Manager of Datacenter and Network Operations - (23000005)

Job Summary 

Towson University (TU) is one of the nation’s top 100 public universities. Located north of Baltimore, TU currently enrolls over 22,000 students and is the second-largest university in the prestigious University System of Maryland. Towson University values diversity and fosters a climate that is grounded in respect and inclusion to cultivate the intellectual and personal growth of the entire university community.

The Manager of Datacenter and Network Operations manages a team that oversees the management of the University’s datacenters and hubrooms, the Enterprise and Infrastructure Services (EIS) asset management program, datacenter maintenance contracts, select compute/storage/network maintenance contracts, and assigned network operations. The Manager of Datacenter and Network Operations is also responsible for the modernization of the datacenter and hubroom spaces.

The University currently has 2 datacenters and more than 200 hub rooms. The Manager of Datacenter and Network Operations is responsible for all aspects of the management of those spaces, including developing standards and ensuring compliance, environmental monitoring, maintaining access controls, and racking and stacking hardware.  Ensuring the health of these spaces, especially the datacenters, is critical. The Manager of Datacenter and Network Operations is also responsible for coordinating emergency responses to datacenter and hubroom environmental problems, such as power failures, floods, air conditioning failures, etc. This includes working within Enterprise and Infrastructure Services, and with other departments such as Facilities Management, and with contractors in the case of renovation/construction.

The Asset Management Program tracks EIS compute, storage, network, and telecommunications hardware from the time it is received to the time it is decommissioned. This includes maintaining an inventory of equipment, and history of its locations and property records requests, and working with the University Property Records department during audits.

The Manager of Datacenter and Network Operations will act as project manager and/or primary technical lead for datacenter and hub room construction and renovation projects. The position will also help design the spaces and ensure the construction/renovation conforms to established designs and standards.

Responsibilities and Duties

1. Datacenter and Hub Room Management

• Developing, maintaining, and ensuring compliance with standards for all datacenters and hub rooms.
• Environmental monitoring of datacenters and hub rooms, including temperature, humidity, particulate, flood detection.
• Maintaining the proper access controls for the spaces.
• Racking and stacking of server and network hardware.

1. Personnel Management

• Datacenter and Asset Management Specialist.
• ResNet Support Specialist.
• Oversees two full time staff members.

1. Project Management / Support

• Acting as project manager or primary technical lead for datacenter and hub room construction and renovation projects.
• Assisting with the design of the University’s datacenters and hub rooms.
• Ensuring the construction or renovation of datacenters and hubrooms conforms to established standards.

1. Asset Management

• Handling receiving and disposal of EIS hardware.
• Maintaining an inventory of equipment and their locations.
• Maintaining a history of equipment from receipt to disposal.
• Working with the University’s Property Records department on audits.

1. Contract Management

• Establishing and maintaining maintenance for UPS, environmental monitoring, and other datacenter related hardware.
• Assisting with establishing and maintaining compute, storage, and network maintenance.

1. Network Operations

• Overseeing assigned campus network operations.
• Overseeing student network connectivity support in the residence halls.

1. Environmental Emergency Response

• Identifying environmental conditions that require immediate alerting and/or reporting to identify failures before they become service impacting.
• Working with EIS leadership and Facilities Management to define and maintain an emergency response plan.
• Ensuring the plan is simple, effective, and understood by all involved.
• Developing effective reporting on our emergency responses and recommend effective strategies for improvement.
• Responding to emergencies and coordinating the response, including physical onsite coordination and investigation, and coordinating the response with Enterprise and Infrastructure Services, Facilities Management, the. TU Police Department, and others involved with triage, repair, and communication.

Qualifications and Skills

• Bachelor’s Degree and three years of related experience.
• The ability to communication effectively both orally and in writing.
• The ability to effectively manage and mentor staff.
• Strong organizational skills.
• Experience with data center and hub room electric, HVAC, and UPS systems.
• Experience managing large numbers of maintenance contracts for large amounts of equipment.
• Experience with property management and equipment life cycling.
• Experience coordinating and planning small projects.
• Familiarity with network, server, storage, and other data center hardware.
• Experience with managing vendor relationships for server, storage, network and/or other data center hardware and software.
• Familiarity with IT infrastructure and architecture to understand the impact of data center maintenance.

Salary and Benefits 

Competitive salary and full University benefits that includes annual leave, up to 14 holidays, personal and sick days; excellent health, life, and retirement plans; and tuition remission. To learn more about our benefits, click here. TU also offers a variety of great perks and discounts, which can be found here.

This position will be open for a minimum of 14 days. For consideration, please submit a cover letter and resume with your online application. 

The safety of our students, faculty, staff, and neighbors has been our top priority and the focus of every one of our decisions since the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the University System of Maryland (USM) has strongly encouraged full COVID vaccination and up-to-date booster shots (when eligible) for all faculty, staff, and students at all schools in the USM as both a reasonable and necessary means of protecting our health and safety.

Quicklink to apply: https://towson.taleo.net/careersection/ex/jobdetail.ftl?job=23000005&lang=en