The Proposal

In Humble Beginnings, we spoke with the business owner about his needs. Here, we provide our technical proposal for the initial build-out which will meet those needs.

Summary: your initial network, for 6 people working on-site, will cost $11,500 and approximately 42 hours of labor over a period of one week (once the hardware has arrived onsite). Thereafter, it will cost approximately $1100 in hardware and software, plus approximately 2 hours of skilled IT labor for each new user added. Additionally you should plan on a minimum 4 hours of maintenance by a skilled IT person each month, excluding any requests generated by you or your staff. If this proposal fits your needs and vision, let us know how you'd like us to begin ordering the hardware/software, and when you'd like all work completed.

The original requirements were to build an initial technical infrastructure for 5 employees, which would be able to scale to 10 employees in a few months, and to 300-500 employees within 3 years. Not more than 50 users the first year. Per our conversation, this infrastructure is to include:

  • Windows 2003 Small Business Server (SBS) (software provided by FictionalBiz), hardware to be determined.
    • Backup system with a recovery time objective of 3 hours
  • 5 desktop PCs running Windows XP Professional (software provided by FictionalBiz), hardware to be determined.
    • each PC will have internet access
    • each PC will have email, word processing, presentation, and spreadsheet software preinstalled.
    • each PC will have Skype installed, for IM and telephony.
  • A 6th desktop PC, imaged and ready to go, as a spare (so employee with broken computer can be up and running again in less than 3 hours)
  • Spec and purchase one laptop for you personally.
    • Install XP to that system and migrate data to it.
  • Save as much money as possible, but build out systems in a scalable way.
  • All build and configuration work to be documented fully enough that a reasonably technical person could rebuild the same environment from scratch at a later date – without consulting the original technician. This last requirement was not discussed in our conversation, but I feel it is important to the ongoing health of your IT infrastructure and the knowledge + workflow assets it contains. 

My proposal for meeting these requirements is as follows:

HARDWARE/SOFTWARE COSTS (approx 11,500)

LABOR PLAN (approx 42 hours)

  • Assemble equipment rack, switch, and UPS. 4 hours
  • Build and rack the server. 4 hours
  • Install VMware ESXi.  .5 hours
    • Configure users, NTP, datastore. .5 hours
  • Install BSD
    • Install Trac. 1 hour
    • Configure Trac
      • Install plugins for wysiwyg, private tickets, batch modify, AD authentication. 2 hours
    • Document existing systems, tickets for subsequent work. 4 hours
  • Install SBS 2003
    • Base OS installation. 1 hour
    • Configure DNS. .5 hours
    • Configure DHCP. .5 hours
    • Configure Exchange. 2 hours
    • Create first 7 users. .5 hour
    • Setup file shares. .5 hour
    • Configure backups. 1 hour
      • Test restore.  4 hours
  • Setup Skype accounts and Business Control Panel. 1 hour
  • Create client OS image including software installs. 6 hours
  • Image first 7 computers. 2 hours
  • Migrate Bob Bossman’s data from old laptop. 2 hours
  • Write initial network usage and management policies; publish them on internal wiki. 6 hours

ONGOING COSTS

  • Added employee costs $1080 and 2 hours of sysadmin time
  • Replaced employee costs 2 sysadmin hours
    • Re-image computer
    • Remove old account, create new one
    • Archive former user mailbox and home directory
  • Maintenance administration 4 sysadmin hours per month
    • Weekly maintenance regime .5 sysadmin hours x 4 = 2 sysadmin hours per month
    • Monthly patch and maintenance regime 1 sysadmin hour per month
    • Miscellaneous on-demand 1 sysadmin hour per month

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In coming articles we will explain how we made the choices reflected in the above proposal.