CONSULTANCY - TERMS OF
REFERENCE
UNRWA is a United Nations agency established by the General Assembly in 1949 and is mandated to provide assistance and protection to a population of some 5 million registered Palestine refugees. Its mission is to help Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and the Gaza Strip to achieve their full potential in human development, pending a just solution to their plight. UNRWA’s services encompass education, health care, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance and emergency assistance. UNRWA is the largest UN operation in the Middle East with more than 30,000 staff. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions.
Consultant
– Infrastructure Automation Developer, HQ Gaza (Local)
BACKGROUND
UNRWA Information Management and Technology Department (IMTD) is seeking
an Infrastructure Automation Developer to automate operational on-premise tasks
with Ansible and other tools.
The consultant must have experience, software development and the
design and implementation of automating full end-to-end processes. The person
will also spend time in supporting International
Computing Center (ICC) administrators on how to script and automate operational tasks
with Ansible playbooks, plugins, modules, inventories, templates and shell
scripts.
The consultant will report administratively to Head
Information Technology Service Centre at Headquarter Gaza and technically to International
Computing Center (ICC).
Description of Duties and Responsibilities
- Designing and developing Ansible
playbooks for automating end-to-end processes
- Designing and developing new
modules if required
- Setting up best practices for
development and documentation for automation projects
- Designing inventories for different
systems and use cases based on experience and implement through an
inventory file or a plugin.
- Defining development best practices
for automation with Ansible.
- Automate Storage tasks in Ansible
to:
- Managing the lifecycle of luns
(SAN)
- Managing the lifecycle of share
(NAS);
- Patching
- Automate Network related tasks in
Ansible such as:
- VLAN provisioning and
configuration;
- Firewall rules configuration;
- Switching configuration;
- Loading balancer configuration;
- Automate Application and Database
tasks in Ansible such as:
- Installing ;
- Stopping and starting;
- Configuring
- Hardening;
- Patching;
- Automate OS/Server (Linux and
Windows) tasks in Ansible such as::
- Configuring ;
- Hardening;
- Patching;
- Working with Ansible Vault to
encrypt sensitive data.
- Managing Credentials in Ansible
AWX.
- Integrating with ticketing systems
(Remedy ITSM).
·
Enabling/configuring hosts and systems for automation with Ansible
·
Configuring CI/CD pipelines
·
Automated testing of playbooks, modules and plugins
·
Error handling of automated tasks
·
Performing other duties as maybe required.
minimum Qualifications and Experience
●
A university degree from an accredited educational institution in software
development, Computer Science, Information Technology or related discipline;
●
Minimum of 5 years of experience in automation and software development;
●
Experience in the automation tasks for one or more of the following
areas:
o
Application and database deployments and provisioning
o
Linux OS tasks
o
Windows OS tasks
o
Network tasks
o
Infrastructure tasks
●
Extensive knowledge in software development best practices
●
Strong software development skills in programming languages (Python,
yaml, jinja )
●
General web services development skills HTTP/HTTPS, RESTful APIs
●
Knowledge and experience in developing infrastructure solutions and of automating
infrastructure tasks
●
Good Linux/Windows skills
●
Experience with central infrastructure services (DNS, LDAP, NTP, mail)
●
Knowledge in CI/CD best practices for fully automated integration,
deployment and testing
●
Ansible Automation.
●
Fluency in spoken and written English.
COMPETENCIES
●
Applying technical expertise;
●
Strong ability to drive for results,
to manage and deliver against multiple priorities on time;
●
Strong analytical and problem-solving
skills;
●
Strong interpersonal and communication
skills; verbal and written;
●
Excellent planning and organizing
skills;
●
Moving forward in a changing environment: Is open to and proposes new
approaches and ideas. Adapts and responds positively to change
●
Knowing and managing yourself: Manages ambiguity and pressure in a
self-reflective way. Uses criticism as a development opportunity. Seeks
opportunities for continuous learning and professional growth
●
Flexibility and adaptability.
dESIRABLE Experience and QUALIFICATIONS
●
Linux System Administration;
●
Windows System Administration;
●
Setting up an Ansible platform with AWX/Ansible Tower and integrate
with a full CI/CD pipeline
●
Integrating AWX/Ansible tower with an LDAP system
●
Securing the Ansible platform and the execution of the playbooks on the
targets
●
Automating tasks in one or more of these systems:
o
Cisco IOS
o
BigIP/F5 equipment
o
Par storage
o
Compellent storage.
o
Checkpoint firewall
o
HP servers
●
Automating server provisioning
●
Automating tasks on databases and/or applications:
o
Web Applications: Apache, Tomcat, Nginx, etc.
o
Databases: MySQL, Postgres, MariaDB, MongoDB
o
Oracle software: Database and Applications
●
Training and/or coaching administrators on best practices for
development and automation.
●
Good understanding Of Ansible Awx/Ansible tower
●
Good knowledge in various Ansible modules
●
Knowledge in other automation tools (puppet, terraform, chef, etc.)
●
Experience with usage of public cloud infrastructures (google cloud
platform, AWS, AZURE etc.)
●
Previous experience with UNRWA or other UN agency;
CONDITIONS OF SERVICE
·
The duration of the consultancy is from 6 to 11
months with the expected start date of Aug 2020; with possibility of extension depending on
availability of funds and performance of the incumbent;
·
This consultancy is equivalent to an area staff
post at grade (15)
·
Remuneration for this consultancy will depend
on the qualifications and experience of the candidate.
·
The incumbent will be based in Gaza.
APPLICATION PROCESS
Applicants should submit a cover letter
and CV or UN Personal History Form demonstrating clearly the knowledge and
experience required to meet the consultancy requirements via consultancy@unrwa.org indicating the title of this consultancy “Infrastructure
Automation Developer, HQ Gaza (Local)” in the subject line of the message.
The deadline for the submission of applications is 4 July 2020.
consultancy@unrwa.org
UNRWA is an equal
opportunity employer and welcomes applications from both women and men. UNRWA
encourages applications from qualified women. Only those applicants shortlisted
for interview will be contacted. UNRWA
is a non-smoking environment.
23 Jun 2020