Organizational Position
Reporting to the IT operations manager, this position is an escalation point for Help Desk and Desktop Support teams. This position will also work closely with other operational groups assisting with network related advice and configurations when required.
Figure 1. Network Administrator in the Organization
Skills, Knowledge & Experience
(Popularity Indicator (PI): The % indicates the number of jobs researched that requested that skill, knowledge or experience)
- (PI=63%) Specific Technical knowledge of network technologies (BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, RIP, Spanning Tree, HSRP/VRRP or QOS)
- (PI=30%) Written and oral communication skills
- (PI=28%) Knowledge of core concepts (TCP/IP, Hexadecimal, Binary or Subnetting)
- (PI=26%) Knowledge or experience with related network services (DHCP, DNS, NAT, Remote Access)
- (PI=25%) VPN experience
- (PI=17%) Knowledge or experience with layer 2 technologies such as STP, MPLS, DSL or Frame Relay
- (PI=6 %) WAN Acceleration knowledge and skills
- (PI=2%) Demonstrated knowledge of network troubleshooting methodologies
Qualifications & Certifications
- (PI=63%) Cisco Qualifications CCNA, CCNP or CCIE
- (PI=2%) Juniper JNCIA, JNCIS, JCIP or JNCIE
Key Competencies
Situational Analysis
Customer Consideration
Problem Solving
Managing Tasks
Specific Technical Knowledge
Service Level Agreements
Attributes of an Excellent Network Administrator
Because the network is a core component of almost all IT services changes and outages often have a high organizational impact. An excellent network administrator is both responsive to the situation that is presented but also proactive in identifying and recommending risks before they become issues. This can be achieved by putting in place the correct type of monitoring and processes to respond to the monitoring as well as by analyzing the network design and recognizing key points.
Attraction to the position and job retention strategies for employers
Challenges
Staff members occupying this role can feel pressured from;
- Constantly 'putting out fires'
- Feeling responsible for network devices that often fail or underperform
- Not having a deep enough understanding of the technology and feeling that the 'buck stops with them' when it comes to resolving problems
- Feeling pressure from frequent carrier related problems that reflect poorly on his/her own performance
Attraction
Employers can reduce the pressure on this role by ensuring that the appropriate training and escalation support (vendors, carriers or professional services) is made available if required. Ensuring that some portion of the week is allocated for proactive support.
Related Stats
- 65% of all jobs titled 'network administrator' were server and storage oriented jobs as opposed to a telecommunications oriented job. A server administrator job description has been listed here
- 95% of researched jobs associated with LAN/WAN infrastructure administration requested either a Cisco certifications or mentioned a Cisco product in the role description..
- 40% of researched jobs listed Juniper certifications or Juniper product in the role description.
Related Pages
Network Administrator Job Description
Most Recent Research: 18 January, 2012
Job Description
Support data communications infrastructure. Troubleshoot and configure network devices including switches, routers, firewalls, IPS and IDS. Liaise with vendors, third party professional services and ISP or carriers to resolve network related issues.
Custodian of network devices and their availability as well as compliance to network Service Level Agreements.
Tasks and Activities
- Specialist router and switching infrastructure support.
- Provide data networking (routing and switching) skills to the organization. (may include routing support for rip, eigrp, ospf, is-is or bgp. May also include layers 1 and 2 such as ADSL, ATM, frame relay, ppp, hdlc, ipsec).
- Support adds./moves/changes to network infrastructure including routers, switches, firewalls and IPS/IDS.
- Perform application impact analysis. Analyze the application traffic patterns and determine the impact to production links.
- Create and support QOS (Quality of Service) on the Network.
- Carry out network hardware installations including router, switch and firewall installations.
- Liaise with carriers and service providers to correct faults.
- Liaise with internal and external business units to identify requirements and determine business impact.
- Liaise with vendors for warranty claims, operating system bugs and feature upgrades and roadmap activities.
- Network fault corrections including OSI - Layers 1 to 4.
- Provide maintenance and support as required.
- Provide advice and technical support on network matters.
Role Description
What You Know
Expert knowledge of network technologies such as OSPF, BGP, EIGRP, RIP, VLANs, and spanning Tree
Understanding of QOS
Understanding of MPLS and carrier services
Thorough knowledge of the OSI reference model
What You Do
Troubleshoot and support network devices
Install and configure network devices
Liaise with vendors and carrier staff
Analyze and report on network performance problems
What You Are
A technical expert in network technologies
Preferably industry certified such as CCNA, CCNP or equivalent
A problem solver
Keen to always keen to learn to keep up with technology
Expected Pay Rate for a Network Administrator
Salary Range: US$50K - US$90K 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+Popularity Indicator (PI) %
A number presented as a percentage to show the number of employers that referenced or requested a paricular skill, experience or knowledge.
Network Administrator Pathways
