This summary provides broad details about the typical job duties of the NICS Manager, and the overall environment in which the NICS Manager operates. The two areas covered below are technical and managerial in nature. To apply for the job, please visit the UCSC jobs website, and search for job number 0701184.
Technical Arena
The foundation of the UCO/Lick computing environment is a set of SPARC Solaris and RedHat/CentOS Linux servers. All core services are handled in-house, as opposed to leveraging the services provided by the centralized campus-wide ITS group at UCSC. Among other services, we run our own e-mail, web, print, file, and name service servers. The expectation by our customer base is that, because we service a smaller population, we have the agility and flexibility to provide a higher level of service than what is provided to the campus at large.
The development, implementation, and maintenance of these core services represents the majority of the technical work expected of the NICS Manager. As is typical for production UNIX services, a combination of industry-standard software and local customizations (frequently in the form of scripts) drives most of these services. Whenever possible, scripts in our environment are written in bourne shell; when a problem reaches a certain level of complexity, the solution is generally provided via a Python script. Some older, but still-in-use scripts may be written in tcl or perl. However, there has been no active perl scripting in our environment since 1999, though tcl scripts still see occasional updates thanks to the broad adoption of tcl by UCO/Lick's Scientific Programming Group.
There are a handful of Windows and MacOSX servers providing workstation-oriented services to our customer base, but they are not involved with providing any general-use, cross-platform services. The NICS Manager oversees other members of NICS who have primary responsibility for developing, implementing, and maintaining those servers and related services.
Overall, NICS's computing environment is in relatively good shape. The core services are relatively current, and are expected to have adequate capacity for anticipated service demands over the next one to three years. Some medium-term areas for future improvment have been identified on this web page.
Management Arena
The NICS personnel are accustomed to extensive group-wide communication and to working independently in their respective areas. The primary areas where the NICS Manager will be expected to focus are:
Overall group direction: Are individual members of NICS making the best use of their time? Is the group moving in the right direction, in terms of technical solutions in the field, coverage, and overall levels of service? The NICS Manager is expected to provide the big-picture envelope into which the rest of the pieces, both technical and otherwise, fit comfortably.
Public diplomacy: How well-informed and satisfied is NICS's customer base? The NICS Manager serves as the public diplomat for the group, publicising important changes within our computing environment, and resolving any issues impeding optimal interaction between NICS and its customer base.
Budget oversight: Is NICS bringing in an adequate amount of money to cover expenses? Are the direct costs assessed to NICS's customers set at appropriate levels? Is NICS spending the right amount of money on the right things? The NICS Manager controls the purse strings for the group, guiding decisions about how and when money gets spent, and how much NICS should charge its customers for its services.
The NICS Manager reports to the chair of the Computer Planning and Management Committee (CPMC), a group with at least one representative from each of the different populations within NICS's customer base. This committee helps to guide the overall direction of NICS by providing feedback from the individual customer populations, and also serves to keep the managers and supervisors of those groups well-informed about current and emerging projects or other priorities within NICS. The CPMC also reviews and endorses the annual NICS budget, and provides formal authorization for any purchases against the NICS budget in excess of $5,000.
Once acclimated to the job, it is expected that the NICS Manager will initiate a hiring process for an additional support technician. The current workload distribution within NICS suggests that three workstation support technicians are required in order to maintain current levels of service.