Server Administrator Job Description
Job Description
Install, configure, suppport and maintain server infrastructure and server operating systems.
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Tasks and Activities
- Virtualize and Consolidate Standalone Servers
- Ensure availability and performance compliance to SLAs (Service Level Agreements) and OLAs (Operational Level Agreements)
- Install Server based applications
- Monitor server logs and health alarms
- Perform maintenance tasks such as patch levels, firmware upgrades and backups
- Oversee physical security, console access and out of band management access
- Monitor, investigate and report breaches in performance
- Monitor capacity - disk, RAM and processor
- Identify, troubleshoot and resolve hardware and software problems
- Work cooperatively with applications teams to install applications or upgrade existing applications
Role at a Glance
Skills, Knowledge & Experience
- Working knowledge of ITIL change management
- Knowledge of common operating system maintenance including Windows platforms, Linux administration and IBM AIX operating systems
- Additional valuable skills: SharePoint, Citrix, WebSphere, VMWare, LAN switching and Storage Area Networks
- Working knowledge of clusters and high availability environments
- Working knowledge of disaster recovery planning
- Patch management experience (WSUS and SCCM)
- Backup & Tape Library System (Tivoli)
- Experience managing enterprise Anti-Virus software
Organizational Position
This position will likely report to a team leader or an operation manager. Day to day activities may be assigned via the help desk system (ticket escalation), through monitoring stations, health alarms or through project work.
Qualifications & Certifications
MCSE 2003 certification or above may be preferred.
More detailed skills and qualifications information can be found here:
Key Competencies
Situational Analysis
Customer Consideration
Customer Interaction
Managing Tasks
Problem Solving
Specific Technical Knowledge
Attributes of an Excellent Server Administrator
From a customer's view point, servers should be out of sight and out of mind. They should just work without attracting attention to themselves. For this reason an excellent server administrator is proactive in maintenance and upkeep of the systems.
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Attraction to the position and job retention strategies for employers
This position is well suited to techies because it provides a challenging technical environment with plenty to learn.
In order to increase job retention employers may seek to cross skill team members with related fields. For example a rotation schedule to give server team members experience with the networks, storage or virtualization teams.
What You Know
Understand high availability architectures
Understand Storage technologies suc has RAID
Expert level Windows, AD, Citrix, Exchange, SQL server or VMware
Knowledge of ITIL and change management
What You Do
Support and maintenance of server hardware
Capacity management
Performance monitoring
Liaise with vendors
Respond to outages and incidents
What You Are
A problem solver
Agreat communicator
Enthusiastic about new technology
Thorough
Expected Pay Rate for a Server Administrator
Salary Range: US$57K - US$109K per year
Page Research Level (PRL)
A key designed to give an indication of the depth of research used to produce the content of the page.
PRL Key Jobs researched
Level 0 =0-6
0-6Level 1 =6-29
6-29Level 2 =30-49
30-49 Level 3 =50-79
50-79Level 4 =80-99
80-99Level 5 =100+
100+