Network Management System (NMS) Engineer

1. Purpose

The Network Management System (NMS) Engineer is responsible for designing, deploying, operating and continuously improving the tools and processes used to monitor, manage and report on the organization’s network infrastructure, ensuring high availability, performance and security.

2. Key Responsibilities

2.1 NMS Platform Design and Deployment

• Design, install, configure and upgrade NMS tools (e.g., SolarWinds, PRTG, Zabbix, Nagios, LibreNMS, Cisco DNA Center/Prime, HPE IMC, NetBrain).

• Define monitoring architecture, including pollers, collectors, redundancy, scalability and data retention.

• Integrate the NMS with ITSM (ServiceNow, Jira), SIEM, CMDB and notification tools (email, SMS, Teams/Slack, PagerDuty).

2.2 Monitoring and Fault Management

• Onboard network devices: routers, switches, firewalls, wireless controllers/APs, load balancers, servers and links.

• Configure SNMP (v2c/v3), Syslog, NetFlow/sFlow/IPFIX, ICMP, API and streaming telemetry.

• Define thresholds, alert rules, escalation paths and event correlation to reduce alert noise.

• Monitor availability, latency, packet loss, bandwidth, CPU/memory and interface errors on a 24/7 basis.

• Triage alarms, perform root-cause analysis and route incidents to the appropriate teams.

2.3 Performance and Capacity Management

• Analyze trends in bandwidth, device load and WAN/Internet link utilization.

• Produce capacity-planning forecasts and upgrade recommendations.

• Monitor SLAs, QoS and application performance (e.g., IP SLA, synthetic tests).

2.4 Configuration and Change Management

• Maintain automated configuration backups, version control and compliance checks against golden configurations.

• Detect unauthorized changes and support the change-approval process.

• Maintain device inventory, IP address management (IPAM) and asset records.

2.5 Topology and Documentation

• Maintain live network topology maps and service dependency views.

• Produce SOPs, runbooks, monitoring standards and as-built documentation.

2.6 Reporting

• Deliver daily, weekly and monthly reports on availability, SLA compliance, incidents and utilization.

• Build dashboards for NOC, management and customers.

• Provide KPIs such as MTTD, MTTR, uptime percentage and top talkers.

2.7 Automation and Optimization

• Automate routine tasks (onboarding, reporting, remediation) using Python, Ansible, REST APIs or PowerShell.

• Tune polling intervals and thresholds, and remove stale objects.

• Evaluate AIOps, predictive analytics and new tooling.

2.8 Security and Compliance

• Enforce secure management access: SNMPv3, TACACS+/RADIUS, role-based access control and least privilege.

• Keep NMS servers patched and hardened.

• Support audits and compliance frameworks (e.g., ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, internal policies).

2.9 Support and Collaboration

• Provide L2/L3 support to the NOC and manage vendor escalations (Cisco, Juniper, Fortinet, etc.).

• Participate in the on-call rotation and major incident reviews (RCA/PIR).

• Train NOC operators and perform knowledge transfer.

3. Deliverables

• A fully operational, documented NMS with all in-scope devices onboarded.

• Alerting and escalation matrix.

• Dashboards and scheduled reports.

• Configuration backup and compliance regime.

• Topology maps, SOPs, runbooks and as-built documents.

• Monthly or quarterly capacity and performance review reports.

• Automation scripts and playbooks.

4. Non Technical Work Activities

Unless otherwise agreed in writing, the following are excluded:

• Physical cabling and hardware installation.

• Application- or server-level administration beyond network monitoring.

• Procurement and licensing decisions (advisory role only).

• Raising Project Justification Paper for management approval.

• Network design changes not related to manageability.

5. Key Performance Indicators

Monitoring coverage of in-scope devices ≥ 99.9%

Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) < 5 minutes

Reduction in false-positive alerts ≥ [X]% within [N] months

Daily configuration backup success and do Onboarding and Offboarding of CPEs. - 100% of devices

Scheduled reports delivered on time - 100%

6. Required Skills and Qualifications

Networking - TCP/IP, routing (BGP, OSPF), switching, VLANs, wireless, firewalls, SD-WAN

Protocols - SNMP, Syslog, NetFlow, ICMP, streaming telemetry

Tools - One or more major NMS platforms; Grafana/Prometheus or ELK is an advantage

Automation and Systems - Python/Ansible scripting, Linux/Windows server administration, basic SQL

Certifications - CCNA/CCNP, JNCIA, vendor NMS certifications, ITIL Foundation

7. Working Arrangements

• Business hours with on-call support as per the rotation schedule.

• Reports to the Network Operations Manager or Infrastructure Lead.

• Has good interpersonal skill and work as a Team.

• Must be able to do presentation on project proposal and issue handling.