Senior Discovery and Configuration Manager

Job Title: Senior Discovery and Configuration Manager

Location: Reading- 3 Days a week

Job Type: 12 Months Fixed Term

Role purpose

• The Configuration Management team are responsible for ensuring that the data in the CLIENT Configuration Management Databases (CMDB) acts as a single source of truth for all CLIENT configuration data because it is maintained, modelled and governed.

• The role is responsible for developing the strategy for Discovery and Configuration Management along with the end-to-end Configuration Management Process at both high and low levels where appropriate. The role also provides subject matter expertise to support project teams, architects and designers as well as maintaining and advising on definition/dictionaries of data held within the CMDB.

• The Discovery and Configuration Manager is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Discovery and Configuration Management team, ensuring processes are being correctly followed, that data quality is being measured and maintained/improved.

• The role is responsible for supporting the delivery of projects and programs, ensuring the seamless transition of deliveries into the CLIENT Configuration Management estate in a controlled manner, that aligns with our configuration management principles for service data modelling and data quality whilst protecting existing services and assisting the business to understand demarcation of our configuration management processes.

• The Discovery and Configuration Manager is the Business Owner of the Discovery application and is responsible for the support, maintenance, and development of the application.

• Management, coaching and development of the Discovery and Configuration team is also a part of this role, along with being an advocate of configuration management, data quality and automation.

• The Discovery and Configuration Manager is responsible for leading the delivery of our Audit commitments (both internal and external) ensuring that our reporting obligations are delivered and completing any existing or new observations required to resolve/maintain compliance.

• The role is responsible for identifying and managing relationships with key stakeholders, suppliers, and vendors, working to act as an educator and advocate of the Discovery and Configuration Management processes.

Key responsibilities & accountabilities

• Define Configuration Management principles, policy, processes, and best practices across CLIENT.

• As the Business Owner of the Discovery Application ensure there is a Roadmap and development plan in place that allows CLIENT to fully exploit the benefits that the tool can offer.

• Engage with Solution Design, development, and architecture teams to influence the overall strategy for forthcoming technology & application changes and improve use of Discovery and the CMDB data structure.

• Ensure that documentation exists and is regularly reviewed and validated for data architecture/data models, definitions of the configuration data and agreed data quality rules.

• Ensure process documentation including high level process, procedures and work instructions are regularly reviewed and updated if necessary. Review and assess whether these are actual configuration management deliverables and escalate any concerns.

• Ensure that Discovery design documentation (for example how TPL code have been designed applied, how precedence rules are being applied etc) is kept up to date and is regularly reviewed and validated.

• Be the Discovery and Configuration Management lead on large projects, ensuring all configuration management requirements are in scope and that any data modelling/definition and architecture diagrams are produced/updated and that our data builds (CI's, application models, service to application mapping) are all delivered into our Configuration Management System to our defined standards and that any deployment of Discovery/TPL codes etc are delivered.

• Support the production of project impact assessments and the delivery of smaller projects ensuring that new Configuration Items (CIs), and service to application mapping and application modelling are reflected in the CMDB's and that any deployment of Discovery/TPL codes etc are delivered.

• Responsible for the day-to-day maintenance and updating of the Configuration Management Systems. Ensuring that new Configuration Items (CIs) and their relationships to one another are identified and controlled/updated throughout their lifecycle. Ensure there are processes in place to process error logs/data exceptions/analyse reports for data changes/anomalies etc. Ensure the performance of processes can be monitored and measured.

• Responsible for day-to-day maintenance of BMC Discovery. Tasks include design, build, deployment & configuration of new discovery infrastructure as well as managing Discovery support & data feed issues, including TPL errors and owning resolution end to end, working closely with Vendors and Suppliers alike.

• Responsible for the resolution of Incidents raised against Configuration and Discovery tools, ensuring Incidents are resolved within SLA and Root Cause Analysis is completed and acted on where appropriate.

• Measure, monitor and report on the quality of the data in the Configuration Management System and look to identify improvements to the data quality in line with business needs and priorities by tackling data quality issues at source.

• Ensure that Configuration Items are owned, and that the ownership is regularly checked and validated in line with best DQ practice.

• Support the development of targets, measures and KPI's for Discovery and Configuration Management and then when delivered develop a plan for how to meet/exceed the targets.

• Management of Suppliers, developing the relationship and ensuring that our suppliers are delivering against their contractual obligations.

• Experience or understanding of project management methodologies including planning, risk and issue management and delivery.

• Responsible for ensuring compliance to the required governance standards/controls of all relevant audit requirements (including but not limited to SOX, IL3, ISO20000 and ISO27001). This includes gathering evidence, delivering reporting (automated where possible) and supporting the audit process.

Essential skills, knowledge, or experience (Inc. professional or technical qualifications)

• Experience of maintaining and managing Enterprise level Configuration Management and BMC Discovery tools and processes.

• Excellent understanding of the Discovery Tool, best practices and how to fully exploit the benefits that the tool can deliver.

• Application Modelling Experience - Including BMC SAAM (Start Anywhere Application Mapping), CAM (Collaborative Application Mapping) and at the forefront of new developments and education of the wider team during version upgrade/systems maturity.

• Good understanding and use of BMC Helix/Remedy and Atrium CMDB with a good understanding of BMC Common Data Model and the SID (Shared Information Data model)

• Excellent understanding of technologies used by IT Infrastructure (Virtualisation, LDOM, Cloud etc).

• Strong understanding of Configuration Management's role within other ITSM functions, including exposure/experience of Change Management, Incident Management (including Major Incident) and Problem Management.

• Experience or understanding of project management methodologies including planning, risk and issue management and delivery.

• Imaginative and innovative thinking particularly relating to problem solving and new opportunities to enhance the integrity of Configuration Management, its systems, processes and data.

• Experience of analysing current processes to proactively identify improvement opportunities.

• Excellent people management skills focussing on performance, development, and softer skills.

• Excellent Stakeholder Management skills helping them to understand the benefits of Discovery and Configuration Management as well as developing strong working relationships with key infrastructure teams and asset managers.

• Supplier Relationship Management skills, developing strong partnerships with suppliers and ensuring that they are delivering against contractual obligations.

• ITIL Service Management Accreditation.

• Strong Data Science/Analysis and reporting skills

• Able to produce good quality documentation & Architecture Diagrams (Visio) and processes.

• BMC Discovery TPL (Tideway Pattern Language) experience.

• Understanding of the following:
  Linux/Wintel Administration.
  Cloud Services (AWS/Azure/Openstack).
  Virtualisation platform exposure, VMware/HyperV/other
  Django Web Framework

• SQL/MySQL/VBA/Python/Java/Perl/Bash and or similar scripting language knowledge.

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