About the position
Transform Enterprise Storage. Lead Critical Migration. Deliver Resilience.
Are you an experienced Storage Specialist with deep Mainframe and Enterprise Storage expertise?
We are looking for a Senior Storage Specialist / Storage Migration Lead to play a critical role in a major enterprise transformation within a highly regulated environment.
This is an opportunity to lead and support the migration of mission-critical mainframe storage workloads from Dell EMC PowerMax (PMAX) infrastructure to IBM Virtual Tape System (VTS) and associated IBM storage technologies.
Key Responsibilities
Storage Migration Planning & Execution
- Assess the current Dell EMC PowerMax (PMAX) storage environment, architecture and workload dependencies.
- Lead storage discovery, capacity analysis and migration readiness assessments.
- Design migration strategies, implementation plans, detailed runbooks and rollback procedures.
- Define migration waves and coordinate testing cycles, dress rehearsals and production cutovers.
- Drive migration execution while minimising operational and business disruption.
- Ensure data integrity, validation and reconciliation throughout all migration activities.
- Identify migration risks, dependencies and potential service impacts and implement appropriate mitigation strategies.
- Provide hands-on support during critical production migration windows and hypercare periods.
IBM Virtual Tape System (VTS) Implementation
- Configure, administer and support IBM Virtual Tape System (VTS) environments.
- Work extensively with IBM TS7700 Series technologies.
- Integrate IBM VTS services with z/OS and enterprise backup and recovery platforms.
- Manage virtual tape libraries, tape pools, retention policies and archival processes.
- Support IBM storage integration and associated Copy Services capabilities.
- Optimise virtual tape performance, capacity and resource utilisation.
- Ensure stable and efficient post-migration IBM VTS operations.
Mainframe Storage Administration
- Support enterprise IBM zSeries / z/OS storage environments.
- Manage storage provisioning, allocation and utilisation.
- Support DFSMS, SMS Storage Management and HSM processes.
- Configure, maintain and troubleshoot FICON connectivity.
- Perform storage performance analysis and optimisation.
- Support storage replication, recovery and disaster recovery services.
- Work closely with Mainframe Systems Programmers, Infrastructure teams and Storage Operations teams.
Performance & Capacity Management
- Monitor enterprise storage utilisation and identify capacity trends.
- Forecast future storage requirements and support capacity planning initiatives.
- Monitor storage KPIs, availability targets and SLAs.
- Investigate storage bottlenecks and implement performance optimisation initiatives.
- Analyse workload patterns and resource consumption.
- Produce performance dashboards, capacity reports and operational insights.
- Support continuous improvement across enterprise storage services.
Disaster Recovery & Resilience
- Support storage replication and failover strategies.
- Work with technologies such as SRDF/A and SRDF/S to support resilient storage services.
- Participate in Disaster Recovery testing, failover exercises and recovery simulations.
- Validate that storage solutions meet agreed RTO and RPO requirements.
- Support business continuity planning and recovery procedures.
- Maintain accurate DR, recovery and resilience documentation.
- Identify opportunities to strengthen storage availability and operational resilience.
Governance, Compliance & Documentation
- Develop and maintain storage architecture diagrams and technical designs.
- Create detailed migration runbooks, operational procedures and rollback plans.
- Maintain accurate configuration management and infrastructure records.
- Support audit, regulatory and compliance requirements.
- Ensure adherence to enterprise security and operational standards.
- Facilitate knowledge transfer and operational handover to support teams.
- Produce clear documentation to support sustainable post-migration operations.
RequirementsStrong hands-on experience with:
- Dell EMC PowerMax (PMAX)
- Unisphere for PowerMax
- SRDF/A
- SRDF/S
- SnapVX
- Storage replication technologies
- Enterprise SAN administration
- Storage performance and capacity management
IBM Storage Technologies
Experience with:
- IBM Virtual Tape System (VTS)
- IBM TS7700 Series
- IBM DS8000 Storage
- IBM Storage Insights
- IBM Copy Services
- GDPS integration exposure
- Enterprise backup, recovery and archival environments
Mainframe Technologies
Strong understanding of:
- IBM z/OS
- JCL
- DFSMS
- SMS Storage Management
- HSM
- FICON architecture
- RACF awareness
- Mainframe storage operations and workload management
Data Protection & Recovery
Experience in:
- Enterprise backup and recovery technologies
- Storage replication
- Disaster recovery planning and execution
- Failover and recovery procedures
- Business continuity processes
- RTO and RPO management
Monitoring & Operations
Exposure to enterprise monitoring and performance tools such as:
- OMEGAMON
- RMF
- MainView
- Enterprise infrastructure and storage monitoring platforms
Essential Experience
- 8+ years' experience in Enterprise Storage Administration.
- 5+ years' experience supporting IBM Mainframe environments.
- Proven hands-on experience with Dell EMC PowerMax (PMAX).
- Strong experience with IBM TS7700 / IBM VTS platforms.
- Proven experience delivering or supporting large-scale storage migrations.
- Experience with enterprise production cutovers and migration execution.
- Strong knowledge of storage replication and disaster recovery technologies.
- Experience supporting critical, high-availability enterprise environments.
- Strong troubleshooting, analytical and problem-solving capabilities.
- Ability to work across technical, operational and business stakeholders.
Highly Advantageous
- Experience within Banking, Financial Services or another highly regulated industry.
- Experience with mission-critical Mainframe transformation programmes.
- Exposure to IBM DS8000 environments.
- GDPS experience or integration exposure.
- Experience working within complex enterprise Data Centres.
- Previous experience leading migration workstreams or technical cutovers.
Desired Certifications
The following certifications or equivalent experience will be advantageous:
- Dell Technologies Proven Professional Certification
- IBM Certified Storage Administrator
- IBM z/OS or Mainframe-related Certifications
- ITIL Foundation
- TOGAF (desirable)
If you are a Senior Storage Specialist who thrives in complex enterprise environments and has the expertise to successfully navigate a Dell PowerMax to IBM VTS transformation, we would like to hear from you.
Desired Skills:
Desired Qualification Level:
About The Employer:
