Job Specifications for Systems Administrator

Essential Functions/Job specification

The system administrator is responsible for the effective provisioning, installation/configuration, operation and maintenance of systems hardware, software and related infrastructure. This individual will participate in technical research empowering development of innovation within the organizations respective infrastructure. The chosen candidate will ensure that all related systems within the related spheres strictly adhere to organizational values and requirements for successful operation and make recommendations as required.
The responsible individual will assist project teams with technical issues in both the initiation and planning phases while adhering to the project management methodologies utilized within the organization while maintaining a focus on smoothing the transitions between development and production environments.
The system administrator will be responsible for systems running primarily on Linux within but not limited to the organizations cloud infrastructure. Activities include monitoring, security, planning, troubleshooting, provisioning of new resources and continued maintenance thereof. The ideal candidate should have a solid understanding of both Linux and Rest Based API systems including other relevant cloud server topology experience and databases.

Required Skills & Specifications
Engineering and Provisioning
1. Installation of new/reinstallation of existing servers including configuration of hardware, peripherals, services, settings, directories, storage, security and so forth in accordance with standards and project/operation requirements.
2. Development and maintenance of installation and configuration procedures
3. Contribute to and ensure maintenance of system standards
4. Research and recommend innovative, and wherever possible automated approaches for system administrative tasks.
5. Identify approaches that leverage the organizational resources in a ways that reduce overheads while maintaining quality standards.
6. Perform daily system monitoring, verifying the integrity and availability of all server resources, systems and key processes, reviewing system and application logs and verifying completion of all scheduled jobs such as backups.
7. Perform regular security monitoring and identify any possible intrusions.
8. Perform daily backup operations ensuring that all required file systems and system data are backed up to the appropriate place/media.
9. Perform verification of backup integrity checks
10. Create, change, and delete user accounts as requested in accordance with the organizations access policy.
11. Investigate and troubleshoot shoot issues and provide support as required
12. Repair and recover from hardware/software failures and ensure proper communication and coordination with impacted constituencies and the department head.

Maintenance
1. Apply system operating system patches and upgrades on a regular basis, and upgrade administrative tools and utilities including the configuration or addition of new services as required. Upgrades must be dealt with in a prompt manner than ensures minimum downtime or service interruption.
2. Perform proper testing of updates and upgrades pre-deployment to ensure that the organizations security and quality standards are not compromised.
3. Maintain operational, configuration or other procedures.
4. Perform performance reporting to support capacity planning.
5. Perform ongoing performance tuning, upgrades and resources optimization as required.
6. Maintenance of data centre environment and monitoring equipment/systems

Knowledge/Skills
1. Appropriate degree with a technical major such as engineering or computer science
2. System Administration/Systems engineering certification in Linux
3. Four to six year relevant system administration experience

Working Conditions/Physical effort
1. Responsibilities may require working evenings, night time, early-morning, sometimes with little advanced notice.
2. Must be willing and able to be on standby by in case of an emergency
3. Own transport and valid driver’s license.
4. Systems will need to be administered from our organizations premises remotely.

Salary R15 - 20 000 depending on experience