Core Infrastructure Analyst

This is an important post within IT Services, providing a focus of technical support and development in at least one of the following areas:

• Virtualisation (VMware)
• Server hardware (HP Rackmount, HP Blade enclosures, Converged)
• Storage Fabrics (Brocade Fibre Channel/iSCSI)
• Storage Arrays (EMC/HP SAN/NAS)
• Backup/Archive Technologies (Veeam, Commvault)
• Server Operating Systems Deployment/Maintenance (Windows, Linux)
• Email Systems (Exchange, Exim, Skype for Business)
• Identity Systems (Active Directory, Dell One Identity Manager, Freja Multifactor Authentication)
• Private/Public Cloud (Embotics vCommander/Azure/Office 365)
• Monitoring (Veeam One, Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager)
• Networking Infrastructure (F5 Load Balancers, SSLVPN, Fortinet Firewalls)

 

Experience is required for both new developments and supporting the day-to-day running of a large and complex infrastructure. The benefit to the University is the on-going development and support for state-of-the-art computing and information services for both staff and students.

The post holder is responsible for:

• Implementation of : Virtualisation, Server hardware, Storage Fabrics, Storage Arrays, Backup/Archive Technologies, Server Operating Systems, Email & Identity Systems, Private/Public Cloud, networking & monitoring systems
• Maintenance, support and documentation of : Virtualisation, Server hardware, Storage Fabrics, Storage Arrays, Backup/Archive Technologies, Server Operating Systems, Email & Identity Systems, Private/Public Cloud, networking & monitoring systems
• Provision of : Virtualisation, Server hardware, Storage Fabrics, Storage Arrays, Backup/Archive Technologies, Server Operating Systems, Email & Identity Systems, Private/Public Cloud, networking & monitoring systems

 

Work context

The University has made significant investment in a highly scalable and resilient infrastructure, implemented initially to support core application services, although this has now been significantly extended to include college, research and other University systems.

The services provided by the Core Infrastructure Services Team ensure reliability and full data resilience making up a key component of the University’s business continuity and disaster recovery arrangements. The proven infrastructure is increasingly being used to consolidate, centralise and secure services for the whole of the University extending beyond the two on premise datacentres to the public cloud.

Central IT services at the University rely on complex, large-scale architectures built on this core infrastructure. As such, all systems need to be configured and maintained to the highest possible standards of reliability, performance and quality. Business continuity and high service levels are demanded for mission-critical corporate services such as email, authentication, web services, business intelligence, finance systems and a secure remote working platform.

As a member of the Core Infrastructure Service Team, the post holder will be a key point of technical support within Virtualisation, Server hardware, Storage Fabrics, Storage Arrays, Backup/Archive Technologies, Server Operating Systems, Email Systems, Private/Public Cloud. Ensuring that business requirements are met thus ensuring that the University is in a  

 

Main duties

Item Duties

1) Working towards the development, testing and implementation of new and existing : Virtualisation, Server hardware, Storage Fabrics, Storage Arrays, Backup/Archive Technologies, Server Operating Systems, Email Systems, Private/Public Cloud, networking infrastructure & monitoring systems in accordance with customer requirements and agreed service levels. Responsible for inputting into the investigation, planning and delivery of major IT infrastructure projects.

2) Provide technical support, troubleshooting, problem resolution and to maintain existing and future core infrastructure services spanning various technologies to achieve high levels of availability, reliability and performance.

3) Provide technical advice and assistance to colleagues across the University by developing and implementing systems in support of specific applications including service documentation as required.

4) Support and maintain existing all aspects of existing servers including operating systems, applications to achieve high levels of maintenance, availability and performance.

5) Develop and implement new server templates for virtualised (Vmware/Cloud) operating systems including Linux and Windows and applications such as Oracle, SQL and IIS.

6) Provide high levels of support working with colleague across IT Services as well as the wider University and External partners. This may include representing the team in meetings, presentations or via the creation of service documentation.

7) Creation and maintenance of documentation to support knowledge transfer, service release, disaster recovery, project planning and procurement of infrastructure.

8) Provide a focus of operating system template design and support within the University to advise on and resolve related issues.

9) When requested, assist in projects involving staff from other teams of IT Services and sometimes other budget centres, following IT Services’ standard project management techniques, to achieve the agreed project brief.

10) To work within the University’s implementation of the ITIL Framework, using change, incident, problem and release management to ensure services are effectively managed. To create and maintain CMDB entries for all areas of infrastructure services.

11) Be a primary point of contact with the service desk within the team, triaging calls and liaising with the Service Desk Team as required to share knowledge regarding new and existing services within the Team.

12) Undertake other such duties as may be required from time to time in furtherance of the work of IT Services