DELL RACK ADMINISTRATOR — STORAGE, BACKUP & OT NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE
Location: NYC area
ABOUT THE ROLE
Our ICS/SCADA Modernization practice designs, deploys, and sustains the control system infrastructure behind water treatment, wastewater, power distribution, and industrial process environments.
The Dell Rack Administrator owns the physical and logical infrastructure layer that SCADA runs on: Dell PowerEdge server racks, Dell SAN storage, Dell EMC Data Domain backup appliances, and the Cisco and Arista switching fabric that ties control system nodes together.
This is not a conventional data center role. You will be equally comfortable in an enterprise rack room and on a plant floor, and you understand how PLC, DCS, and HMI traffic behaves across an OT network — deterministic timing, VLAN and IDMZ segmentation, and the operational consequence of an unplanned reboot on a live process.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Server & Rack Infrastructure
- Specify, stage, rack, cable, power, label, and commission Dell PowerEdge servers for SCADA, historian, HMI, and engineering workstation nodes
- Deploy and administer VMware vSphere/ESXi hosts supporting virtualized control system infrastructure
- Maintain iDRAC, OpenManage, and firmware baselines under change control, coordinating outage windows with plant operations
Storage & Backup
- Administer Dell storage platforms (PowerStore, Unity, SC Series, PowerVault) — provisioning, LUN/volume management, replication, snapshots, capacity planning
- Configure and troubleshoot Fibre Channel and iSCSI fabrics, zoning, and multipathing
- Own Dell EMC Data Domain administration — deduplication, replication, retention lock, DD Boost
- Design, execute, and test backup and restoration for SCADA servers, historian databases, PLC/DCS program archives, and HMI application files
Networking — Enterprise and OT
- Configure and troubleshoot Cisco (Catalyst, Nexus, IE industrial series) and Arista (EOS) switches — VLANs, trunking, LACP, spanning tree, QoS, ACLs, routing
- Implement segmented control system networks aligned to the Purdue Model / ISA-95, including IDMZ design and conduit/zone documentation consistent with ISA/IEC 62443
- Support networks carrying Modbus TCP, EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, DNP3, IEC 61850, and OPC UA traffic — multicast/IGMP handling, latency constraints, ring and redundancy topologies
- Configure and maintain industrial gateway hardware (Moxa, Red Lion) and serial device servers
Security & Documentation
- Apply hardening baselines (DISA STIG, CIS Benchmarks, or client standard)
- Produce rack elevations, network diagrams, IP schedules, cable schedules, and as-built documentation to submittal quality
- Support commissioning, FAT/SAT, cutovers, and post-cutover stabilization, including scheduled after-hours work
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Bachelor's degree in IT, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field; equivalent experience and certifications considered in lieu
- 5+ years hands-on infrastructure administration across server, storage, and network domains
- Hands-on Dell PowerEdge, iDRAC, and OpenManage experience in production
- Hands-on Dell SAN administration including provisioning, replication, and fabric troubleshooting
- Hands-on Dell EMC Data Domain administration including verified restoration
- Hands-on Cisco AND Arista switch configuration and troubleshooting in production
- PLC/SCADA networking experience is required. Candidates must have supported live industrial control system networks and be able to describe from direct experience how control traffic was segmented, prioritized, and protected.
- Working knowledge of industrial protocols and their network requirements
- Familiarity with Purdue Model / IDMZ segmentation and ISA/IEC 62443 principles
- Windows Server proficiency; Linux proficiency preferred
- Ability to lift and rack equipment up to 50 lbs and work in plant environments under site safety requirements
- U.S. work authorization; ability to pass client background screening
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Prior experience in water, wastewater, power, or heavy industrial process environments
- Experience supporting ABB, Rockwell/Allen-Bradley, Siemens, or Schneider platforms at the infrastructure layer
- Experience with AVEVA/Wonderware System Platform, InTouch, or Historian infrastructure
- Experience with OT security tooling (Claroty, Dragos, Nozomi, Cisco Cyber Vision)
- Certifications: CCNA/CCNP Enterprise, Arista ACE Level 2+, Dell storage or Data Domain certifications, VCP-DCV, Security+, GICSP or GRID, ISA/IEC 62443 Cybersecurity Specialist
