Data Center Specialist

Roles and responsibilities

• Operate and maintain HCT’s Data Centre / Server room facilities and components, including cooling and power supply, access control and fire suppression units.
• Monitor and control activities and downtime done in HCT’s data center.
• Monitor current utilization and forecast and plan future capacity based on business needs.
• Conduct regular audits on HCT’s data center.
• Implement disaster recovery tests and analyze results on a periodic basis.
• Support with the design, planning and implementation of an enterprise-wide disaster recovery plan to ensure uninterrupted business operations and avoid loss of sensitive data.
• Develop periodic reports on HCT’s Data Centre activities and status.
• Manage data center-related projects.
• Monitoring Data Center / Server / Business Critical Applications.
• System-Wide Consolidation / Upgrade of campus server virtualization platform to the latest version.
• Restructuring Disaster Recovery Data Centre
• Firmware upgrade on Servers / Storage / Appliances / etc.
• Implementation of Central Environment Monitoring for campus MDF/IDF rooms.
• System-Wide Security Hardening on Hyper-V infrastructure servers, Active Directory, member servers and end-points.
• Development of Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM).
• Planning for cloud migration of non-critical VMs.
• Active Directory integration of Learning Space Health Application.
• Provide infrastructure / systems related support (i.e.: Windows server / Active Directory / Exchange / Office 365 / Azure / PKI / etc.)
  

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or related field. Master's degree preferred.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience in Data center management role, with a proven track record.

Desired candidate profile

Technical Skills:

1. Data Center Infrastructure Knowledge:

   • Understanding of physical infrastructure, including servers, storage systems, network equipment, and power systems.
   • Knowledge of rack-mounted servers, virtualization, and cloud infrastructure.

2. Networking:

   • Proficiency in network protocols such as TCP/IP, HTTP/HTTPS, SNMP, BGP, and DNS.
   • Experience with networking devices like routers, switches, firewalls, and load balancers.
   • Expertise in LAN/WAN setups, VLANs, and IP addressing.

3. Virtualization:

   • Familiarity with VMware, Hyper-V, or KVM for server virtualization.
   • Understanding hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) solutions and their use in data centers.
   • Experience with virtual machines (VMs), containers, and cloud-based virtual environments.

4. Server Management:

   • Hands-on experience with configuring and managing servers, including Windows Server and Linux-based systems.
   • Understanding high availability (HA) setups and disaster recovery processes.

5. Storage Systems:

   • Knowledge of SAN (Storage Area Network), NAS (Network-Attached Storage), and DAS (Direct-Attached Storage).
   • Familiarity with RAID configurations and backup solutions for data integrity and disaster recovery.

6. Security:

   • Experience with firewall management, intrusion detection systems (IDS), and intrusion prevention systems (IPS).
   • Knowledge of encryption methods and VPN setups for secure data transmission.
   • Understanding of access control and user authentication techniques (e.g., MFA, RADIUS, Active Directory).

7. Automation & Scripting:

   • Proficiency in scripting languages such as Bash, PowerShell, or Python for automating repetitive tasks.
   • Familiarity with tools like Ansible, Puppet, or Chef for infrastructure automation and configuration management.

8. Monitoring & Performance Tuning:

   • Familiarity with monitoring tools (e.g., Nagios, Zabbix, SolarWinds) to track the health and performance of the data center environment.
   • Understanding of capacity planning and load balancing to optimize resources.
   • Experience with performance tuning for systems, storage, and networking.

9. Data Center Operations:

   • Expertise in data center design and facility management (e.g., power, cooling, space utilization).
   • Knowledge of data center standards like Uptime Institute Tier classification, ISO/IEC 27001, and TIA-942.
   • Experience in disaster recovery and business continuity planning to ensure minimal downtime.