmin and has experience - ask the boss whether he would want a sysadmin with little no programming experience and 'a book' to be writing the core code for your product? I suspect not. So why does he think the reverse is true?

Security is a process

[NoSuchGuy]

Talk to your boss about security and tell him that it's a process not an investment and need a steady (time) budget.

Would be interessting what your boss answers.

1%? Oh, boy.

[foxtrot]

I was in a similar situation a few years ago. 45ish people, we rolled our own network, mostly techie types...

We needed about 1.5 system administrators.

Fortunately, we had two. So about 1/4 of my average work week was spent as a testing droid for the developers and-- get this-- getting ahead of the game.

Whoever told you 1% of your work week is on crack. Stuff simply just doesn't work that well. :-/

-JDF