I have not seen any discussions about staffing Altiris Infrastructure, so let me bring my view for others.
Managing Desktop Users is one of the most challenging activities in IT world.
Improper (usually insufficient) personnel may result in decreased quality of service and demotivated administrators and operators.
I hope that everyone would agree that most problems start between keyboard and chair.
Management Platform can be configured in multiple ways, and also requirements may differ reasonably, so let’s consider something mid-size:
- Assume environment of 1 hierarchy, Parent and 5x Child SMP, with 20x SS on each (total of 100x SS)
- 20,000 devices on each SMP, so total managed is 100,000 nodes, plus infrastructure servers.
- Dedicated server for IT Analytics (optional)
- CMDB databases most likely on Failover SQL Cluster (recommended) or any available SQL instance(s).
- Client Management Suite installed and used for Inventory, SW Delivery and Patching.
For such environment I would plan this staffing:
Service Owner (SO)
That person must have good management and communication skills, to coordinate team and deal with customers.
Desktop management is never easy, since users are demanding, do not like having “their” computers managed and rebooted by us, and whatever we do perfect and fast, is often seen as bad and late.
SO must “sell” our service to customer and coordinate any requirements for additional resources or mitigate complains on our doing.
Altiris Architect (AA)
Architect does design, coordinates implementation and configuration on technical level.
AA is owning licenses, service accounts and passwords, and is supervising configuration on high level.
Environment should be quarterly revised to decide on upgrades, reconfiguration, and optimization.
AA is also having role in 3rd level support and coordinates documentation and similar bureaucracy.
Remote Product Specialist (RPS)
I see very useful to have contracted Symantec Support, to assist in situation when problems require vendor’s help. Problems could be also raised on MySymantec portal, but there is not fast response.
My experience is that you can expect about 1-2 problems per months, so 25% of RPS should be fine.
Platform Administrators (ADM)
Several administrators are needed to run the show. At least one available at any moment.
Their responsibilities are to setup, configure and troubleshoot all platform.
Part of that is also continuous platform monitoring and optimization along with advice from AA.
Part of that is also Site Configuration (servers, services and subnets) and traffic control.
They would also act as 2nd level support and should have senior skills and experience.
Solution Operators (SOP)
That is quite tricky, let’s take it by parts. You would need several operators for different roles.
Inventory
Looks easy, but actually is not, if we consider more than just HW+SW inventory task enabled.
You may need to create many Custom Scans to satisfy specific requirements from business.
Inventory tasks must be also carefully scheduled (proper timing, and frequency, full or delta mode. Wrong configuration may result in heavy upload to SMP server in short interval.
Patch Assessment (default is every 4 hours) may also create utilization which is not welcome.
Last but not least, multiple methods of SW Inventory (Add-Remove and File Audit) should be combined together in SW Catalog, which is optional, but very useful if you plan for managed delivery or Metering.
Patch Management
That can be very easy, but also quite complex - depends on what you have agreed with customer.
All patches should be carefully tested prior to deployment, and installed in phases.
If you are not allowed to reboot machines as needed, it may be challenge to achieve good compliance.
Non-MS Patches are often tricky, requiring additional SWD tasks to suppress auto-update or so.
Nightmare can be to rollback patches, since some of them may adversely affect your internal application, which is never known soon enough.
SW Delivery
You do the best if you have all SW packages tested and customized (=packaged) prior to automated deployment. No pop-ups. No license agreements. No intervention from end user. No reboots.
All packages should be imported to your SW Library, and deployed from there, having closely linked with your SW Catalog, maintained by Inventory Operator. Optional, but nice to have.
Other Specialists
Consider having also other specialists available past time or when needed:
- Reporting Technician should have experience in SQL Analysis and Reporting services
- Database Sysadmin with deep experience in SQL, since CMDB is heard of Management Platform
- Scripting Guru is always welcome, to automate things and deep dive in troubleshooting
- Network Specialist to help in analyzing network traffic and assist advise on Site Settings
Saying all that, you would need:
- 1x Service Owner
- 1x Altiris Architect
- 3x Platform Administrator
- 5x Solution Operator
- 1x Specialist (all part time combined = 4x 25%)
For AA and PA ask for certification and 5+ years experience.
Please take that as a basis, since it also depend on your topography:
One large country is easier to manage - than several countries and languages, spread across multiple regions.
Just in case you plan for larger or smaller environment.
Do not just divide or multiple count of these roles.
More or less devices does not automatically require more or less work.
- For enterprise with 50,000 managed devices, I would reduce your staff by 20%.
- For enterprise with 200,000 managed devices consider 50% extra technicians.
Well, that’s it.
I would welcome your comments.
Any opinion moves us all ahead.
