Senior IT Architecture Specialist_(ACI Candidate Preference)

SUMMARY OF ROLE

• The Senior IT Architecture Specialist will be responsible for leading and coordinating Infrastructure and business projects from a technology architecture perspective, conceptualising architectural approaches, developing and validating both on premise and cloud architecture and high level solution design against business requirements and best practices, and guiding and mentoring operational teams on methodologies, processes and best practices according to the Clients Enterprise Architecture Framework and methodologies. 
• The Senior IT Architecture Specialist develops specifications for new IT cloud computing products and service offerings and is also responsible for leading the creation of a technology framework and providing technical leadership in support of the Clients initiatives in cloud computing and automation, with a focus on the design of systems and services that run on various cloud platforms.  
• The Senior IT Architecture Specialist will be expected to work on multiple high level business critical tasks and initiatives concurrently while being accountable for driving success through:
• Leadership:
  • Knowing when to focus on the details or taking a step back to look at the big picture and evaluating an issue.
  • The architect champions sound technical architecture methodology, reviews technical design and drives to minimize technical exposure and risks on projects and systems.
  • The individual is a trusted technical advisor that collaborates with both business and technical stakeholders, sets direction, builds consensus, mediates conflicts, and helps to create an environment which solicits contributions from all participants.
  • Excellent client-facing skills and executive presence are required.
• Promoting a Passion for Technology:
  • The Senior IT Architecture Specialist is expected to evangelize best practices for application engineering, component re-use, hybrid architecture design and technical standards, while maintaining an awareness of new / emerging technologies and their potential application to existing service offerings.
  • An understanding of architectural hybrid solutions to address functional and non-functional requirements is critical, as is hands-on experience implementing technical solutions.
  • As a technical thought leader, the Senior IT Architecture Specialist also understands that the architectural vision for the enterprise transcends the scope and lifespan of any individual project or effort.

• Collaboration and Innovation:

  • The Senior IT Architecture Specialist drives the solution architecture model and understands that innovation is a crucial component to the Clients philosophy.

  • Ingenuity is crucial to the problem solving and critical thinking skills required to craft successful and innovative IT Infrastructure solutions.

  • The individual merges business requirements and technical solutions to deliver sustainable and high-performance solutions architecture.

  • To achieve the Clients goals and requirements, the Senior IT Architecture Specialist is engaged throughout the solution delivery and operational life cycle, working closely with key organisational groups and stakeholders.

• Communication:

  • The Senior IT Architecture Specialist is expected to proactively identify and address technical strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats within the Clients Infrastructure.

  • The individual will build a shared understanding of the solutions with the capacity for communicating that vision through technical materials, verbal presentations, and facilitating inter-team discussion. 

  • The Senior IT Architecture Specialist is responsible for effective provisioning, installation/configuration, operation, and maintenance of systems hardware and software related to both on premise and cloud infrastructure, technical applications and services.

  • This individual participates in technical research and development to enable continuing innovation within the infrastructure.

  • This individual ensures that system hardware, operating systems, software systems, cloud infrastructure and related procedures adhere to organisational policies, methodologies, as well as international and healthcare best practices.

  • The individual is responsible for ensuring that Information Technology infrastructure and technical solutions conform to Information Security standards in line with current Clients standards, government legislation and industry requirements with regards to privacy and Information Security. 

  • This individual will deliver IT technical and infrastructure projects and solutions within the Clients standard Project Management Methodology.

  • These activities include the definition of needs, benefits, and technical strategy; research & development within the project life cycle; technical analysis and design; and support of operations staff in executing, testing and rolling-out the architected solutions.

  • Participation on  projects is focused on smoothing the transition of projects from development staff to production staff by performing operations activities within the project life cycle. 

  • This individual is accountable for the architectural design, implementation, maintenance and operational activities for the following technologies and supporting systems and solutions:

    • Microsoft based Technologies

    • Security based Solutions and Technologies

    • Monitoring based Solutions

    • Communications and Messaging Technologies

    • Microsoft Azure Cloud Infrastructure

    • Virtualisation Technologies

    • Mobile Solutions and Hardware and Storage-Based Technology

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Microsoft Exchange and Messsaging Solutions
• Windows Server Operating Systems
• Internet PROXY Services
• Anti-Virus
• Virtualization
• Microsoft Patching
• Information Security and Compliance
• Reporting and Trend Analysis
• Microsoft Architecture and Solution Design
• Project management
• Business continuity and disaster recovery
• Cloud infrastructure Support and Management
• System automation (PowerShell scripting)
• O365 Support and Management
• Implement and automate the deployment of IaaS and PaaS services in Azure
• Develop and implement cloud strategy and vision, enterprise cloud security, cloud solution design
  and delivery, cloud migrations, infrastructure automation across a wide range of platforms

KEY WORK OUTPUT AND ACCOUNTABILITIES
Architectural Design and Solutions Implementation

• Architect IT solutions to meet business requirements.
• Design and participate in the development of strategies for the future direction of the Group's information technology infrastructure and technology solutions.
• Create a strategy for establishing a secure and well-managed enterprise environment in Azure
• Configure and manage Virtual Networks in Azure, establish the Group's core services in the VNET, enable Azure to serve as a part of MLP’s network
• Design, Plan, document and lead infrastructure projects; participate in the IT Department's solutions development projects as a system specialist and solution provider, with the overall aim of providing well engineered, secure and integrated solutions.
• Design and implement data protection options, including HA and BCP protection in Azure
• Provide computing, communications and security infrastructure design solutions; participate in infrastructure and application architectural teams; provide design reviews and implement solutions for the Safeguards of the computing environment.
• Utilize native Azure services to meet the firm’s technology and resiliency requirements
• Conduct technical evaluations and proofs-of-concept to evaluate software and hardware products from external vendors and report on the solutions as a technical expert and advisor.
• Initiate and implement architecture and design changes, while ensuring that existing infrastructure services are not negatively impacted.
• Design and plan for growth, accommodate for new technologies, and meet business requirements for the IT infrastructure in terms of the enterprise architecture framework.
• Ensure the agility, reliability, security and availability of the architected solutions and services, with the aim of providing flexible, sustainable and cost-effective solutions.
• Develop blueprints for a secure and adoptable multi-tenant cloud framework including custom governance, security, identity management and operational controls
• Integrating 3rd party hosted solutions as well as on prem solutions to Azure identities and service

Engineering and Provisioning

• Engineering of system related solutions for various projects and operational needs.
• Provide guidance to the Group's infrastructure team throughout the implementation phase for a variety of on premise or cloud projects.
• Lead and co-ordinate cloud infrastructure projects from a technology architecture perspective, ensuring that infrastructure development activities are consistent with the direction set by accepted best practices, define standards and leadership.
• Mediate requirements between Cloud Develops team and infrastructure team.
• Maintain overall industry knowledge on latest trends, technology, etc.
• Rebuild existing solutions and configure software, hardware, peripherals, services, settings, directories, storage, etc. in accordance with standards and project/operational requirements.
• Develop and maintain installation and configuration procedures and documentation as required.
• Contribute to and maintain system standards.
• Research and recommend innovative, and where possible automated approaches for system administration tasks.
• Identify approaches that leverage our resources and provide economies of scale.

Operations and Support

• Perform daily system monitoring, verifying the integrity and availability of all hardware, server and cloud resources, systems and key processes, reviewing system and application logs, and verifying completion of scheduled jobs.
• Perform regular security monitoring to identify any possible intrusions.
• Provide Tier III/other support per request from various departments and business units.
• Investigate and troubleshoot issues.
• Repair and recover from hardware or software failures. Coordinate and communicate with impacted business units and/or departments.
• Work closely with security coordinators and advisers to remediate security risks through technical and procedural endeavours

Maintenance

• Apply patches, service packs and upgrades on a regular basis, and upgrade administrative tools and utilities. Configure / add new services as necessary.
• Upgrade and configure system software that supports the Group's infrastructure or applications as per project or operational needs.
• Maintain operational, configuration, or other procedures.
• Perform periodic performance reporting to support capacity planning.
• Perform ongoing performance tuning, hardware upgrades, and resource optimization as required

Stakeholder relationships

• Interfaces with Information Management Team and IT Technical team to define and create
• infrastructure services and solutions in line with business requirements.
• Interface with 3rd party vendors to ensure operations conform to best practice and industry standards.

Teamwork

• Perform operations as part of the technical Infrastructure team.
• Mentor and involve junior team members and provide in house training as required.
• Ensure that the infrastructure team meets the agreed objectives.
• Adhere to team plans for Projects as required, manage own deliverables and timeframes to ensure that the team deliver to committed tasks and projects deadlines.

Personal and Professional Development

• Develop "personal development plan" Short, medium and long Term.

Research

• Ensure that the required modifications are made to designs, configurations and architecture of existing infrastructure to ensure optimum use of all hardware and software resources.
• Conduct regular reviews and revisions of the Capacity Plan, in line with the organisation’s business planning cycle, identifying current usage and forecast requirements during the period covered by the plan
• Proactively improving service availability wherever possible and optimising the availability of the IT Infrastructure to deliver cost-effective improvements that deliver tangible benefits to the business.
• Research knowledge of future demand for IT services and predict the effects of demand on performance service levels.
• Provide direction for future capacity requirements based on business plans, usage trends, sizing of new services, etc.