Lead Server Management SME

Empower AI is AI for government. Empower AI gives federal agency leaders the tools to elevate the potential of their workforce with a direct path for meaningful transformation. Headquartered in Reston, Va., Empower AI leverages three decades of experience solving complex challenges in Health, Defense, and Civilian missions. Our proven Empower AI Platform® provides a practical, sustainable path for clients to achieve transformation that is true to who they are, what they do, how they work, with the resources they have. The result is a government workforce that is exponentially more creative and productive. For more information, visit www.Empower.ai.

Empower AI is proud to be recognized as a 2022 Military Friendly Employer by Viqtory, the publisher of G.I. Jobs. This designation reflects the company’s commitment to hiring and supporting active-duty and veteran employees.

Empower AI: As the Lead Server Management SME, you will be a key member of the Empower AI team providing support to the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Joint Service Provider (JSP) on the Platform Services contract. JSP operates and defends the Department of Defense’s (DOD) key cyber terrain and provides information technology (IT) services to Pentagon and National Capital Region (NCR) customers. For Platform Services, Empower AI will provide an integrated, structured approach to operating, managing, and maintaining the JSP-supported infrastructure across all managed platforms, as well as assist in defining requirements for future upgrades and enhancements based on operational and customer trends. We will provide a unified approach to managing server, storage, and application resources (to include virtualized applications) at an enterprise level. In order to drive standardization in the hosting environment, Empower AI will assist customers, both external and internal, by moving applications to the JSP IT environments. This will allow JSP to offer services and infrastructure to customers via a Platform as a Service model, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model, Desktop as a Service (DaaS) model, or at minimum, limit application deployments only to standardized servers.

Highlights of Responsibilities:

Provide technical expertise in the architecture, deployment, and sustainment of geographically dispersed, load-balanced, clustered physical and virtual server architecture and various applications supported on the server infrastructure.
Provide continuous 24x7x365 systems server administration to JSP Core Services (DNS, Domain Services, Virtual Hosting Environment, SCCM) and support/management to all JSP IT environments within the Pentagon and alternate site locations. This includes server chassis; stand-alone server rack space; low-end, mid-range, high-end, and PC based servers (both physical and virtual servers, blade and rack mounted).
Support server rooms and infrastructures at JSP alternate site locations in support of COOP requirements.
Support the operation, maintenance, troubleshooting, building, testing, installation, removal, and reinstallation of all Unclassified, Secret, Top Secret/Collateral and JWICS servers in accordance with (IAW) established SOPs and templates.
Coordinate with JSP Customer Support (CS) on server management activities that require communication with JSP CS and their support contractor. Ensure changes are interoperable and do not impact system performance or availability and are secure.
Provide migration support for the re-location of on-premises server infrastructure to a future state environment as required and provide life cycle management and support of the JSP-managed server environment, inclusive of O&M, decommission, software and operating system upgrades, platform migrations to new server hardware platforms and cloud hosting environments, server rationalization, and disaster recovery.
Develop plans to execute major software version upgrades of the tools and software maintained by the contractor and obtain government approval of the plan within 3 months of the version release. Execute major software version upgrades to tools and applications maintained by the vendor within 9 months of government approval.

Develop plans to execute major server operating system upgrades/migrations for all server operating systems maintained by the contractor and obtain government approval of the plan within 3 months of version release. Execute major server operating system upgrades/migrations for all server operating systems maintained by the vendor within 21 months of government approval.
Provide technical support for future state transition and management of the JSP's server environments. This includes supporting coherent migration of apps, data, software, and databases from the JSP's on premise infrastructure to target state infrastructure at a rate of no less than 5% of the total transition requirement per month.
Ensure an optimized server environment, inclusive of the following support activities: server environment rationalization, utilization and capacity management, maximization of existing hyper-converged server environment, increased migration to virtualized environment, and OSS software management integration.
Provide hardware installation, maintenance, configuration, and patch management to the distributed systems servers within the environment.
Monitor for operational stability of systems, identify, analyze, and resolve problems of all configured servers and system sub-components, application services, messages flows, and communications ports and connected distant end stations on all JSP assets.
Provide cyber security technical support services and ensure that all system applications are/remain fully operationally compliant with approved DoD, STIG standards and Information Assurance Vulnerability Alert (IAVA) requirements and mandated due dates. Prepare plan of action and milestones (POA&Ms) for all outstanding issues with compliance.
Ensure DoD and National Security System (NSS) PKI server certificates are issued for web servers, domain controllers, Domain Name System (DNS) servers, and Virtual Private Network (VPNs). The contractor shall work with appropriate POCs to make sure server certificates are kept up-to-date on all JSP IT server assets under their control.
Load server operating systems, application services, and system network configurations and apply server profiles for both physical and virtualized environments. Also update firmware, complying with mandated security configurations, documenting baselines, and developing SOPs
Provide a comprehensive training program to the JSP CS Service-Desk staff to: aid in first-call resolution of workstation update issues and integrate server management functions included in various Enterprise Tools such as System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM)/Systems Management Server (SMS) and System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) within the JSP overall monitoring initiative.

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor of Science degree in computer engineering, computer information systems, telecommunications, or management information systems, and 2 - 7 recent years of documented experience relevant to this key position.
• Information Assurance (IA) Certification: DoDI 8570 IAT II certification.
• Computing Environment (CE) Certification: Recent and relevant technical certification.
• Top Secret security clearance.
• Demonstrated direct experience with a variety of server architectures.
• Experience in implementing solution designs and operating environments that are compliant with all Federal and DoD guidance and policies.
• Expert knowledge in determining and identifying high level functional and technical requirements based on interactions with the user community and knowledge of IT environments similar in size and scope to this order.
• Experience in implementing software, hardware and communications solutions.
• Experience in the utilization and maintenance of high level system designs, including architectural design documents, diagrams, project plans and milestones.
• Demonstrated ability to build enterprise-level backup and recovery systems for enterprise-wide DR applications from scratch and/or using an application framework to provide best practice solutions for real world business needs.
• Experience working as a Senior IT analyst that covers requirements analysis, system design, project management, and enterprise strategy.
• Strong working knowledge of current server technology to include cloud computing, Blade Server, unified communications and virtualization technology.
• Technical capabilities should include a thorough knowledge of Active Directory (group policies, group permissions, deployment of and troubleshooting) and a thorough knowledge of CAC/PKI and DNS/DHCP/WINS and how they integrate in the AD infrastructure.
• Experience in Windows environment on Server 2008, Server 2012, and Windows 7 and/or Windows10 operating systems environments similar in size and scope of this order.
• Analyze on-going changes that are published in HBSS specific STIGs and apply the appropriate policies and configuration changes to bring JSP systems into compliance with USCYBERCOM policies.
• Demonstrated ability for oral and written communication with the highest levels of management.
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Preferred Qualifications:

• ITILv4 certification

Physical Requirements:

• Sitting for long periods
• Standing for long periods
• Ambulate throughout an office
• Ambulate between several buildings
• Stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl as required
• Travel by land or air transportation 25% or less

It is the policy of Empower AI to provide equal opportunity in recruiting, hiring, training, and promoting individuals in all job categories without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other protected class or category as may be defined by federal, state, or local laws or regulations. In addition, we affirm that all compensation, benefits, company-sponsored training, educational assistance, social, and recreational programs are administered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, or gender identity. It is our firm intent to support equal employment opportunity and affirmative action in keeping with applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations.  Empower AI is a VEVRAA Federal Contractor.