Here we have about 100 HP-UX servers, 300 Solaris Servers and 100 Linux Servers.

I think an appropriate question might be what is the ratio of admins to servers. Here we have approximately 500 servers, 8 systems admins, 5 architects and 2 security specialists, all of which are essentially Unix admins. That makes our ratio 500:15 or 33 servers per admin. Maybe next time we can do a poll like this.

When I worked with .com/.net registry I had root on > 1000 boxes that no-one in their right mind would want root on. Never touched most. Working more sedately in development the most I've had root on was about 150. When I worked k12 I supported 300+ nodes dtd.

Have 9 p690 Regattas at this time. Up to four months ago, I had a mix of 50 Sun v120 and v240 scattered across the United States. I changed jobs. The Regattas are also scattered across the United States. But they are locked down tighter than a coffin lid by DoD contractor rules. I can log in for monitoring only. But need a designated Quality Assurance guy watching me follow a pre-approved script for any script installations. Cost of each p690 is several times the sum total cost of all the Sun servers. That puts me on an ego trip!

root on over 300 solaris boxes and about 5 HPUX and 5 linux

I took a new job recently.


Although I can't change my vote, my response is now two servers at work that I have root access to. Woo hoo!

But, still, that's ALL the unix servers we have. And one of them is merely a backup.

I still wonder what some of you people are doing with root access to hundreds of servers...

wow, so great. I'm wishing to admin more than 100 *nix servers.

It depends. Sectors like finance, telecom or shipping will typically have hundreds (may be thousands) of servers (especially if the firm has a global footprint). I would imagine that hospitals would have a smaller number. A firm in the manufacturing sector could vary wildly - a large one might require several hundred servers, while smaller ones (like your previous job, i suppose), might make do with just one.