My startup's team is 2 developers and a designer and we usually can get anything figured out that we haven't done before.<p>But we don't have anybody that is a real systems administrator and that is starting to cause some issues.<p>Is there any service that lets you rent a system administrator for a couple hours?<p>We could use some advice on a few issues as well as some actual system setup work but don't know where to look.<p>Any advice?
I don't think you want to "rent a sysadmin" (that sounds real low brow to me). Instead look for a contact sysadmin but first make a list of the tasks you want to hand off. If it's a logical grouping you may find that a managed host can take care of you (like SliceHost or DreamHost). If not, then use that as a job posting a la 'Seeking Linux Contractor' and screen carefully. Your best candidate will likely have a couple long term clients they take care of a little room for a new one.
I suggest you stay away from any of the elance/rentAcoder type sites, even if some of their customers seem to offer the skills you want at a price you find acceptable.<p>I gave them a try a couple of years ago to earn some beer money (I'm a sysadmin), and the rates that people went for were /so/ damn low that I literally couldn't see the point and just negotiated a raise instead :-)<p>I somehow doubt the genuine expertise and experience you'll derive most value from during a couple of hours session /won't/ be found at those low, low rates. Sysadmin are <i>expensive</i> ;-)
Wearing the sysadmin hat has been the hardest part of my startup. I just don't have the smarts or bandwidth to do some of the stuff I know I need. But on the other side I'm super paranoid about security and insider threats. So rent-a-sysadmin would be intriguing but there'd have to be some chicken and egg rating system in place to vet them.