Senior Systems Administrator

This is a provisional classification. Formal classification procedures will be initiated by the Compensation & Job Evaluation Unit in approximately six months.

About Dalhousie University

Dalhousie University is Atlantic Canada’s leading research-intensive university and a driver of the region’s intellectual, social and economic development. Located in the heart of Halifax, Nova Scotia, with an Agricultural Campus in Truro/Bible Hill, Dalhousie is a truly national and international university, with more than half of our 19,000 students coming from outside of the province. Our 6,000 faculty and staff foster a vibrant, purpose-driven community, that celebrated 200 years of academic excellence in 2018.

Job Summary

Information Technology Services (ITS) is dedicated to a constructive, team-orientated environment, gathering varied perspectives, sharing knowledge, and building effective partnerships that enable our partners to achieve their goals by advising, providing solutions, and delivering service excellence in alignment with the University’s mission and goals. Reporting to the Associate Director, Infrastructure Operations, the Senior Systems Administrator is responsible for high-level design, implementation and support of campus wide systems and storage infrastructure, including design, development, implementation, soft-repair and maintenance of Dalhousie’s storage area network and Linux/Unix servers (and related infrastructure).

Key Responsibilities

• Monitor Dalhousie’s Storage Area Network and Linux server hardware, virtual servers, backups, etc. in a scheduled and continuous way. Design and implement methods and schedules for monitoring operations including pre-emptive detection of impending failure to ensure reliability of services to users.
• Plan capacity for systems and storage to ensure reliability and performance.
• Develop and maintain automated procedures or scripts for tasks which are repetitive and/or require great accuracy.
• Provide Tier-3 technical support to other system administrators, Tier 2 service desk and desktop support technicians, including triaging and diagnosing incidents, preparing status updates, undertaking necessary repairs, and performing system backup and restores.
• Record all work in the service management system (currently BMC Footprints). Prepare and maintain documentation of systems and procedures.

Note

The position has ‘stand-by’ designation, requiring the employee to be available to report to work on short notice as per published schedules (1 week on-call/3 weeks off-call).

Qualifications

Undergraduate degree in Computer Science plus approximately five years’ related experience (or equivalent combination of training and experience) is required. Experience with medium-large scale server, virtualization and storage area networks implementations is required. Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Dell PowerEdge Servers, Dell Compellent SAN hardware and software, VMWare 6.x, CommVault Simpana, Nagios, SecureID, Puppet and BMC Footprints would be preferred. A working knowledge of ITIL Incident, Problem and Change management processes would be an asset. Excellent customer service, communication and documentation skills are necessary.

Job Competencies Additional Information Application Consideration

Bargaining unit employees (NSGEU local 77) are given priority consideration and will be notified on the status of their application following assessment. All other applications will be considered when there is no qualified candidate from the bargaining unit.

We sincerely appreciate all applications and note that only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted directly by the hiring department or Human Resources.

Diversity Statement

Dalhousie University is committed to fostering a collegial culture grounded in diversity and inclusiveness. The university encourages applications from Indigenous persons, persons with a disability, racially visible persons, women, persons of a minority sexual orientation and/or gender identity, and all candidates who would contribute to the diversity of our community. For more information, please visit www.dal.ca/hiringfordiversity.