Hi all,

I'd just like to hear from someone who knows if the following hourly report sounds reasonable?

- Setup and configuration of the new server. (The server was shipped with OS already installed so I guess the job was to install and config webserver, most of settings was copied over from an old box)

- Security patching for 3 core servers

- Ran reboots on one server.

- Enabled munin

Total 18 hours

I get a feeling this is a way over reported in hours. Reboots, security patching, installing software and setting up munin should all be relatively quick for a pro?

Thanks

Asking for an itemized list of "Setup and configuration" is certainly reasonable.

I would say it would solely depend on circumstances, no matter how simple a task would be if there is some issues it will definitely take time.

If you don't trust them, you can scrutinize them. If you are very sure that settings were copied then I guess their not reporting the correct man hours.

For exactly what was listed, 18 hours is definitely overkill. For the items listed, I'd say 1/3 of that time would be reasonable. However, with any new system with a new OS, there is typically some testing and verification that's done to ensure everything is working properly. This testing could take up a significant amount of time, depending on the depth.

It typically takes me about 16 hours (2 days) to build a system from scratch (unboxing and installing the mobo, installing all the drives, procs, heatsinks, etc.), install the OS, set it up on the network, set up the RAID and update the firmware, perform updates, and get everything ready for prime-time. I then usually spend the next week doing tests to make sure everything is working correctly (maybe 8 hours of labor, the rest just CPU time) before making it accessible to other users.

Yes, settings was definitely copied as they remained the same as on the old backed up server and I know we had complete backup of the failed box on our backup server setup as "read only" until we got this new server setup in the rack.

My gut tells me this took him 5 hours max (not counting waiting for rsync to finish). He ran rsync for all the data. Lighttpd config was copied over, I guess he had to install a few applications on the box and copy over settings for them, mail, ftp e.g . It's all simple pages with static content on the server.

How would I go about scrutinizing this?

Capacity of data being copied? Is it a 1TB or more.. if 1TB or more..I guess it will definitely take time.

Factors to consider when copying data, was it copied to USB or to an external drive.

if copied to USB or external drive, it will be copied again to the new server.

if copied directly from server to server, consider the network traffic or the speed of the LAN.

I could say that he might be telling the correct time, why?

I clone a server, clone everything..I restore the settings to a new server.. it didn't go as I expect it to be..

It took me 2 days to troubleshoot some issues, like the network configs, apache settings.. and other stuff.

Well, it's your call. if there were a lot of things done and some configuration changes.. and some issues along the way. I guess the guy is smart enough to do it in such a short time.

I can see this step taking more time than one might expect. Depends on how many software packages needed to be patched, where the patches came from, etc.

Of course they should have been patched in parallel to save time -- or, my guess, at least the second and third systems could have been -- or some reason given why they weren't. At any rate, I don't think I'd feel bad about asking for a detailed timeline.