When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator
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@scottalanmiller I guess my question is if good in-house IT is no different than good MSP IT, then why does it matter which solution any particular organization decides to employ, if not both? the supposed benefit of an MSP or Enterprise affording upward mobility is the same reason that anyone who is actually good at their job is less likely to be promoted from their current role proportional to how good they actually are. It's just a catch 22 where there are more positions available, but there's no incentive for the organization to actually promote you.. but in fact, their incentive is to not promote their specialists.
If the problem is people, then the issue is identical in MSPs and in In-house IT. The only difference is the impact could be greater to an SMB that it is to an MSP... unless the MSP doesn't have any role redundancy in which case now ALL of their clients who rely on that same sucky individual all suffer instead of one SMB. If the same 1% of internal IT are good as the 1% of MSPs are good.. then lets dispense with the MSP talk and call it what it is: Most IT people suck at doing IT, and your opinion is that MSPs provide a higher likelihood that they will suck less even with the exact same fundamental problem because there are more chances for them to have some of those 1% not-sucky IT people. Is that a reasonably accurate assessment?
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
@scottalanmiller I guess my question is if good in-house IT is no different than good MSP IT, then why does it matter which solution any particular organization decides to employ, if not both?
The MSP would be better because they would have a deeper breath of people to work on problems, especially against a one-man IT shop.
Another benefit would be things like vacations - in your one man shop, you are either on call while on vacation, or finding and MSP/ITSP to cover you, or they are just hanging in the wind while you are gone. With a good MSP, they will have coverage while any people are on vacation, you the client, barely notice any difference.
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@dashrender If the job is done properly in the first place, issues that require any significant specialization will be few and far between in a simple environment such as most SMBs operate. Wouldn't it be reasonable to state that to a large degree, only the SMBs that are fairly technical in nature are particularly likely to have many system that require a level of complexity necessary to need specialists to troubleshoot or repair?
I agree about vacations, but the issue circles back to bad IT versus good IT. A good IT admin running a one-man show may run a watertight ship that won't cause problems while they're away any more than an MSP-tended IT infrastructure would. Just because an MSP has more bodies to throw at problems doesn't negate the fact that doing it right in the first place negates that from being anything but an unlikely happenstance in the first place.
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
the supposed benefit of an MSP or Enterprise affording upward mobility is the same reason that anyone who is actually good at their job is less likely to be promoted from their current role proportional to how good they actually are.
This is a weird one for me. What type of promotions are you looking for? One that makes you a senior in that field, or instead one out of the field and into something like management? Of course this is a place that many businesses fail at constantly. If you're a tech on a MSP helpdesk, your path should be something like Tech 1-X. Perhaps you want to move server support instead, well I guess you have to prove to the company you are as good at that, or move to a junior server role and promote as you prove ability, etc.. or leave the company.
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
@dashrender If the job is done properly in the first place, issues that require any significant specialization will be few and far between in a simple environment such as most SMBs operate. Wouldn't it be reasonable to state that to a large degree, only the SMBs that are fairly technical in nature are particularly likely to have many system that require a level of complexity necessary to need specialists to troubleshoot or repair?
That might be true, but the one man shop guy is spending a lot of time transitioning from one job to the next. This is time that could be better spent staying focused on a single type of job for longer periods of time.
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
I agree about vacations, but the issue circles back to bad IT versus good IT. A good IT admin running a one-man show may run a watertight ship that won't cause problems while they're away any more than an MSP-tended IT infrastructure would. Just because an MSP has more bodies to throw at problems doesn't negate the fact that doing it right in the first place negates that from being anything but an unlikely happenstance in the first place.
It doesn't matter how good a ship you run. Problems happen when we least expect them, so you should be prepared for them. I.e. if you are on vacation - the fact that the MSP has people are are (if they are good MSP) fully up to speed on your network means that solutions come faster when there are problems when the primary person is on vacation.
I don't get to go on vacation without knowing that my backup person is available. Perhaps your company is OK with themselves just hoping no issue happens while you're gone?
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
If the problem is people, then the issue is identical in MSPs and in In-house IT. The only difference is the impact could be greater to an SMB that it is to an MSP... unless the MSP doesn't have any role redundancy in which case now ALL of their clients who rely on that same sucky individual all suffer instead of one SMB. If the same 1% of internal IT are good as the 1% of MSPs are good.. then lets dispense with the MSP talk and call it what it is: Most IT people suck at doing IT, and your opinion is that MSPs provide a higher likelihood that they will suck less even with the exact same fundamental problem because there are more chances for them to have some of those 1% not-sucky IT people. Is that a reasonably accurate assessment?
I think many would agree with your final assessment.
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@dashrender As for me personally, I'm honestly not looking for a promotion, because the salary I get is something I'm content with for the immense non-monetary benefits I get at my current workplace. While I get a paycheck that says I'm on the low end of the scale for my job title and responsibilities... I actually feel less pressure than most folks with less responsibilities than I have, because of the position I have in my organization, and the way they have let me guide the ship so to speak.
The idea that any SMB wouldn't have a retainer is kind of dumb tbh, any SMB doing that is being dumb in doing so lol. Unless any organization has a fully-competent IT staff with redundancy of roles included, then it's nothing more complicated than contingency planning to keep an MSP on retainer for a fee as part of the "hit by a bus" policy we often call it at my employer. It's not because we need an MSP to do things for us except in odd circumstances.. but because it's frankly a totally unnecessary risk not to keep an MSP available should we need them explicitly because our IT department is small. We pay them like 6K/year, and we get a day or so of labor hours we can spend to have them do whatever little thing we want each month as well as getting basic monitoring services through them just to help them stay on top of what the environment looks like should they need to step in, and it alleviates some of the mindless burden from our local IT.
Granted, I'm a statistical outlier, but I won't get significantly more cash working in an MSP or Enterprise setting unless I move somewhere that negates a sizable portion of the value of the dollar gain. So between more money that's not actually worth that much more due to cost of living differences and whatnot, I'm content where I am, making at the bottom end of the typical pay range for what I do because I don't get put under much stress, we're ahead of all other organizations and MSPs anywhere near us in terms of how up-to-date our environment is, and my pay has increased over 50% since I started with this organization just under 4 years ago.
I'm aware that for most IT folks, promotion = job hopping to a large degree, and that's something I have zero interest in doing. I don't want to climb corporate ladders, because I don't frankly care. I get to do what I love, so as they say, I don't really have to work a day here.
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
@scottalanmiller I guess my question is if good in-house IT is no different than good MSP IT, then why does it matter which solution any particular organization decides to employ, if not both?
They are the same at their rate of being "good". But that doesn't change the fact that structurally one is far superior. It's like I can build a "good" straight bridge or a "good" cantilevered bridge and the rate of "good" is the same, but the one design simply supports more weight.
The MSP model is simply a better business model for the SMB market. Take the same pool of IT pros and move them from internal to MSP and with no changes to the rate of "good" or to the pool of experts, the MSP model simply offers an improved mode of business to IT interactions.
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
I agree about vacations, but the issue circles back to bad IT versus good IT. A good IT admin running a one-man show may run a watertight ship that won't cause problems while they're away any more than an MSP-tended IT infrastructure would.
But leaving a shop unsupported would make them bad IT
Risk doesn't work in a way that lets you stop manning the ship. You might get lucky, but one man shops simply leave the company exposed in unnecessary ways.
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@scottalanmiller My question then would be, why spend more money to build a bridge that supports more weight if you're never going to send anything heavy enough to even remotely stress either bridge in the first place?
The more expensive bridge that practically affords no real benefit to the organization is now an opportunity cost with no upside except for a theoretical scenario that will likely never occur in the real world.
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
Wouldn't it be reasonable to state that to a large degree, only the SMBs that are fairly technical in nature are particularly likely to have many system that require a level of complexity necessary to need specialists to troubleshoot or repair?
I would not agree. One, I think that any good IT requires some degree of complexity. And two, good business always benefits from good IT regardless of size or complexity. SMBs benefit from IT doing well just as much as anyone else. They just may lean towards cost cutting versus strategic investment.
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
@scottalanmiller My question then would be, why spend more money to build a bridge that supports more weight if you're never going to send anything heavy enough to even remotely stress either bridge in the first place?
Ah, because in this case the more powerful bridge is cheaper. MSPs are cheaper than internal staff. So if it is about wasting money, that's a key part of my point. Internal IT staff is simply a luxury that SMBs should not be wasting money on.
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@scottalanmiller said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
@scottalanmiller My question then would be, why spend more money to build a bridge that supports more weight if you're never going to send anything heavy enough to even remotely stress either bridge in the first place?
Ah, because in this case the more powerful bridge is cheaper. MSPs are cheaper than internal staff. So if it is about wasting money, that's a key part of my point. Internal IT staff is simply a luxury that SMBs should not be wasting money on.
I.e. Scott is saying that if the company is paying you $50K/y (after benefits lets assume you cost the company $65K) that an MSP can do the job for less, and likely do it better.
Something to remember is that a good MSP is likely not local to your company. So the things that need to be handled in person - swapping a PC, changing toner cartridges, etc - will need to be handled by someone who is paid a lot less than an IT person would be, typically.
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
The more expensive bridge that practically affords no real benefit to the organization is now an opportunity cost with no upside except for a theoretical scenario that will likely never occur in the real world.
Agreed. And expensive internal staff that is there full time for work that only requires a little time is just wasting money.
Take systems administration, that's the main topic here, does any SMB need even 10% of full time system administration? That's five hours per week or about 250 hours a year. Lots of SMBs pay for way more than that, but I've never met one that needed it. They pay for it only to, I suppose brag that they can pay for it.
But 250 hours a year is enough for an MSP to manage about sixty servers. How many SMBs need sixty servers? Sure the MSP's hourly rate will be higher than internal staff. But it would have to be like 30x higher to make it not cost effective.
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
If the problem is people, then the issue is identical in MSPs and in In-house IT.
The issue is the scale of people, not the people.
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@scottalanmiller It's never cheaper to build a more expensive bridge unless there is an inequality of labor value. Again, a good MSP versus bad internal IT will naturally be in favor of the MSP. Likewise, good internal IT versus a bad MSP will favor the Internal IT. Just because you tag MSP onto the labor pool and add more tools doesn't mean they're superior in any way at all. It just means they have more tools that may or may not reduce any costs.. because if they must pay for tools while the Internal IT use free tools because those are sufficient for the needs to accomplish the same task.. not only did the MSP pay money for unnecessary tools, they also paid for more people to accomplish the same tasks that less people accomplished with cheaper tools.
Aggregation is irrelevant, because the cost is still higher in every respect for the MSP until/unless they can aggregate the costs enough to actually overcome their increased costs. As you said, if MSPs consolidated enough, that could and probably would happen. But until they do, it's just not how things are in the real world for the large part.
If an MSP has to pay me 65K including benefits to do the same job as I do for my organization, then they're going to have to split that for each and every single specialization they have to make up the cost difference of the SMB paying me. The whole reason we dropped our MSP from being our primary IT was because there were no MSP options available that could offer the services we required for less than it cost to pay me, and ultimately an additional IT staff member to do it. We also have less issues, because there's no such thing as the systems administrator you're talking about in the SMB world Scott, there is merely the IT admin who does the work of an systems admin, a network admin, a security admin, a systems engineer, a network engineer, any every other administrative or engineering roles that the MSP would have to pay no less than around $300K+ to employ for the same roles, and there's still no guarantee that even one of them will be any better than the SMB IT is. In my case, I'm also the Security Officer, which the SMB would be wise to have anyway.. so I'm really not sure how you can justify that through an MSP, without them having to pay the exact same money as the SMB, or even the SMB hiring an additional staff member to handle the security post.. that and MSP will be cheaper.
It's cheaper for the MSP, not for the SMB.
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
Just because you tag MSP onto the labor pool and add more tools doesn't mean they're superior in any way at all.
It's not about adding tools. It's about providing a more powerful way to leverage the same talent pool. It's simply wastes fewer resources. Less waste means more work, less cost, more output.
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
because if they must pay for tools while the Internal IT use free tools because those are sufficient for the needs to accomplish the same task.. not only did the MSP pay money for unnecessary tools, they also paid for more people to accomplish the same tasks that less people accomplished with cheaper tools.
There is nothing making an MSP pay for tools. What if I randomly said that SMB internal IT buys too many tools. What does tooling have to do with it? It's not a factor. Internal or MSP may or may not buy tools. The MSP does, however, have more scaling opportunities and more access to tools so has more options for lower cost or more effective tooling than does an SMB alone, but that is all. Your implication that MSPs having expensive tools is a false one. There is no such association.
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
Aggregation is irrelevant...
It's very, very relevant. It's what makes the enterprise able to do what it does. It's a staggeringly large factor.
