Systems Administrator at Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

The CSIR has a vacancy for a Systems Administrator in the Data Intensive Research Initiative of South Africa (DIRISA) programme, within the National Integration Cyberinfrastructure System (NICIS) which is hosted by Next Generation Enterprises and Institution cluster . The incumbent will be responsible to configure and maintain hardware and software systems that support the operational activities of DIRISA. The position is based in Pretoria.

Key Responsibilities

• Take ownership of server and network administration, support and secure reliable and robust operational functioning of the DIRISA computing and large data storage infrastructure;
• Responsible for the performance of the DIRISA server and networking systems in terms of capacity planning, upgrades, updates and repairs, configuration and installation of new software and hardware, security and backups;
• Support the operational deployment of software applications that leverage the DIRISA server and data storage technologies;
• Evaluate and select systems software and hardware systems that best support the strategic objectives of DIRISA;
• Implement sound server administration procedures and standards (including rigorous change management) that ensure secure and robust operational stability of the DIRISA server and storage platform; and
• Participate in the selection and design of products and services built on top of operating and server platforms, and give guidance as an expert systems administrator.
   

Qualifications, Skills And Experience

• A National diploma or Bachelor’s degree in information technology or related field (e.g. computer systems engineering, computer science) with at least three years’ experience in systems administration and maintenance of Linux/UNIX based server systems, networking and high volume data storage systems;
• Certification in networking technologies such as Cisco and large scale system software administration such as Openstack, iRODS and CEPH would be advantageous;
• Understanding of computer architecture, operating systems, virtualisation; technologies, systems software, networking services, protocols and interfaces;
• Technical knowledge of server and middleware technologies for data and cloud storage environments such as Web Object Storage, Lustre and Openstack;
• Ability to deploy system upgrades and updates, migration tasks, as well as identify and rectify, server and network vulnerabilities and related faults (bugs) with minimal disruption to the operational continuity of computer services.