KERRY COUNTY COUNCIL

COMHAIRLE CONTAE CHIARRAI

I.S. Analyst Network & Security Administrator

C.F. Anailísí – Ríomhaireachta Riarthóir Gréasán & Slándáil Bhrabhsálaithe

Kerry County Council

CountyKerry has a population of approximately 145,000 people in an area covering 4,700 square kilometres and Kerry County Council is responsible for the delivery of the full range of local government services. The 2017 annual revenue budget for the local authority is approximately €126.73 million. The Council also continues to invest in the infrastructure of the county through its Capital Investment Plan 2017-2019, with proposed expenditure in the region of €190 million over that period.

Kerry County Council comprises thirty-three elected Councillors and employs a workforce in excess of 1300 employees, covering 4 Municipal Districts – Tralee, Killarney, Listowel and South & West (including the towns and hinterlands of An Daingean, Caherciveen, Kenmare and Killorglin).

The appointee will work in a dynamic and progressive local authority which provides a multiplicity of services to the inhabitants of CountyKerry and the significant numbers of visitors to the County.

I.S. Environment

Kerry County Council’s I.S. Department currently has a network of about 900 desktops & 150 servers and provide ICT services to staff, Councillors, contractors and plant in approximately seventy locations. We also deliver a range of online services for our customers.

Our desktop environment is comprised of Windows PC’s as well as iGel terminals and Android Tablets & Smartphones that run Citrix receiver. Our server environment is predominantly a Windows Server 2012 environment. It is heavily virtualised using VMware ESX 6.5 and hosted in an on campus data-centre with a high availability node. We also have some Linux server technology. Our storage is predominantly iSCSI SAN array nodes. We use SAN replication for backup & high availability. We use Commvault backup technology with backup to disk and tape – migrating to Backup to the Cloud.

A range of MS SQL database technologies support business applications. We have Network Technologies as listed in the Duties & Responsibilities section and Networking links as follows;

  • 55 Radio links (licensed and unlicensed)
  • 35 MPLS / eFibre DSL class
  • 3x 1GB Fibre (Govt Network links)
  • APN clients countywide (utilities, enforcement, etc)

The Position

Appointments:A panel may be formed on the basis of interviews, from which any offers of employment may be made.

Salary:€45,849 - €56,031- with annual increments payable subject to satisfactory overall performance, attendance, etc.

Offers of appointment to persons who are not serving local authority employees will be based on the minimum of this scale. Where the person being appointed is a serving local authority employee, normal starting pay rules will apply.

Annual Leave:30 days per annum

Hours of Work:While the normal working week will constitute 37 hours, the appointee will be required to work the hours directed by the Chief Executive Officer of Kerry County Council, which will include hours outside of the normal working day. Under the direction of the Head of Information Systems, he/she will be expected to work additional hours as required to meet the responsibilities and requirements of the post.

The Person

Due to the dynamic nature of ICT, the opportunities presented by shared services, cloud technology paradigms and changing business requirements within Kerry County Council, all positions in IT Services demand a flexibility to work in other IT service areas as needs change.

All IT employment contracts offered contain duties which have generic or core components and require staff adaptability to undertake IT work at a similar level elsewhere in the IT structure.

The Duties and Responsibilities as set out in this booklet reflect the immediate and foreseeable needs, but as these needs or the working environment changes, employees will have to acquire up-to-date skills for new roles.

Kerry County Council supports employees in meeting short-term and long-term training objectives through our PMDS processes.

Character:

Each candidate must be of good character.

Health:

Each candidate must be in a state of health such as would indicate a reasonable prospect of ability to render regular and efficient service.

Education/ experience, etc.:

Each candidate must, on the latest date for receipt of completed application forms:

(a)possess the N.C.C. Higher Diploma in Computer Studies or an equivalent accredited certified I.T. qualification, and

(b)have satisfactory experience in an information technology environment, and

(c)have satisfactory skills in at least one of the following areas:-

-project management,

-systems implementation,

-programming or applications development,

-systems or business analysis,

-network implementation,

-network administration,

-geographical information systems,

-database information, and

-team leadership.

It is also desirable, though not essential that applicants have appropriate Cisco professional certification and/or Certified Information Security Manager status or equivalent security qualifications.

Microsoft, VMware and Citrix certification would also be desirable.

Kerry County Council places a value on prior process-assured experience, which in this case is relevant ITIL or CoBIT experience.

Duties Responsibilities

Working under the direction of the Infrastructure I.S. Project Leader and the Head of Information Systems, the Network and Security Administrator will have the following areas of responsibilities and associated duties as outlined:-

Networking role (Network Administrator):

To deploy, configure, support and manage the Council’s network technologies and information security assets, in particular managing and operations of networking assets:

LAN technology (Cisco)

WAN technology (MPLS, Fibre, Government Networks, eFibre, DSL, APN (3G/LTE), licensed and unlicensed radio networks)

WiFi infrastructure (Aruba, Clearpass)

Network Security Assets management

  • Firewall technology (Forigate, FortiAnalyser, FortiAuthenticator)
  • IDS (Netfort)
  • NAC (Bradfort Network Sentry)
  • Anti Malware (Sophos EPP)
  • Web proxy (Webtitan)
  • Email filtering (SpamTitan)
  • Cloud filtering (public networks)

VoIP Telephony management and development

  • Adtran ECS
  • Adtran Gateways (6310, 644)
  • PSTN, FRA, ISDN, PRA, SIP
  • Quintum Gateways

SAN networking / VMware

  • Dell EqualLogic and N4064/3064 10/1Gbps SAN switches

Security role (Security Analyst):

to aid in security policy and strategy development

to develop cross-IT and organisation wide system and data security assessments

to undertake security assurance work, to lead security incident responses, and to develop security awareness education and practices for our user base with other IT staff

to undertake daily security monitoring, operations and reviews.

Secondary Responsibilities:

undertaking tasks associated with the ITIL role of Security Administrator

information security policy development and or implementation

Security Incident Mgt.

advising and assisting user support team on security matters

advising and assisting Web and Business Information Systems teams on Information security matters

advising the user community on Information Security matters

monitoring broader security system logs and reports for anomalies and problems

reviewing vulnerability assessments and audit reports for remediation and mitigation solutions, including the assessment of Cloud Security issues

leading and supporting projects related to IT security

participating in evaluation of the security of new products and services

The appointee will also be required to carry out such other duties appropriate to the position as the Chief Executive Officer of the local authority may assign, including emergency duties and duties in relation to the area of any other local authority.

Format of the Competition

Following the closing date for receipt of completed application forms, Kerry County Council will examine all applications having regard to the requirements as set out above.

If an application is deemed valid, it will be considered for interview.

Depending on the number of applications received, shortlisting may apply based on information supplied on the application form.

Interview

Candidates will be assessed and marked at interview on the basis of how they demonstrate their knowledge, skills and experience, in particular their experience and technical competencies in:-

Networking

  • Cisco Networking (installation, operations & maintenance)
  • Experience with installation, operation and maintenance of Firewalls (ideally Fortigate) and Load Balancers (ideally Citrix VPX)
  • Knowledge of all aspects of the Networking stack
  • Working with / troubleshooting dynamic routing protocols, specifically BGP and EIGRP
  • Diagnosing & troubleshooting Network infrastructure performance issues and outages
  • Network packet inspection, traffic analysis, performance characterisation (Wireshark, etc.)
  • DNS / DHCP (and Active Directory)
  • Performance, Capacity and Availability Mgt processes

Security

  • Experience with broader Information security policy development and or implementation
  • Experience in Security Incident Mgt.
  • Working with User support team, advise the user community on Information Security matters
  • Monitoring broader security system logs and reports
  • Undertaking / Reviewing vulnerability assessments and audit reports for remediation and mitigation solutions
  • Supporting (and leading) projects related to IT security
  • Participating in the evaluation of the security of new products and services

Experience of ISO 27k implementation and operations is desirable and knowledge or experience in planning for GDPR and / or the NIS Directive would be valued.

As the post holder will be working in the Infrastructure team, skills and experience in the following (or analogous technologies) are also desirable – but not essential:

  • Windows Server Admin
  • Cloud Infrastructure transition and mgt
  • SAN administration (Dell iSCSI ideally)
  • Commvault Backup technology
  • Exchange (2013) administration
  • Ubuntu / LAMP stack
  • VMware ESX
  • Citrix XenApp / XenDesktop / Netscaler
  • MS SQL Database Administration

The person should be process oriented and be familiar with relevant ITIL management processes – availability management, change management, performance management and incident management.

In addition to technical competencies, the position requires the following skills:

While being highly self-motivated and self-reliant, the Network & Security Administrator has a key role in working closely with the other Infrastructure Analysts and DBA in the Infrastructure team and with the Service Desk / Technical Mgt Team to ensure that users of Kerry County Council’s ICT services have a stable and secure platform to undertake their work.

As a member of the Inf. team, the role requires particular flexibility to provide assistance to and cover for other team members.

Communications, Process-centricity & Planning skills:

  • Good communication skills are essential for working with a multi-disciplined team of IT staff
  • Project management skills for managing implementations and transitions is important.
  • Process management approach is vital for sound IT service management.
  • Planning skills are essential for getting through many diverse demands from many stakeholders.
  • Risk Management – identifying risks and putting in place mitigations and preventative measures.

Flexibility:

The Network & Security Administrator role will often require work outside of the usual hours of business of the Council and / or some on-call availability. You may find yourself involved in a variety of IT and business work outside of the defined scope of the role.

General Information

Kerry County Council will not be responsible for any expense, including travelling expenses, which candidates may incur in connection with their candidature. Candidates will be asked for details of any special requirements which they may have in attending for interview.

Candidates invited to attend for interview may be asked, at any stage of the recruitment process, to supply further documentation in relation to their academic qualifications, employment history, etc.

Any offer of employment will be subject to verification of information provided on the application form, pre-employment medical examination, reference checks, and Garda vetting if appropriate.

An applicant who is found to be ineligible at any stage of the competition will not be further considered. Provision of inaccurate, untrue or misleading information will result in disqualification from the competition, withdrawal of employment offered, or dismissal.

Any attempt by a candidate himself or herself or by any person(s) acting at the candidate’s instigation, directly or indirectly, by means of written communication or otherwise, to canvass or otherwise influence in the candidate’s favour, any member of the staff of Kerry County Council or person nominated by Kerry County Council to interview or examine applicants, will automatically disqualify the candidate for the position being sought.

Closing Date

Completed Application Forms should be submitted to the address below before 5.00pm on Thursday, 07 December 2017.

Human Resources Department

Room 215

Áras an Chontae

Rathass

Tralee

Co. Kerry

All applications will be acknowledged by email after the closing date has passed.

Applicants who do not receive an acknowledgement within SEVEN DAYS of the closing date, should contact the Human Resources Department. Any queries in relation to applications that are posted but do not reach this office should be accompanied by a Proof of Posting Certificate.

Applicants are advised therefore to obtain such a Certificate from the Post Office when posting application forms.

Responsibility for ensuring that applications are received on time rests with the applicant.

Tel (066) 7183814

E-Mail :

KERRY COUNTY COUNCIL IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES EMPLOYER

IS FOSTAITHEOIR COMHDHEISEANNA Í CHOMHAIRLE CONTAE CHIARRAÍ

I.S. Analyst – Network & Security Administrator 2017