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Position Details

IT Services

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £25,506 to £27,399, with potential progression once in post to £31,718

Band 500

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 1st June 2023

Open House Event : We will be holding an ‘open house’ event at the University’s Exchange building, in Centenary Square, Birmingham, between 10am and 5pm on Thursday 18 May 2023. If you’re interested in working at the University of Birmingham and perhaps have a few questions, this is an opportunity to meet colleagues in the Recruitment team. It will be a relaxed and informal event – you can drop in at any time. If you are interested in coming along but cannot make it until after 5 please can you let us know by dropping an email to [email protected] and we will see if we can arrange a time between 5 - 6 on this day.

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

Background

Over the next decade, our aspiration is to establish Birmingham in the top 50 of the world's leading universities. That's a big aspiration, and high-quality digital services and infrastructure are crucial to achieving it. In recognition of that, a brand-new Digital Strategy combined with significant investments in technology mean this is an exciting time to join IT Services, ‘making IT happen’ at the University of Birmingham.

We want to attract outstanding, inspirational, and talented people, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success. It's our role to ensure that our community has access to accessible, responsive, resilient, and secure systems and support. What we do enables our students, staff, researchers, visitors, and partners to confidently and creatively use digital services, technology, and data for the benefit of their learning, teaching, research or work.

The culture of IT Services is one of innovation, collaboration, excellence, and inclusivity, and we apply the principles of customer focus and continuous improvement to everything we do. We have an active People and Culture network, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and Women in IT group, bi-annual awards recognition programme, and a superb Social Committee which arranges regular activities and events.

The Data Centre Team, as part of Core Infrastructure within IT Services, is responsible for the smooth running and maintenance of the University’s three primary Data Centres (Aston Webb, Elms Road, and Park Grange). These are secure, closed access spaces, to reduce the risk to the University’s day to day business, processes, reputation, and finances, through either potential breaches in security, or a failure of key supporting systems and infrastructure. These facilities house the server, storage, and networking hardware that is key to delivering the institution’s teaching and research requirements, and therefore need to be properly maintained and supported to provide a reliable and predictable continuity of service.

Role Summary

The post of Data Centre Operations Technician provides essential support to the running of our Data Centre facilities, and therefore that of the rest of IT Services and the wider University. Our DC’s are complex controlled environments, with strict operational parameters that they need to run at to provide the technology at the heart of the University’s business critical IT operations.

The post holder will be responsible for ensuring –

• adherence to and application of the Data Centre Access Control Policy and Procedures, thereby managing activity within the secure areas to protect our infrastructure and services.
• proactive monitoring of key aspects of our Data Centre environments to detect and respond effectively to early indications of problems, so that the environmental conditions are maintained for all dependent services
• assisting in the correct installation and connection of all hardware in our Data Centres, including all new kit, moves of pre-existing kit, and removal and decommission of hardware once it has reached the end of its useful life
• ensuring our DC and supporting plant rooms are kept in a clean and tidy state, and any external contaminants to the space are quickly removed
• taking deliveries of IT hardware, making sure that the area that it’s for knows it has arrived, and storing it in an organised, logical way within our storerooms so that it can be easily retrieved at time of installation
• reporting any observed IT hardware faults to their respective service owners in a timely manner to reduce risk of hardware failure and a service outage
• reporting all faults and issues with our supporting infrastructure and facilities to the Estates Repairs Desk in a timely manner, monitoring that call for resolution, and escalating it to your Line Manager if necessary
• adherence to Health and Safety practises and safe working within our DC spaces, and highlighting with others where safe working practises are not being followed
• meeting members of Estates and 3rd party contractors on site for planned works requiring access to our DC’s and supporting plant rooms, and making sure they are adhering to all relevant areas of the Data Centre Induction policy while working there
• assistance and participation in major infrastructure works resulting in changes or improvements in our supporting technologies
  
  

Main Duties

Data Centre Security

• Ensuring the application and observance of the Data Centre Access Control policies and procedures to assist with the protection and integrity of the infrastructure and services within our secure facilities.
• Monitoring of our physical security systems and liaising with University Security as necessary to ensure Data Centre integrity is maintained at all times.
• Arming and disarming of building and/or Data Centre security systems appropriately for approved activities, ensuring the maximum security compatible with the activity is maintained.
• Assist with and oversee the access and work of contractors within our Data Centres, ensuring appropriate authority has been granted, and that the items contained in the Data Centre Induction policy document are adhered to.

Monitoring and Maintenance of our Data Centre Environments

• Be proactive in monitoring the environmental conditions relating to temperature and humidity in our Data Centres to help detect and respond to early indicators of issues that could then impact on key University IT hardware.
• Assist with initiatives and activities that help improve the efficiency of our Data Centre cooling, by implementing industry best practices to manage air-flow, e.g. moving and repositioning of equipment, installation of blanking plates and brushwork, rack content consolidation, vented floor tile positioning etc.
• Be proactive in monitoring power utilization, alerts, and warnings using iPDU management software and tools, BMS, building meters, etc., and highlight any negative trends to help prevent incidents.
• In conjunction with the Facilities Support Team Manager, help supervise buildings maintenance work in our Data Centres and their supporting areas carried out by 3rd Parties to ensure the security and integrity of the facilities are maintained.
• Log and manage maintenance issues with our Estates department and 3rd parties that relate to the underpinning infrastructure of our Data Centres and their environmental control systems e.g. electrical distribution systems, standby generators, UPS’s, fire suppression and detection systems, air conditioning, etc., monitor it for resolution in a timely manner, and escalate it to your Line Manager if necessary.
• Ensuring our Data Centres and supporting areas are kept in a clean and tidy state, and any contaminants to the space are removed in a timely manner.
• Liaise with the IT Services Service Desk and Service Owners in the event of an issue affecting Data Centre infrastructure that impacts (or has the potential to impact) services that are run from them.

IT Hardware Maintenance

• Reporting observed faults on hardware in our Data Centres to their service owners, liaising with 3rd party maintenance providers as needed.
• Carrying out appropriate level self-service hardware maintenance activities on IT hardware, e.g. swapping faulty components such as HDD’s when a 3rd party engineer is not required.

IT Hardware Installations, Moves, and Decommissions

• Manage and participate in deliveries and collections of IT hardware to and from our Data Centres, ensuring the delivery is carried out safely, risk assessed as necessary in relation to weight, size, etc., and with minimal chance of damage to kit and injury to staff involved.
• Ensuring the area of IT Services that any hardware is delivered for is informed when it’s arrived, and is stored in an organised, logical way within our storerooms prior to its installation.
• Working with the Data Centre Operations Specialist, survey and assess the best location for any new hardware to be installed based on its size, weight, power requirements, proximity to other hardware that it may need to connect to, health and safety risks, and any planned initiatives that it may impact on later.
• Working with the Data Centre Operations Specialist, safely install any new IT hardware, server cabs, iPDU’s, and any required power or network cabling (both copper and fibre optic) to best practice standards to meet project and service requirements.
• Participate in moves of pre-existing hardware within our DC spaces when either a service owner requests it, or as part of a Data Centre specific initiative to consolidate space or improve efficiency.
• Participate in decommissions and removals of hardware from our DC spaces to our WEEE Waste store when a service is no longer required, or the hardware it runs on has reached the end of its useful life.
• Ensure that central records and documentation for any hardware is updated in our CMDB in ServiceNow when it is installed, moved, or decommissioned, and the Data Centre Manager is informed so they can amend the list of hardware needing 3rd party maintenance cover.

Additional Duties and Role Requirements

• Assistance and participation in major infrastructure works at our DC’s resulting in changes or improvements to our supporting technologies, some of which may require out of hours working or cover.
• Support and cover for major business processes and activities (e.g. A-Level Result Weekend) that may involve some out of hours working.
• Develop appropriate technical skills and knowledge that is relevant to the role through self-study, and learning opportunities made available through the University.
• Undertaking such other duties as may be required from time to time in furtherance of the work of IT Services.
• Supporting equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.
  
  

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Educated to A-Level standard, or equivalent level 3 qualification such as a Level 3 NVQ, or Level 3 National Diploma, or relevant facilities work experience evidencing the skills and ability to undertake the role.
• Hold at least a GCSE in Mathematics and English at Grade C or above (or equivalent).
• Hands-on experience of using a variety of Microsoft Office products, e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.
• Strong customer service skills and ethos.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and oral, due to the potential need to communicate and engage with staff at all levels in the organisation.
• Experience of working in similarly complex and demanding organisation, be that in the Private Sector or Higher Education
• Attention to detail, and using appropriate judgement to make decisions within the remit of the role
• A full, clean Driving License

Aspirational Requirements/Potential for “In Role” Skills Development

• Hands-on experience with IT hardware installations and cabling in a data centre or comms room environment
• Familiarity with and understanding of the fundamental environmental requirements of data centres
• A good working knowledge and understanding of the working practises of a secure data centre in relation to physical security and related processes
• Experience of working collaboratively as part of a wider team across multiple departments to deliver mutually beneficial operational goals
• A high degree of initiative, personal judgement, resourcefulness, flexibility, and a self-motivating approach
• Commitment to your own continuous personal development and training
  

Informal enquires to Stephen Burton, email: [email protected]

View our staff values and behaviours here

Valuing excellence, sustaining investment

We value diversity and inclusion at the University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community and are open to discussions around all forms of flexible working .