The management guys have asked me to put together a budget for the business plan. Can anyone tell me what the average site:staff ratio is? (how many netwok ops guys do shared hosting companies generally have to support how many sites).

Examples at your hosting companies would be great too!

Thanks,
Dave

One per 200 Clients. Full workhours.

Atleast that's how it works at Diatone. Seems to be paying off :)

Are you talking about dedicated server clients, resellers, or virtual site clients?


Cause I assume that if it was dedicated server clients, you should probably go with something like 20:1 or something like that.


For virtual sites, maybe more like 350:1


Just some suggestions.


Jim

I think a staff of

2-4 Network Engineers (You know 24/7 thing)
2 Sales/General Help
1 Billing/Finance

Can run your whole show if you have 2000-20000 clients :)
(Its the time of the night where I give stupid advice due to the lack of sleep
;) )

Thanks for the feedback thus far. I am specifically looking for numbers based on shared hosting. ie 200 sites per server

How many shared hosting servers can one network admin handle?

Dave

I don't think you can count this really by the number of sites.

I would have to say it is more in the line of how many clients you have.

I have a handful of clients that have more than one site,
thus when I deal with one person on a issue that may cover
10 sites.

Originally posted by Western
Thanks for the feedback thus far. I am specifically looking for numbers based on shared hosting. ie 200 sites per server

How many shared hosting servers can one network admin handle?

Dave

Serverwise, a network admin can handle 40 servers :) But support wise for individual client support, probably 200 per admin. When disaster strucks and 80% of the clients on 10 servers email support. THen it might take more.

Originally posted by ebo
One per 200 Clients. Full workhours.

Atleast that's how it works at Diatone. Seems to be paying off :)
LOL! Are you serious? You're selling virtual hosting for $8 a month. How are you paying a $20/hour tech support person to support 200 $8/month clients? Yes you've got more expensive packages but you have to figure that the bulk of your clients are getting the cheapest one, and even if you raise the price the average person is paying to, say, $12 a month, you've still got other overhead besides tech support people. Unless you're a one man company with 200 clients and that's how you get your "one per 200 clients" figure?

Originally posted by SMERSH

LOL! Are you serious? You're selling virtual hosting for $8 a month. How are you paying a $20/hour tech support person to support 200 $8/month clients? Yes you've got more expensive packages but you have to figure that the bulk of your clients are getting the cheapest one, and even if you raise the price the average person is paying to, say, $12 a month, you've still got other overhead besides tech support people. Unless you're a one man company with 200 clients and that's how you get your "one per 200 clients" figure?

I think he was saying 200 servers, not 200 sites.

SMERSH. Chill. Deep breaths. When I say 200 sites, I mean 200 Clients, and about 10-15 out of every 200 clients, have dedicated servers, our colocated servers. They need alot of support. And I don't pay techs $20.00 an hour. :rolleyes:

It really all depends on your clients.

If you have dedicated clients I would say 1 Tech : 50 Clients

If you have virtual I would say 1 Tech : 150 Clients

Of course you always have the problem of switching shifts because no one works 24/7

Uh, you didn't say if you were going to have your own datacenter.

Ya, If you have your own DC you need 24/7 going on there.