srochford

This is a new post working with the availability management team. In common with most organisations, our IT department maintains a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) and it's critical that this is correct - how can you tell if your systems are working properly if you don't know what systems you have, what they're supposed to do and how they interact. (Just for info, over a quarter of a million MAC addresses are registered on our network; our active directory has over 30,000 PCs; there are about 3,500 PCs used for teaching (with a mix taken from the 600 packages that we use). Our systems run Windows (standard is Windows 7 but there are still some XP and Vista machines, some Windows 8 and brave people running Windows 10 preview), Mac OS and every version of Linux. Details of this job are here: IT jobs in Central London with Imperial College | Latest jobs | Hays UK I can't tell you more about the job than what is shown there but I can tell you about working at Imperial if that helps - [email protected] We're recruiting quite a few people at the moment - IT jobs in Central London with Imperial College London | Welcome | Hays UK has the list.

Are you using roaming profiles? if so, are students signing into Chrome and configuring it to allow apps to run in the background? there seems to be a bug in Chrome which causes this to fail in the way you describe; when the user logs on, Chrome auto-starts in the background and this then blocks Chrome starting in the foreground. Open task manager immediately after logon but before trying to launch Chrome - check to see if a Chrome process is already running. If it is, then kill it and see if Chrome now launches OK. If that works, you need to either stop students from using background apps or add something to your login script to kill any running instances of Chrome. We think that this is a bug introduced by a recent update to Chrome; we're sort of hoping that Google will fix it soon (but I'm not holding my breath!)

This is a job in the High Energy Physics group at Imperial College London and, as such, it's a bit different from the jobs most people here are likely to do! If you get this job then you would be involved in managing the computers used to process data from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. There's a lot of it - the last time I looked, there was 3 Petabytes of storage in use by the group (it lives in a large number of 42U cabinets down in the basement of the Blackett Laboratory). Imperial's connection to the Internet is currently 40 Gigabit/s and a good chunk of this is used to take data from LHC and pull it into the computers at Imperial so it can be processed. We'll shortly upgrade to 100 Gigabit/s because LHC produces such a huge volume of data. Details of the job and the application form at the link below. I can give you general information about working at Imperial but note that this job is not part of the ICT department. My email is [email protected] https://www4.ad.ic.ac.uk/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/irc/candidateSelfService/webui/VisVacDispPG&OAHP=IRC_EXT_SITE_VISITOR_APPL&OASF=IRC_VIS_VAC_DISPLAY&akRegionApplicationId=821&transactionid=1099072957&retainAM=Y&addBreadCrumb=RP&p_svid=45452&p_spid=1710201&oapc=13&oas=hijL6z66KjTB0upP_8_CBQ..

Please note the job below is nothing to do with me - I'm just forwarding on details which I've been sent; contact Salman Munir ([email protected]) if you would like more details (I understand the advert will be on the Stanmore College website before the end of the week so this is your chance to get in early!) We are looking for a Senior Systems Engineer, responsible to the Director of Technical Services, to implement, administer and support the effective operation of all on-site and cloud IT services & resources throughout the corporation. The role includes the line management of first line IT Support Engineers. You will have strong Windows Server administration skills and experience of Microsoft server applications including Hyper-V and Exchange. Any Office 365 experience will be favourable. Knowledge and experience of networking is essential along with Microsoft certification.

We're recruiting again for desktop support staff. https://www4.ad.ic.ac.uk/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/irc/candidateSelfService/webui/VisVacDispPG&akRegionApplicationId=821&transactionid=1393228301&retainAM=Y&addBreadCrumb=S&p_svid=45263&p_spid=1706172&oapc=7&oas=ik3rKMNGWTqPvP3hnaA-RQ.. Salary: £29,350 - £33,410 per annum (Professional Services 3A) £34,270 – £42,380 per annum (Professional Services 3B) (Appointment would normally be at level 3a with progression to level 3b if appropriate) We're looking to appoint a new person (or possibly more than one; I've lost track of retirements and promotions!) to the Faculty Support group within IT Services. Faculty Support provides a wide range of end-user support - this is not working with servers or network infrastructure but working with the 21,000 staff and students who make up Imperial College. Most teaching machines run 64 bit Windows 7 but staff machines are a mix of Windows (normally Windows 7 but we still have a substantial number of XP machines in labs, typically plugged into big and expensive equipment), Linux (mainly Red Hat and Ubuntu but could be anything) and Mac. I manage one of the support groups and I can answer general questions about what the job entails or what it's like to work at Imperial College. Feel free to post questions here or email me directly - [email protected] If you want to apply for a job working at the university which is ranked number 2 in the world (unfortunately, MIT still beats us but we beat Oxford!) then please download the pack from the website, complete the form and return as directed.

This is a vacancy for the techy types. https://www4.ad.ic.ac.uk/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/irc/candidateSelfService/webui/VisVacDispPG&akRegionApplicationId=821&transactionid=1449328458&retainAM=Y&addBreadCrumb=S&p_svid=45041&p_spid=1699198&oapc=7&oas=E_jSVETAQQPb4vgTMJN-iA.. There are 6 people in the OS team who manage Windows and Linux systems - this post is focussed on Windows but Linux experience would be useful (we have many users running Linux desktops who need to connect to Windows servers and vice versa). Imperial has a very large set of Windows machines; the OS team manage the servers provided centrally (mostly virtualised on ESX; there are currently about 700 of them), manage the desktop and server Windows builds for other users. We have a large number of research departments running Windows servers for a variety of purposes. One quick stat - over 15,000 desktops running Windows 7 logged on to the domain in the past 3 weeks. There are more details of what the job involves on the website. If you want to know more about working at Imperial then feel free to ask - either here or directly ([email protected]) - but note that I am not involved in the recruitment process and I don't work in the technical operations group so can tell you very little about the job other than what I've read in the description. Note that you need to apply quickly if you want this - applications close at midnight on 11 December (and don't leave it until 2359!!)

If you fancy a senior role in ICT at Imperial College London then this might be for you. The postholder will be responsible for everything to do with Service Delivery (but not directly responsible for the technical stuff such as servers, networks, security etc). Details are here - https://www4.ad.ic.ac.uk/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/irc/candidateSelfService/webui/VisVacDispPG&akRegionApplicationId=821&transactionid=1438272668&retainAM=Y&addBreadCrumb=S&p_svid=45007&p_spid=1699175&oapc=7&oas=Bp9BH5hEzmMgpXZvvZZrjQ.. Some restructuring of ICT is taking place at the moment and this post is slightly different from the post held by someone who retired earlier this year. It's a good time to join Imperial - we were recently ranked joint second best university in the world and there's a real desire to make sure that the facilities available for research and teaching keep up with that - ICT is obviously a key part of that. I can tell you very little about the job other than what's listed in the job spec. A few Edugeek people have joined Imperial and they're still here so it can't be too bad (and it is actually an amazing place to work)

Slightly different from the other posts I've advertised. We have a group of people who deal with internal software sales (looking after all the software agreements ranging from big ones like Adobe and Microsoft to smaller specialist stuff like National Instruments Labview) and also look after PC procurement and there's a vacancy in the team. Currently our preferred supplier is HP for standard PCs (we also have a huge number of Apple devices but they're bought directly by departments rather than through ICT) Details are on the website: https://www4.ad.ic.ac.uk/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/irc/candidateSelfService/webui/VisVacDispPG&akRegionApplicationId=821&transactionid=419009847&retainAM=Y&addBreadCrumb=S&p_svid=44531&p_spid=1686196&oapc=7&oas=krClCXAcB_0ueQfiSyP-6w.. I'm not involved at all in the recruitment for this but I can answer general questions about working at Imperial - feel free to email [email protected]

The JD says a degree is a requirement but that's mainly because HR seem to want that there. We've appointed people in the past without degrees and I'm sure we'll do the same in the future. Apologies if what follows is at the level of teaching granny to suck eggs but hopefully it will help someone. The key thing is that you need to be able to show that you can do the job because you've got the relevant experience. If you look at the person spec you'll see there are about 20 things listed - you need to show how you match each of them. In the last recruitment session we received about 120 applications and we wanted to interview no more than 12 (although I think we actually interviewed 15) To throw away (sounds harsh but I'm afraid that's what it is) 90% of applications we need to be able to quickly identify ones which are not worth keeping and ones which look good. We do this with a checklist - eg we specify "Willingness to work co-operatively as part of a team; and to contribute to the smooth running of the Faculty Support Team." The checklist will say "teamwork" and we're looking for examples of how you've worked as part of a team. Many people here basically work on their own (and often do an amazing job) but that's not what we're looking for - you need to make it clear that even if you're the only IT person you recognise that you form part of a team in the school where you work. Related to this is "Ability to diagnose critical situations and seek specialist help as appropriate" The checklist item for this is "escalation" and we're looking for people who don't try to do everything themselves but will escalate when necessary (if you work on your own it's hard to get used to the fact that a place like Imperial has a lot of other people to help - you don't ever have to restore a file; someone else does that for you, for example) I won't go through all the other criteria but I hope you can see the idea - for each criterion you need to demonstrate that you meet it (and you need to do it succinctly and clearly!) We score each checklist item - 0 if you don't show anything relevant, 1 if we feel you've got something on the right lines and 2 if we think you're a good match. You need to make sure that you get as many 2s as possible ... Finally, you *MUST* complete the application form - we don't get to see anything but the form. Forms which just say "please see CV" fall at the first hurdle.

We're recruiting more desktop support staff! https://www4.ad.ic.ac.uk/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/irc/candidateSelfService/webui/VisVacDispPG&akRegionApplicationId=821&transactionid=1100097379&retainAM=Y&addBreadCrumb=S&p_svid=44299&p_spid=1680208&oapc=7&oas=42IukoAW3UCUtkJuMDo6KQ.. Salary: £29,350 - £33,410 per annum (Professional Services 3A) £34,270 – £42,380 per annum (Professional Services 3B) (Appointment would normally be at level 3a with progression to level 3b if appropriate) We're looking to appoint 3 new people to the Faculty Support group within IT Services (replacing a mix of promotions and retirements). Faculty Support provides a wide range of end-user support - this is not working with servers or network infrastructure but working with the 21,000 staff and students who make up Imperial College. Most teaching machines run 64 bit Windows 7 but staff machines are a mix of Windows (normally Windows 7 but we still have a substantial number of XP machines in labs, typically plugged into big and expensive equipment), Linux (mainly Red Hat and Ubuntu but could be anything) and Mac. I manage one of the support groups and I can answer general questions about what the job entails or what it's like to work at Imperial College. Feel free to post questions here or email me directly - [email protected] If you get the job then you'll be joining a growing band of Edugeekers; in the past 18 months, 4 people have joined Imperial after responding to my posts here. None of them has yet run screaming from the building so I reckon that means it's not too bad a place to work :-) If you want to apply for the job then please download the pack from the website, complete the form and return as directed. Note that these are permanent contracts; if you're interested in a one year post then take a look at this: https://www4.ad.ic.ac.uk/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/irc/candidateSelfService/webui/VisVacDispPG&OAHP=IRC_EXT_SITE_VISITOR_APPL&OASF=IRC_VIS_VAC_DISPLAY&akRegionApplicationId=821&transactionid=1100097379&retainAM=Y&addBreadCrumb=RP&p_svid=44302&p_spid=1680211&oapc=10&oas=TuXc5TxF1HZpVT6695RS-A.. (it's the same JD, just a different job reference. I've no idea why this is a fixed term contract - I suspect that it's to provide cover somewhere but don't really know! If you get the job, it will end after 12 months but if you're here then you're obviously in a better position to apply for jobs which might come up in the future)

Tower Hamlets College is currently advertising for the following posts. Details at https://www.tower.ac.uk/work-for-us/current-vacancies Please note that I know nothing about the posts - I've just been sent an email advertising them. Developer circa £45K / Reference: IT10 / Closing Date: Friday 4th July 2014 at 12pm Technical Architect circa £45K / Reference: IT11 / Closing Date: Friday 4th July 2014 at 12pm Senior Engineer £39K - £43k / Reference: IT12 / Closing Date: Friday 4th July 2014 at 12pm Network Engineers circa £31k / Reference: IT13 / Closing Date: Friday 4th July 2014 at 12pm

I just wrote a reply which seems to have vanished; apologies if this now appears twice! Please can you contact Laura Gates (ICT Communications Manager - details in the advert) to find out more about the actual job. I know we have a presence on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/theservicedesk) which is very little used and Twitter ( ) and I think we're looking to boost that.

Quoting the advert: "... Digital Media Manager will plan, oversee and develop ICT’s use of digital media channels (website and social media) to support users of College’s ICT and promote the work of the division. The post-holder will play a leading role in delivering ICT’s new and improved website. Work is underway to design and build a new, customer-oriented site, due for introduction early in 2015. A new site will help users to easily find and understand ICT service and system guidance, and readily access ICT expertise and support. " https://www4.ad.ic.ac.uk/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/irc/candidateSelfService/webui/VisVacDispPG&akRegionApplicationId=821&transactionid=1450885800&retainAM=Y&addBreadCrumb=S&p_svid=43848&p_spid=1670124&oapc=7&oas=Jhl4kffnXzWC4tkZ3DnaXQ.. This is a new post. ICT at Imperial is big (c. 250 people) supporting over 21,000 users. Much of what we do is excellent (we get satisfaction ratings of way over 90% in the student survey each year as an example) but sometimes people find it hard to know exactly what we do. The Imperial College website is also about to be replaced; it's currently based on Oracle Portal (about which I'll say nothing) I don't know any specifics about this job but if you want to know anything general about working at Imperial then let me know - [email protected]

Our Service Desk is the first point of contact for users - they deal with queries coming in by phone, email or website as well as users turning up in person. In an average month, the Service Desk team handle about 3,000 calls (it's a lot more in October when term starts; a lot less in August when everyone is on the beach :-)) If you want to get experience in a big organisation (Imperial College is quite a small university but we still have over 21,000 users) then this might be a good job for you. Customer service skills are critical - lots of people who phone will be calling because something has gone wrong and they need it fixing now. Details are here - https://www4.ad.ic.ac.uk/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/irc/candidateSelfService/webui/VisVacDispPG&akRegionApplicationId=821&transactionid=1620553585&retainAM=Y&addBreadCrumb=S&p_svid=43798&p_spid=1668186&oapc=7&oas=3fLRH43HJjAZjz3rsN4kPQ.. If you want general information about the job then feel free to contact me - [email protected] - but if you want to apply for the job then please fill in the form and return it as directed (and do fill in the form - don't include a CV or covering letter; they almost certainly won't be seen)

We use Service Now as our service management tool - as you can see (if I uploaded the right picture!) it already has a purple theme and the new website seems to have lots of purple colour blocks on the mockup I've seen :-)

You will get a chance to visit the baby making unit at Hammersmith :-) [For those not in the know, that's the bit of Imperial NHS Trust where they do IVF]

Big congratulations! You're now the 4th Edugeeker to come to Imperial after I've posted adverts - I'll have to introduce you to all of them and you can have your own little corner of the SCR :-) Just to make you even more big headed, I'm told that you were easily the best candidate - apparently after about 5 minutes the panel had decided that you were getting the job but felt that they had to go on with the rest of the interview just to comply with rules and regulations! I'm sure you'll be perfect here - there is lots to learn but that's always a good thing. For anyone else looking for a new challenge we will be advertising more jobs in ICT - there's a lot of changes going on at the moment and we're growing from about 250 staff to probably 270-280 in the next 6 months or so.

https://www.recruit.ox.ac.uk/pls/hrisliverecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.jobspec?p_id=113072 Just been sent details of these 2 posts - they're at the University of Oxford so nothing to do with me but hopefully of interest to someone here. Salary can go up to £40,046 p.a. on a discretionary basis. I suspect they'd be pretty interesting jobs; the advert has contact details for Stuart McRobert if you want more information and the closing date is noon on 9 June 2014

It's sort of neither :-) We employ outside contractors to put in the cables; we have other people who actually manage the switches. This is more about dealing with project managers and architects to make sure that new wiring is done properly, doing some of the installing (not putting in the actual racks and cables but putting in switches and WAPs, for example), dealing with faults (getting in contractors or just replacing failed devices). The networks team comprises about 10 people (they do very different things - eg SMTP relays are handled there as well as routers that can handle up to 40Gbit/s of network traffic) Imperial College has a population of over 20,000 - that makes it bigger than some towns - so although this might not seem like much of a job it's actually quite important.

https://www4.ad.ic.ac.uk/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/irc/candidateSelfService/webui/VisVacDispPG&OAHP=IRC_EXT_SITE_VISITOR_APPL&OASF=IRC_VIS_VAC_DISPLAY&akRegionApplicationId=821&transactionid=735494826&retainAM=Y&addBreadCrumb=RP&p_svid=43416&p_spid=1661092&oapc=13&oas=rtxT8nItGMCYCHjpNdCCDg.. Closing date 21 April 2014 If you've never worked in a large organisation it might not be obvious what the role entails so this is a brief quote from the job description: "This is a post in the networks team and the purpose is to deliver technical solutions for network infrastructure, from design through to implementation and maintenance. To be clear, this is NOT technical network engineering, it is about the physical installation of hardware within and between buildings." There are several people involved in providing this service; we currently have over 80,000 network sockets (the number grows pretty much daily!), 450 wiring cabinets, 1400 switches (mostly Extreme), a wireless network that often sees 10,000 simultaneous connections, about 10,000 Cisco VoIP phones and lots of other things! I'm not involved in this recruitment but I can give general information about ICT at Imperial College - ask here or email [email protected]

https://www4.ad.ic.ac.uk/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/irc/candidateSelfService/webui/VisVacDispPG&OAHP=IRC_EXT_SITE_VISITOR_APPL&OASF=IRC_VIS_VAC_DISPLAY&akRegionApplicationId=821&transactionid=735494826&retainAM=Y&addBreadCrumb=RP&p_svid=43447&p_spid=1661123&oapc=10&oas=pHzXAeeHkJ-aG4exz5YJ9g.. Closing date 28 April 2014. This is a post in the Infrastructure Applications Support team, mainly focussing on Exchange Server (currently 2010 but there is a project to move to 2013), Lync 2013 and Symantec Enterprise Vault. Mail relays and spam scanning are provided separately (networks and security team respectively) The team also supports SharePoint, SCCM, Airwatch, Casper and probably some other systems I've forgotten. I'm not involved at all in this post but can offer general advice about working at Imperial College and the way ICT works - ask here or email me [email protected]

That's fine as a starting point - you need to be experienced in one OS to start (typically that's Windows) and having experience of another OS is a bonus. Over time we'd expect you to gain more skills either in Mac OS or Linux (or both) Most Linux queries are quite simple (please can you install XXX, how do I mount a network drive, how do I print to the swipecard printers etc) but there is more complex stuff (how can I use rsync to do Time Machine type backups was an interesting one [the answer is that you tell it to use hard links])

https://www4.ad.ic.ac.uk/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/irc/candidateSelfService/webui/VisVacDispPG&akRegionApplicationId=821&transactionid=2064499591&retainAM=Y&addBreadCrumb=S&p_svid=43407&p_spid=1661083&oapc=7&oas=sts8z3Yzci15ENc2og_iWg.. Salary: £28,770 - £32,750 per annum (Professional Services Level 3a) £33,590 – 41,540 per annum (Professional Services Level 3b) (Appointment would normally be at level 3a with progression to level 3b if appropriate) We're looking to appoint 4 new people to the Faculty Support group within IT Services (replacing a mix of promotions and retirements). Faculty Support provides a wide range of end-user support - this is not working with servers or network infrastructure but working with the 21,000 staff and students who make up Imperial College. Most teaching machines run 64 bit Windows 7 but staff machines are a mix of Windows (normally Windows 7 but we still have a substantial number of XP machines in labs, typically plugged into big and expensive equipment), Linux (mainly Red Hat and Ubuntu but could be anything) and Mac. I manage one of the support groups and although I'm not involved in the recruitment process I can answer general questions about what the job entails or what it's like to work at Imperial College. Feel free to post questions here or email me directly - [email protected] If you want to apply for the job then please download the pack from the website, complete the form and return as directed.

Let's start with the link for this one: https://www4.ad.ic.ac.uk/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/irc/candidateSelfService/webui/VisVacDispPG&OAHP=IRC_EXT_SITE_VISITOR_APPL&OASF=IRC_VIS_VAC_DISPLAY&akRegionApplicationId=821&transactionid=1743314560&retainAM=Y&addBreadCrumb=RP&p_svid=43391&p_spid=1661067&oapc=10&oas=37TkR2QAjHyJ_PbQAIkAAw.. Salary £42,670 - £51,590 per annum This post is in the technical operations group and involves managing the webservers - we run 2 main web farms, one on Windows server and the other on Linux. This post is mainly focussed on the Windows farm but I know the team does work together and obviously if you have skills in both areas that's a good thing. The servers host quite a few websites (a quick count shows about 350 sites on the Windows farm; they're used by research groups, admin departments and for some teaching purposes). Note that the main College web site (Imperial College London) is an Oracle Portal site - it's hosted on separate servers. I'm not involved in the recruitment for this post but can offer general information about ICT in general or Imperial College - ask here or email me: [email protected]