Sonny,
System Support..Well its a vast field. Its includes Database, Application & H/W support. the ways it works out right now is that there are seperate folks mananging each of these vast aeras.
Now, if we do take a large setup which includes database, application & lots of high end servers , one need not guess the size of the staff required to maintain them .
Again , all these components are inter depenable. Like if the h/w is faulty it might affect the application & so on.
Thats where the concept on "Enterprise Systems manangement" comes into picture.What ESM really means is that it takes care of all the components of Systems Manangement.There are various packages available in the Industry like IBM's Tivoli, Computer Associates Unicenter TNG, HP Open View...
I have got a chance to work on a couple of them , mainly Tivoli & HP Open View.
Tivoli does take care of most of the issues regarding Systems Support, thereby enabling Systems professionals to be pro-active rather than re-active.Also , the need for a seperate guy managing a database, application & H/w is no longer a necessity, as teh main Tivoli Administartor takes care of every thing. Also the entire setup can be easly managed from a couple of machines.
Mathew