Connectivity Operations Analyst

Job description

Barclays is an international financial services provider engaged in personal banking, credit cards, corporate and investment banking and wealth management with an extensive presence in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. Barclays' purpose is to help people achieve their ambitions – in the right way.

With over 300 years of history and expertise in banking, Barclays operates in over 50 countries and employs approximately 140,000 people. Barclays moves, lends, invests and protects money for customers and clients worldwide.
At Barclays, we recruit based on merit and are committed to promoting diversity throughout our organisation.

About Infrastructure Services
Infrastructure Services is a central team that engineers, develops and supports IT infrastructure of the bank. Hosting services, Collaboration services and service management are building blocks of Infrastructure Services. It comprises of:
· IaaS (Infrastructure Services) that provisions and supports Unix, Mainframes and Storage infrastructure in the bank.
· PaaS(Platform as a Service) that provisions and supports database and application platforms on IaaS infrastructure.
· Core Datacentres that is a home to Barclays hardware – Server & Storage.
· Core Networks that provides network solution to the bank.
· EPS(Enterprise Production Services) which includes monitoring, scheduling, service management tools and Barclays command centre for managing incidents, changes and problems. ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

Connectivity is a part of Core Network team that provides various functions such as support (L1, and L2), service management, product management, product engineering, automation and tools. All these functions work on network components including LAN, WAN, ADC, Firewall, DNS, DHCP, Wireless, SDN, Automation, Proxy.

Overall purpose of role
To supply quality 1st line event, incident management through both reactive and proactive means and delivery standardise change requests to Barclays Business & Technical areas as a member of the 24*7 Connectivity Operations team.

Key Accountabilities
The team are responsible for the 1nd line support of the global Networking, Firewall, Load balancing, Wireless and Global WAN technologies. As with all large, multiple site, multi-protocol networking environments, problems and change occur. The primary function of the role will be to identify, determine and resolve these issues on an as required basis. In addition to these abilities the role will have:
· Actively monitor alerts / faults, undertake initial incident classification and prioritisation, root cause analysis;
· Obtains diagnostic data to assist in the investigation and resolution of incidents, Match unresolved incidents against existing problems, known errors and other incidents. Ensures that incidents and problems in systems and services are fully documented within the configuration/change management & problem reporting system;
· Carry out health checks and all other monitoring associated activities;
· Perform required system / application / service health checks;
· Effective communications during both preventive maintenance activity and Request for Change activity;
· Accepts and challenges both application development projects and/or infrastructure component changes, ensuring that they meet the defined acceptance criteria;
· Ensuring all tasks are recorded and completed in a professional and structured manner and all company process and procedures are followed;
· Be capable of liaising with other technology, business areas and 3rd party vendors in pursuit of resolving the problem or communicating progress.
Stakeholder Management and Leadership
· Gather requirements from Core Networks product managers, service managers, product engineers and solution delivery centre;
· Experience in diagnosing and resolving root cause of performance problems;
· Resolves incidents/problems with appropriate use of escalation and notification procedures;
· Work with other teams within Infrastructure Services to provide sustainable enterprise scale solutions;
· Engage end users and key stakeholders to provide feedback and ensure requirements and expectations are properly met.
Decision-making and Problem Solving
· Solve operational issues through troubleshooting and incident resolution;
· Act as a gatekeeper for changes which goes into production;
· Implement changes according to stakeholder requirements;
· Act as an owner for network inventory.
Risk and Control Objective
Ensure that all activities and duties are carried out in full compliance with regulatory requirements, Enterprise Wide Risk Management Framework and internal Barclays Policies and Policy Standards.
Has documented and analysed alternative IT and operational solutions, risks and benefits, and obtained decision on resolution.
Actively seeks ways to understand, mitigate or reduce risks, drawing on expert advice, risk assessment and management reports.

Person Specification
Essential
· Qualified CCNA, JNCIA
· Hands-on Cisco product configuration using IOS
· Working knowledge of the following LAN/WAN Protocols & Technologies: (BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, STP, Etherchannel, TCP/IP, Ethernet, VLAN, VPN)
· Working knowledge of Firewall platforms
· Working knowledge of Enterprise management platforms
Preferred
· Educated to Degree level
· Qualified CCNP, ITILv3
· Experience of working within a large multiple-site, multi-protocol LAN & WAN, Datacentre preferably within a global financial institution
· Hands-on Cisco product configuration using IOS
· Working knowledge of Firewall platforms
· Working knowledge of Enterprise management platforms including CA Spectrum
· Working knowledge of content switching hardware including F5 BIG-IP LTM/GTM, Proxy, IPAM
· Working knowledge of Enterprise wireless technologies
The Benefits: Our customers deserve the best. The same goes for our employees. That's why at Barclays you'll receive a range of benefits that include a competitive salary and all the tools, technology and support you need to succeed.

Barclays values & Diversity
Our common purpose is to help people achieve their ambitions – in the right way. We'll measure and reward our people, not just on commercial results, but on how they live our Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship and bring them to life every day. To find out more about working at Barclays and the development opportunities we offer please visit our website www.barclays.com

We are an equal opportunity employer and we are opposed to discrimination on any grounds.