ICT Senior Assistant (Re-advertise)

UNOPS supports the successful implementation of its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Our mission is to serve people in need by expanding the ability of the United Nations, governments and other partners to manage projects, infrastructure and procurement in a sustainable and efficient manner.

Working in some of the world’s most challenging environments, our vision is to advance sustainable implementation practices, always satisfying or surpassing our partners’ expectations.

With over 7,000 personnel spread across 80 countries, UNOPS offers its partners the logistical, technical and management knowledge they need, wherever they need it.

A flexible structure and global reach means that we can quickly respond to our partners' needs, while offering the benefits of economies of scale. 

UNOPS and the ECA have partnered together to deliver on a project that will put in place the critical business systems and services to enable the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) to go beyond its current regular operations and effectively deliver on its Business Plan mandate of becoming Africa’s premier think tank. Five specific outcomes are foreseen, which are the results of the implementation plans of four corporate strategies introduced for communications, publications, knowledge management and ICT for Development. When attained, the outcomes will result in a sustainable increase in the visibility and impact of the organization’s work in the areas of policy research and knowledge delivery. This recruitment initiative is carried out by UNOPS in support of ECA’s Public Information and Knowledge Management Division (PIKMD) strategic intent.  It is with this objective that UNOPS advertises these opportunities in partnership with ECA.

1. Provide assistance to  the senior members of the team in operating and administrating the ECA Wide Area Network – (ECA’s external network infrastructure and connections to Sub-Regional Offices, UN Agencies as per Memorandum of Understandings, and UN Headquarters)

Related activities:

• Follow-up with leased line carrier and/or remote site technical support staff, service restoration during facility failures at Headquarters and SROs;

• Support with the operation and maintenance of satellite, wireless, voice infrastructure and other communications associated equipment including testing, preventative maintenance, fault diagnosis and repairs;

• Keep inform the UN Logistics Bases and UN Headquarters about the communications protocols and standards;

• Liaise with  SRO ICT focal points in order to help  setting up their local satellite, wireless, voice infrastructure and WAN links;

• Provide inputs regarding repairs and updates WAN and MAN network diagrams including proposed changes and associated documentation.

Related Activities:

• Provide general support and set up assistance to various earth station subsystems and associated equipment;

• Support with the operation and maintenance of Intelsat Standard satellite earth-station equipment, inclusive of the antenna system, RF equipment, IF equipment, base-band equipment, and the control, supervisory, and test facilities;

• In coordination with INTELSAT support the periodic SSOG system testing and circuit line-up of existing digital carriers;

• Ensures that preventative maintenance and repairs schedules are carried out per established guidelines and procedures;

• Monitors with the UNLB Operations Center and remote earth-station sites the provisioning of point-to-point and multi-destination digital carriers.

• Follow up and perform preventative maintenance, fault diagnosis and repair.

• Maintains up to date earth-station records and documentation.

Related Activities:

• Supports the general revision and action plan of the  ECA Enterprise Network infrastructure including core, distribution, access layer switches and other network related solutions.

• Supports the operation and administration in order to promote  adequate service and performance of the service.

• Provide assistance with the configuration of network devices: routers, layer three switches, content engines, wireless bridges and access points for the campus network infrastructure.

• Support the general revision and action planning of the network management and monitoring solutions (HP Openview: Network Node Management module (NNMi) and server operations manager module (OVOW), CiscoWorks LAN Management Solution (LMS), MRTG, Cacti and Manage engine Netflow analyzer for bandwidth monitoring, Big brother for device connectivity monitoring and GSX for Domino) 

• Supports with monitoring the network devices health, in order to raised and identify faults with the objective of  providing suggestions on how to resolve troubleshoot problems proactively

Related Activities:

• Assists in operating and administering redundant Internet Firewalls to protects and prevents ECA enterprise network Infrastructure and resource from external threats;

• Assists in deployment, management and maintenance of security systems which includes Firewalls, DMZs, Intrusion Prevention/Protection Systems, Proxies, Content Filters, Authentication servers, ensuring secured and the delivery of high-quality and availability of network services, and seamless connectivity based on UNECA Network Security Policies. 

• Monitors availability and performance to measure continued effectiveness of network security systems. 

• Support the analysis, design, installation, of new network security projects, or modifications to the existing campus network security systems, and prepares project schedules, time-line and cost estimates. 

• Set up VPN connections to UNECA from remote locations, sub-regional Offices, UNHQ, UNLB, UNON and other UN agencies.

• Support users with remote access, SSL/VPN, reverse-proxy solutions facilitating extranet connectivity for trusted users, UN organizations and ECA stakeholders. 

• Configures and troubleshoots Citrix Netscaler and Netscaler Gateway for access to applications and virtual desktops hosted in backend Xenapp or Xendesktop farms from any desktops, laptops, and mobile devices (iPad, iPhone, droid, etc.)

• Identify and raise security breaches and vulnerability issues in a timely and accurate fashion, and conduct user activity audits where required. 

• Provides periodic reporting on information security issues

• Keep organize files and proper documentation of the telecommunications, network and computing environment

• Keep abreast of up-to-date knowledge of available and emerging network, security and computer technologies through professional reading, attending industry conferences, and professional development (training, education, and participation in professional associations)

• Provide inputs in  designing and managing the business recovery and disaster recovery plans for the organization.

• Collaborates with Network Project Team in identifying network and system vulnerabilities, and the appropriate solutions to eliminate or minimize their potential effects

• Contribute to build, deploy & support of Citrix Netscaler content filtering & application firewall.

• Configure load balancing and URL redirect of various Servers with Citrix Netscaler

• Configuring authorization and authentication (RSA, Radius, Smart cards, LDAP, etc) on various Citrix security appliances and products i.e. Netscaler Gateway, Access Gateway etc.

• Provide sound contributions to the Group Policy Configuration for Citrix Netscaler VPX

• Document all operational processes and procedures to ensure efficiency in m all aspects of the deployed systems 

• Update System Run Books, defining day-to-day support, maintenance, troubleshooting knowledge base of the infrastructure.

• Provide sound contributions in the design, evaluation and  deployment of Networks and communications equipment

• Apply lessons learned in order to device necessary corrective measures after incidents

• Participates in the deployment of communications equipment 

• Assists in optimizing operations as part of the Networks and Communications team 

• Contributes to the diagnosis of communications errors and escalates issues to other teams as required

• Assists in providing connectivity services to other UN Agencies as per MOUs

• Performs other related duties as required

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time (CET)
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.  

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns.
Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.