When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator
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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:
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.
Then you hired the wrong MSP. That has nothing to do with it being MSP versus internal, you simply had the wrong MSP.
Exactly, You need to find the correct MSP, the 1% that are good.
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
... 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....
Right, and that is the value. They employ the experts and SMBs only pay for a tiny fraction of them at huge cost savings and get people with more experience and skills, less context switching, more insight and more career growth than any SMB could hire themselves. Again, you are making my point here.
MSPs do exactly this and this is how they are unbeatable. This is why the enterprsie is so cheap. That $300K of MSP staff can do the work of $3,000,000 SMB internal IT staff.
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
...and there's still no guarantee that even one of them will be any better than the SMB IT is.
So fire the MSP. Easy peasy. There is no guarantee that the internal IT person is any good either. Same risks either way. but the MSP is easier to test and fire, way easier.
Like I said, same people, two models, MSP wins, no exceptions. It's basic logistics. It's impossible for IT internal staff to be competitive in that way. It's basically a management problem. In one case you are managing people efficiently, the other you are managing them inefficiently.
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
In my case, I'm also the Security Officer, which the SMB would be wise to have anyway.
Only wise to have if the role is separate. Wearing all the hats, you are only securing yourself. How much time do you have to devote to security tasks?
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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:
In my case, I'm also the Security Officer, which the SMB would be wise to have anyway.
Only wise to have if the role is separate. Wearing all the hats, you are only securing yourself. How much time do you have to devote to security tasks?
And you're the fox in the hen house in this case as well.
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@tirendir said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
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 easy, for all the reasons you mentioned. The MSP leverages scale and efficiencies, allows humans to focus on tasks and do less context switching and splits the resources between the customers. How can the MSP not be cheaper? It increases expertise and lowers overhead. It's just basic "leveraging scale" as all businesses want to do.
I'm not sure why you feel an MSP wouldn't be cheaper. If it isn't, you've got a salesman who really is trying to make a quick turn around. MSPs have so many places where they are more efficient and scale so much better.
Here is an example....
Old Way: Twenty SMBs with one IT person each. Each SMB pays $65K. Each IT person makes $65K
New Way: Sixty SMBs use one MSP. MSP employs the same twenty IT people from above but lets them specialize and stop task switching. Each SMB pays $50K. Each IT person makes $75K. MSP makes the profits.
Everyone wins. SMBs pay less but get more better resources. SMBs aren't depending on a single person. IT pros get to have peers to work with. IT pros earn more. MSP makes money.
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Another factor is the proximity network effect. This happens in all fields and isn't related to IT specifically. Having proximity to other professionals in your field increases your value and your compensation. This is why IT in NYC makes more than IT in Springfield doing the same jobs. You get more peer review, more peer interaction, less risk of being irreplaceable and so forth. You are worth more and able to grow more. MSPs create a similar effect that SMBs take away. The "bubble effect" of lone IT pros in an SMB makes them worth much less than if they were working around other IT people, at least from time to time.
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Help me with the math here
@scottalanmiller said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
Old Way: Twenty SMBs with one IT person each. Each SMB pays $65K. Each IT person makes $65K ** 20 x $65K = 1,300,000**
New Way: Six SMBs use one MSP. MSP employs the same twenty IT people from above but lets them specialize and stop task switching. Each SMB pays $50K. Each IT person makes $75K. MSP makes the profits.
6 x 50K = $300K
20 x 75K = 1,500,000 -
@dashrender said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
Help me with the math here
@scottalanmiller said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
Old Way: Twenty SMBs with one IT person each. Each SMB pays $65K. Each IT person makes $65K ** 20 x $65K = 1,300,000**
New Way: Six SMBs use one MSP. MSP employs the same twenty IT people from above but lets them specialize and stop task switching. Each SMB pays $50K. Each IT person makes $75K. MSP makes the profits.
6 x 50K = $300K
20 x 75K = 1,500,000Whoops, 6 was supposed to be 60
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Should be $3M vs. $1.5M.
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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:
Help me with the math here
@scottalanmiller said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
Old Way: Twenty SMBs with one IT person each. Each SMB pays $65K. Each IT person makes $65K ** 20 x $65K = 1,300,000**
New Way: Six SMBs use one MSP. MSP employs the same twenty IT people from above but lets them specialize and stop task switching. Each SMB pays $50K. Each IT person makes $75K. MSP makes the profits.
6 x 50K = $300K
20 x 75K = 1,500,000Whoops, 6 was supposed to be 60
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I just wanted to share my random thoughts on the matter. Too many replies on this thread to start quoting specifics.
I have worked for SMB, MSPs, and Enterprise companies throughout my career. I have found the best fit for me was Enterprise. The pay is considerably higher, Training is always budgeted and encouraged, the hours tend to be much more flexible, and you are treated better.
As far as SMB, The lack of pay, long hours, and almost no appreciation has definitely turned me off to ever looking for a SMB job ever again. I can look at these past employers and see how vastly I was underpaid and overworked. I saw one of your earlier posts talk about how you are on the bottom of the pay scale and are fine with that. Can I ask you a question? WHY!?
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Personally MSPs are not for me. As mentioned on here, you can learn many different skills working for MSP, but you are likely to do more work than enterprise and get paid less. Not to mention that you are multiple customers emergency response team. So there are alot of late hour fires that you may not see in Enterprise or SMB. You will see fires across many customers and many different specialties.
Now when you do have these late hour fires for Enterprise, you are expected to get things up and running very quickly due to the amount of money at stake. That is why specialization is so important here.
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@irj said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
As far as SMB, The lack of pay, long hours, and almost no appreciation has definitely turned me off to ever looking for a SMB job ever again. I can look at these past employers and see how vastly I was underpaid and overworked. I saw one of your earlier posts talk about how you are on the bottom of the pay scale and are fine with that. Can I ask you a question? WHY!?
He answered your why - because he has nearly no stress, and a flexible schedule.
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@dashrender said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
@irj said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
As far as SMB, The lack of pay, long hours, and almost no appreciation has definitely turned me off to ever looking for a SMB job ever again. I can look at these past employers and see how vastly I was underpaid and overworked. I saw one of your earlier posts talk about how you are on the bottom of the pay scale and are fine with that. Can I ask you a question? WHY!?
He answered your why - because he has nearly no stress, and a flexible schedule.
I'm not sure... you'd probably get that in the enterprise as well. Every admin I talk to who works in larger organizations then me has said they have a fairly stress free work environment and their hours are extremely flexible. Including things like being able to work from home, or on the road, without too much forethought.
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@irj said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
As far as SMB, The lack of pay, long hours, and almost no appreciation has definitely turned me off to ever looking for a SMB job ever again. I can look at these past employers and see how vastly I was underpaid and overworked. I saw one of your earlier posts talk about how you are on the bottom of the pay scale and are fine with that. Can I ask you a question? WHY!?
Not sure to whom this last question was directed.
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@coliver 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:
@irj said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
As far as SMB, The lack of pay, long hours, and almost no appreciation has definitely turned me off to ever looking for a SMB job ever again. I can look at these past employers and see how vastly I was underpaid and overworked. I saw one of your earlier posts talk about how you are on the bottom of the pay scale and are fine with that. Can I ask you a question? WHY!?
He answered your why - because he has nearly no stress, and a flexible schedule.
I'm not sure... you'd probably get that in the enterprise as well. Every admin I talk to who works in larger organizations then me has said they have a fairly stress free work environment and their hours are extremely flexible. Including things like being able to work from home, or on the road, without too much forethought.
Well I know we here that from Scott all the time. But I don't specifically know people outside of ML that work for fortune 500 companies beyond the one I always mention - and the friend who is back there now - yeah, talk about stress, ridiculous amounts of hours (60+) with what appears to be minimal flexibility. He has gotten to work from home when his kid is sick, but that's about it.
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@irj said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
I have worked for SMB, MSPs, and Enterprise companies throughout my career. I have found the best fit for me was Enterprise. The pay is considerably higher, Training is always budgeted and encouraged, the hours tend to be much more flexible, and you are treated better.
I loved my enterprise time. For me, the extra challenges and adventure of MSP life is worth it, but boy is there a toll to pay compared to enterprise life. But still better than SMB.
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@scottalanmiller said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
@irj said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
As far as SMB, The lack of pay, long hours, and almost no appreciation has definitely turned me off to ever looking for a SMB job ever again. I can look at these past employers and see how vastly I was underpaid and overworked. I saw one of your earlier posts talk about how you are on the bottom of the pay scale and are fine with that. Can I ask you a question? WHY!?
Not sure to whom this last question was directed.
IRJ was quoting @tirendir, so I assumed him.
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@irj said in When Is It Okay to Say You Are a System Administrator:
Personally MSPs are not for me. As mentioned on here, you can learn many different skills working for MSP, but you are likely to do more work than enterprise and get paid less. Not to mention that you are multiple customers emergency response team. So there are alot of late hour fires that you may not see in Enterprise or SMB. You will see fires across many customers and many different specialties.
Now when you do have these late hour fires for Enterprise, you are expected to get things up and running very quickly due to the amount of money at stake. That is why specialization is so important here.
This is true, MSP might be better than SMB, but unless your MSP is the size of an enterprise [IT department] you must take on some pains from the smaller scale.
