subject: What is an Infrastructure Manager Expected to Do? [print this page] What is an Infrastructure Manager Expected to Do?
A career in the information technology sector is certainly a profitable one, but you need to constantly upgrade your skills in order to keep up with the developments in the sector. When you have worked in the industry for long, you can expect to become an infrastructure manager after acquiring sufficient years of experience in the industry.
Infrastructure manager jobs require the candidate to do planning for projects, organisation and the management of staff to ensure that the IT operations of the company are carried out smoothly. The key areas that require the attention of the IT manager include the maintenance, optimisation, development and support in diverse functional areas especially in the fields of data communications, network infrastructure, telecommunications systems and server infrastructure. The infrastructure manager is also supposed to arrange resources and carry out tasks necessary for taking stock of software and hardware problems in a timely manner.
The responsibilities of the infrastructure manager are numerous and varied.
It is necessary to set the priorities right for the maintenance, evaluation, design and development of the different infrastructure systems that include the WANs, the LANs, security, Intranet, wireless implementations and Internet
Draft bid proposals, scope of work reports, RFPs, documentation and contracts for different projects and other associated tasks
Participation in the creation of different strategies for the IT business in collaboration with the executive team
Carry out feasibility studies for the sake of projects that are dedicated to improvement of products and upgrading the quality of services.
The creation and implementation of long term and short term strategies to make sure that the infrastructure capacity is developed enough to meet the present and future requirements
Negotiating with contractors and vendors for securing services and products that are infrastructure specific
The management of operational costs and making short and long term financial forecasts for expanding user base and functionality
Actively participating in creating IT strategies in combination with the executive team
Conducting research and also providing recommendations on protocols, products, standards and services that support development efforts and infrastructure procurement
Define software and hardware standards in compliance with stakeholders and owners
Offer statistics indicating network performance and testing the same and developing strategies for the maintenance of network infrastructure
The development, implementation and maintenance of policies and procedures and also training policies for project management and infrastructure administration
Infrastructure managers are often assigned the task of leading teams, set standards and strategies, designing multi-entity service desks, and supervise IT infrastructure projects. Companies often set the criteria for recruiting infrastructure managers and candidates with years of experience in the industry are given preference over others. The installation and maintenance of network devices is also the responsibility of the infrastructure managers. Virtualisation jobs also call for the recruitment of infrastructure managers who are in charge of these projects.
The ideal profile for infrastructure management jobs is that of engineers. People with a science background can also apply for such jobs provided they have worked in the industry for long.
