When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator
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WOW - so much weirdness in the MSP vs SMB IT.
A company should be worried about one thing - making money. As such, hiring a good MSP should be the right choice.. but as mentioned, there are probably 100 bad MSPs for every one good one. As such the experience is that MSPs suck and inhouse is the way to go. Sadly, this is likely just a sign of bad experience. Not good ones.
If you're company of 90 employees is handled by a good MSP, one that had dedicated people who know how to manage workstations for example, those few workers at the MSP might be able to handle 1000 PCs over many clients, while you handle 90. Then another group of people might handle 100 plus servers, while you handle 4, and another group can handle phones for 1000's while you again handle 90. Sure you get to dip your toe in all of these things, but you are much less efficient at doing it, and efficiency costs money.
As for upward mobility - I've rarely seen any mobility at all in a SMB. You're the IT guy. Period. If you grow to the point where you need two people, you might the the lead IT guy. Not really sure what that gets you? Though in an enterprise, I'll agree that changing to another specialty might be pretty hard - the main thing to remember here - be prepared to go to another employer. This is possibly the number one failing according to Scott (I'm guessing here). The lack of willingness to leave your current employer. Just as bad as being unwilling to move.
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@scottalanmiller So what do you classify as a good MSP?
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@dashrender said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
A company should be worried about one thing - making money. As such, hiring a good MSP should be the right choice.. but as mentioned, there are probably 100 bad MSPs for every one good one. As such the experience is that MSPs suck and inhouse is the way to go.
And then find the same problem with in house IT.
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@scottalanmiller said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
@dashrender said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
A company should be worried about one thing - making money. As such, hiring a good MSP should be the right choice.. but as mentioned, there are probably 100 bad MSPs for every one good one. As such the experience is that MSPs suck and inhouse is the way to go.
And then find the same problem with in house IT.
Oh most definitely!
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
@scottalanmiller So what do you classify as a good MSP?
Same thing that good internal IT would be, except outsourced and at proper scale. Good is somewhat relative, but just like how only 1% of in house IT staff is good, only 1% of outsourced firms are good. MSPs have the benefit of a better infrastructure and more on the line and more reason to work with the customers than internal staff.
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@dashrender said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
As for upward mobility - I've rarely seen any mobility at all in a SMB. You're the IT guy. Period. If you grow to the point where you need two people, you might the the lead IT guy. Not really sure what that gets you?
Right. It's hard to take someone doing job X and promote them to the boss because they improved while also bringing in a new guy to do 20-50% of their former workload, while decreasing the overall value from the networking communications effect and pay the original person more. The IT budget just grew substantially but the workload didn't change, at least we assume not. So your job gets cut in half, where does the promotion come from? Charity, basically.
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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.
