by The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) has an excellent
opportunity for an experienced UNIX Systems Administrator in a
medium-sized installation.
The NRAO operates several world-class radio telescopes, including
the Very Large Array, comprising 27 antennas in central New Mexico,
and the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), consisting of 10 radio dishes
spread across the United States. This position is located at the Array
Operations Center in Socorro, NM. Socorro is a small, historic town
of 8,000 people located at the western edge of the Rio Grande Valley,
75 miles south of Albuquerque.
Working under general supervision from the Manager of Computing
Systems, the Systems Administrator will assume primary responsibility
for day-to-day system and user support of the UNIX installation at the
Array Operations Center and the Very Large Array site. The equipment
currently consists of one Auspex NFS server, several standalone Sun
systems, eight IBM RS/6000's, and more than 100 Sun workstations
running SunOS 5.4 and SunOS 4.1.2. In total approximately 400 gigabytes
of disk space is spread across these systems, and numerous tape drives of
various models are available to our user community of about 220 people.
The successful applicant will also be responsible for the following:
operating system and other software installation and customization;
troubleshooting software problems; assisting hardware specialists with
configuration and problem diagnosis as requested; maintaining reliable
procedures for backups of critical areas and assisting operations staff
as necessary; and maintaining automated installation and configuration
tools. He/she will assist with network operations and long-term planning,
and communicate with PC support staff and with systems administrators
at other NRAO sites.
A B.S. degree in Computer Science or a related field is required,
plus a minimum of 5 years' full-time professional experience as a
systems administrator in a SunOS client-server environment, preferably
oriented towards scientific research computing, and at least 1 year's
experience administering AIX and Solaris 2. The ability to install
and customize the configuration of public-domain and licensed commercial
software packages is required, as is an understanding of fundamental
UNIX and TCP/IP security issues. Strong communications skills and
proven ability to help members of a user community whose range of UNIX
expertise and interest varies widely are critical. A solid knowledge of
programming in Perl, sh, and C, and a thorough understanding of NFS and
NIS functions and configuration are necessary, along with good judgement
in prioritizing problems and developing solutions. Experience with
Sun Microsystems' automated OS installation tools will be an asset.
The person who will excel in this position is one who thrives in a
demanding environment where attention to detail is critical, frequent
interruptions are the norm, and technical requirements continually evolve.
This position falls between the "Intermediate" and "Advanced" levels
as given in the USENIX/SAGE systems administrator job descriptions.
Please direct applications to Ruth Milner, Manager of Computing
Systems, NRAO, P.O. Box O, Socorro NM 87801. Inquiries regarding the
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Ruth Milner NRAO Socorro NM