Principal Systems Consultant

The University of Kwa Zulu-Natal (UKZN) is committed to meeting the objectives of Employment Equity to improve representivity within the Institution. Preference will be given to applicants from designated groups in accordance with our Employment Equity Plan.

Information and communication servers (ICS) consolidate all computing, audio-visual, telephony, access control CCTV and print and copy services as well as information management into a single, integrated divisionacross UKZN’s 4 colleges, 5 campuses, and the 50 affiliated unitsand sites of operation including hospitals and research institutes.

The University of Kwa Zulu-Natal requires a Principal Systems Consultant (PSC) for the Systems & Services team within the Infrastructure, Networks & Communications (INC) section of the Information & Communications Services (ICS) division.

The incumbent will provide specialist expertise in the areas of Enterprise Resilience, Backup, Storage and Disaster Recovery across the University’s enterprise ICT environment.

The role is responsible for the architecture, governance, implementation, optimisation and operational management of enterprise backup, recovery and disaster recovery platforms, ensuring that institutional systems and data remain secure, recoverable and resilient.

In fulfilling the role of Principal Systems Consultant, the incumbent will provide technical leadership, contribute to enterprise ICT programmes and projects, and support the integration and alignment of systems and services across the broader ICT environment in line with institutional standards and strategy.

The incumbent will also contribute toward the strategic evolution of the University’s enterprise infrastructure platforms, while maintaining strong working knowledge across related infrastructure domains including virtualisation, identity, cloud integration and enterprise systems operations.

• Architect, implement and maintain enterprise backup, storage and disaster recovery solutions aligned to institutional ICT strategy.
• Develop, implement and maintain scalable, secure and resilient recovery architectures across hybrid on-premises and cloud-integrated environments.
• Participate in infrastructure lifecycle planning, platform modernisation, migrations and technology refresh initiatives.
• Research and recommend emerging technologies and best practices relating to enterprise resilience, cyber recovery and disaster recovery capabilities.
• Collaborate with infrastructure, systems, networking and security teams to ensure integrated and resilient enterprise services.

• Administer and optimise enterprise backup and recovery platforms including Veeam, Rubrik or equivalent enterprise-class solutions.
• Develop and maintain backup policies, retention schedules, replication strategies and recovery standards.
• Ensure critical enterprise systems and data are protected through secure, validated and recoverable backup solutions.
• Implement and maintain immutable and cyber-resilient recovery capabilities aligned to modern ransomware protection principles.
• Develop and maintain disaster recovery procedures, recovery documentation and operational runbooks.
• Conduct and coordinate disaster recovery testing, recovery validation exercises and remediation activities.
• Develop and maintain recovery strategies aligned to institutional Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO).
• Monitor, optimise and report on backup, storage and recovery platform performance, capacity and operational…