UNDP Jobs - 79542- Datacenter Officer (DO)

Datacenter Officer (DO)

Location :

Honiara,, SOLOMON ISLANDS

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

09-Jul-2018

Application Deadline :

29-Jun-18 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

20 working days per month over a period of one year starting 1 July 2018

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

20 working days per month over a period of one year starting 1 July 2018

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

The “Strengthening the Electoral Cycle in the Solomon Islands Project” (SECSIP) supports the Solomon Islands Electoral Commission and other national institutions providing electoral assistance throughout the entire electoral cycle (pre-election; elections/polling and post-election) for the conducting inclusive and credible electoral process.

SECSIP is funded by the European Union, the Government of Australia and UNDP. The Project focuses on the components of capacity development, voter registration, electoral reform, civic engagement/voter awareness and women’s political participation/gender mainstreaming.

The project aims to develop synergies and strategic partnerships with a range of national stakeholders from government and civil society to ensure that an enabling environment for credible and inclusive elections is created. The overarching objective is to strengthen the link between the electoral cycle and other key governance processes and institutions, and contribute to social cohesion and the development of a pluralistic society.

The departure of SIEC IT Officer was followed by the failures experienced by the main biometric voter registration server. The Chief Electoral Officer has identified as an urgent priority to rebuild the necessary IT and BVR core capacity within the SIEC and the SIG, to provide technical support during the upcoming update of the voter registration database and to build a more sustainable and autonomous system for the future. SIEC has sought the support of SECSIP towards this end and the project is hiring various IT experts who could immediately fill the capacity gap and transfer the necessary know-how to national authority’s overtime.

One of the identified IT profile is a Datacenter Officer (DO). SECSIP seeks to fill an immediate skills gap and transfer know-how overtime by engaging a Datacenter Officer who will jointly work with SIEC officers and any other assigned SIG staff.

The DO will work under the overall supervision of SECSIP Project Coordinator and work in close collaboration with the SIEC officials and other members of the SECSIP team (particularly with the Senior Biometric Voter and Software Developer Advisers) for the provision of assistance for the effective management of the database center and IT support. S/He will be responsible for the day to day effective support towards the management of the SIEC voter’s database and IT issues and will contribute towards the overall realization of the objectives of the project in the area of IT/BVR support.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Datacenter Officer duties also include preparation and facilitation of trainings courses focusing on datacenter operation, network and system administration with a view to build a pool of local officials who can eventually take over those responsibilities. The DO will also be responsible for the deployment of future system upgrades and the maintenance of any operating environment for both ICT and business teams related to the SIEC. Finally, the DO will have to coordinate all helpdesk activities.

Subject to the agreement of the relevant Solomon Islands Government (SIG authorities and SECSIP project management, such activities could be extended to include cooperation tasks with other SIG entities.

Core responsibilities

Troubleshoot more complex issues found by SIEC ICT Helpdesk as requested on SIEC’s ICT equipment and systems
Provide relevant technical documentation and trainings to SIEC’s Helpdesk Support related to ICT infrastructure
Be available to provide level two support (next level after SIEC’s ICT Helpdesk), including by phone or email at defined hours according to different service levels – service levels depend on phase of electoral cycle, on matters related to SIEC’s IT infrastructure
Provide and maintain professional grade ICT infrastructure to safeguard SIEC’s data security and business continuity
Implement on disaster recovery measures and inform on ICT risks and limitations
Monitor SIEC wide server infrastructure and virtual servers’ environment, networks and application availability,
Monitor and consolidate for the upcoming BVR process and Elections Results Management to ensure that the final voter list is more accurate and the elections results is credible and acceptable to all,
Monitor and report on SIEC wide operating system, database and application backup and recovery,
Implement backups, restores and process failed ones. Organize backup archival for easy retrieval in disaster recovery and rehearse disaster recovery scenarios,
Perform all system administrator functions for Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems,
Perform installs, moves, adds and changes of Data Center hardware when assigned,
Monitor and report on Data Center infrastructure equipment issues in multiple Data Centers,
Monitor batch and online jobs for performance and successful completion. Communicate job failure information to service owners. Perform failed job restarts. Record job run times,
Use ITSM ticketing system to record job failure and resolution information,
Deploy programmer written code and database updates to multiple production systems, maintain development integration environments and scripts,
Initiate problem notifications to IT department and maintain ongoing communication until issue is resolved,
Stay with a problem or assignment until it is resolved,
Provide night and weekend Level 2 Service Desk support for end users if and when needed,
Use ITSM ticketing system to record issues and fulfill service requests.
Maintain good technical or general business procedures and documentation
Provide written job aid materials pertaining to IT Service Desk and Data Center Operations.
Maintain confidentiality regarding any type of SIEC’s data and information,
Set up printers for print jobs (i.e. jobs requiring special forms or form changes),
Monitor physical facility access control system,
Works overtime as scheduled,

Competencies

Maturity and confidence in dealing with senior members of national institutions.
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.
Excellent written communication skills, with analytic capacity and ability to synthesize relevant collected data and findings for the preparation of quality analysis for the project proposal.
Excellent coordination skills and result oriented collaboration with colleagues – especially for this case the national level consultants.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science or related field.

Experience:

At least 5 years of working experience including assistance and advice on design and upgrading of IT technology applied to BVR systems;
Experience in development of technical specifications for BVR related database management;
Experience in the design of courses and curricula for the transfer of technical skills is required;
Working experience in electoral assistance support in developing countries is required, experience in the Pacific region will be considered an asset;
Excellent written and oral English.