ENGINEER – CS CORE NETWORK & DATA CENTRE PLANNING

Job Purpose

The successful incumbent will be responsible for the planning, designing, developing and optimisation of CS & Data Centre technologies. The purpose of this role is to ensure that there is adequate network capacity and capabilities that support business requirements, quality of experience (QOE) and services that are in line with international standards.

Qualifications and Experience

• 6 Ordinary Level including Mathematics and English
• 3 Advanced Level passes

A) Degree in Electronic / Electrical / Telecommunications / Computer Science/ Information Systems or equivalent

OR

B) HND in Electronic / Electrical / Telecommunications / Computer Science/ Information Systems or equivalent

EXPERIENCE
A) At least 2 – 4 years’ experience in telecoms, or related field, of which 2 years should be in GSM / mobile field

OR if B as above

B) At least 3 – 5 years’ experience in telecoms, or related field, of which 2 years should be in GSM / mobile field

Key Result Areas

ANNUAL STRATEGIC PLANNING
• Receives Annual Business strategic requirements such as market share, revenue targets, product roadmaps, demand forecasts and uses such information to develop CS Core Network and Data Centre resource capacity plans and technologies required to support business initiatives

BUDGETING
• Compiles and provides annual CAPEX budget inputs for new or enhancements on CS Core Network and Data Centre Infrastructure and functionalities required to support business requirements

RESOURCE CAPACITY PLANNING
• Develops CS Core Network resource capacity projections and forecasts based on expected market growth (demand), service usage and quality of service needs to achieve alignment between resource capacity and demand
• Produces Data Centre infrastructure resource capacity projections (Compute/Servers, Storage, Software and Network) and forecasts for expected applications growth (demand), Virtual Machine Requirements, Data Storage network resources and costs of such capacity.
• Determines traffic profiles and converts them to technical models for capacity planning for user traffic and signalling traffic for the CS Core Network platforms: MSCs/VLRs, MGWs, HLRs/HSS, STPs

INFRASTRUCTURE DESIGN AND DIMENSIONING
• Employs best practice design methodology/framework to provide sustainable Data Centre Infrastructure and CS core network solutions that support strategic business objectives.
• Performs planning and designing of Data Centre systems (Computing servers, Software, Storage and Network) and virtualisation architecture providing secure and efficient cloud computing requirements to support business computing requirements.
• Determines and quantifies Server specifications e.g. Memory (RAM, ROM), Processing, Chassis, Storage , Hypervisors, Storage Area network devices required in the Data Centre to support business applications
• Determines and quantifies CS Core Network resources and license needed for MSCs/VLRs, HLR/HSS, MGWs, STPs and their distribution across the network.
• Develops High level Designs (HLD), Low Level Designs (LLD), Provisional acceptance Tests and User Acceptance Tests documentation for Data Centre Infrastructure and CS Core Network
• Researches, reviews and selects CS Network and Data Centre topologies that are scalable, secure and reliable to support the business requirements e.g. High availability through Active/Active, Active/standby, N+1 etc.
• Provides specifications and recommendations for Proof of Concepts (PoC) with vendors for new solutions or capabilities required to fulfil business requirements
• Provides input for technical specifications in RFP documents on new solutions

RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT AND RETIREMENT
• Assesses implementation feasibility of new products, services and promotions from user departments (e.g. commercial) to support strategic business objectives.
• Conducts periodic assessments for Data Centre Servers, Software, Storage Disks and network nodes and takes necessary action
• Reviews EOL (End of Life ) schedule for Core network, Data Centre systems and recommends changes and retirement or removal of technology and associated resource types, which are no longer required by the enterprise
• Ensures that the necessary documentation are produced to support the operation of the new resource class

NETWORK INFORMATION AND MANAGEMENT
• Ensures that records of network and systems inventory for CS Core Network and Data Centre and documentation are kept and reviewed periodically
• Coordinates numbering plan management including optimisation for subscriber numbers, short codes in line with Regulatory requirements
• Produces reports required by the Regulator e.g POTRAZ
• Supports Projects at various stages within the organisation, Project Concept Notes, Scope of Works, PAT/UATs

NETWORK PERFORMANCE AND OPTIMISATION
• Receives and analyses Data Centre and CS Core network resource usage and performance statistics.
• Carries out periodic gap analysis against standard set KPIs to identify areas of improvement i.e. on under-dimensioned resources or over-dimensioned.
• Conducts baseline audits for Data Center and CS Core Network systems for planning purposes

RESOURCE PROVISIONING AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT
• Generates CS and Data Centre Change Requests and Internal Work Orders (IWOs) for resource provisioning
• Allocates specific resources required to support a specific service e.g Short codes, servers, storage disks etc
• Reserves specific resources (if required by the business rules) for a given period of time until the service order is confirmed
• Plans the recovery/decommissions specific resources that are no longer required through Change Requests.