[Beowulf] Re: number of admins (David Kewley)

[Ed Karns]

On Wednesday, June 8, 2005, at 08:20  AM, beowulf-request at beowulf.org 
wrote:

" ... ~1000 Dell PE1850 dual CPU compute nodes ... master & other 
auxiliary nodes on similar hardware ... 1024-port Myrinet
... etc, etc. ... The users will be something like: ~10 local academic 
groups, perhaps 60 users total ... at least one near-real-time 
application with public exposure ... We have some experience already 
with a 160-node Dell cluster ..."

> * If we only have one sysadmin, someone who is bright and capable, but 
> is learning as they go, is that too small a support staff?
> * If one such sysadmin is too little, then what would you expect the 
> impact on the users to be? ...

My guess is you have the answer on a per shift bases: One bright admin 
per shift. I would bet you will also get plenty of help from the user 
base, existing and future. As you already know, the volunteers from 
your users may be your best pool of advanced technical help and future 
worker bees.

One good lead technician can solve a world of problems. Several 
uninformed or uninterested technicians may never get anything done and 
downtime may suffer.

Budget for three or four spots and give most of it to that two really 
good techies ...

Ed Karns
FireWireStuff.com