Does anyone know or can recommend how many administrator's are needed to fully support (17 servers and 8000 mailboxes) an Exchange environment?

That really depends on the organization (both organizational maturity and design) as well as the environment. I've seen it done with 1 or 2 in some organizations and a dozen in others.

Thanks.. Exchange is classified as a tier one application within the organization and plans are in the works to migrate to Exchange 2010. There are currently two admins supporting the hardware, Exchange environment, mailbox creations/Dist Lists in two locations (TX and PA) and act as 2nd level support to Helpdesk for Outlook issues. Looking to add EV for compliance\journaling as well.

Well i work for an EV competitor so I'll refrain from commenting on the level of effort to support it :) ... but that doesn't sound unreasonable. To the extent you can automate processes (especially with the move to 2010) around things like creating users and monitoring system health you can spend time focused on other items. The second level support to Outlook can be a hard item to size though, not all help desks are created equal. So anythign you can do to facilitate their ability to triage and correct issues without having to involve you could make the difference between sanity and not.

We do have many procedures automated so on the backend, we don't have too many issues. But you are right, servicing the Helpdesk can be trying at times. The folks who man it see to think every Outlook issue is Exchange related and we keep explaining they are two different beasts but falls on deaf ears. Anyway, just trying to guage staffing needs because it was once thougt it was one admin for every 2500 mailboxes but that numbers reflects more of an older 2000\2003 environment. Thanks

Hi, Number of administrators on number of mailbox or number of server depends on series of considerations; Availability of resources for support (support hours, 24x7, oncall etc.) Scope of Work (integration of any other application like EV, Backup responsibility, mail gateways & setting up monitoring etc.). 1st level support (outlook troubleshooting, setting up mailboxes, access management etc.) You also can use previous stats of issue reported by users or incident occurres on servers and servers dispersed in different GEO location. In ideal situation if it is only for Managment and Administration of MS Exchange Server including design and regular maintenance, I would recommend 1 Team lead and 3 resources for regular operation (3+1, just to ensure 24x7 support coverage including after business hours). Tarun Verma Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.