Mainframe Storage & Virtual Tape Administrator

Advanced Network Consulting Inc; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Advanced Network Consulting Inc seeks an experienced IBM z/OS Mainframe Storage Administrator to oversee DASD, tape, and virtual tape environments in a demanding enterprise setting. You will monitor capacity, performance, and data integrity, while coordinating DR testing and vendor support.

The role requires hands-on expertise with DFSMS, Luminex LTMon, RACF, and ITIL-aligned operations. On-site Washington DC area preferred for collaboration with production teams.

Qualifications

• Minimum 6+ years dedicated experience in IBM z/OS Mainframe Storage Administration.
• Advanced proficiency with DFSMS (DFSMSdfp, DFSMSdss, DFSMShsm, DFSMSrmm/CA-1), IDCAMS, and catalog management utilities.

Responsibilities

• Monitor and administer mainframe DASD resources across SMS storage groups, volumes, and user pools.
• Perform capacity forecasting, utilization tracking, availability verification, and I/O performance monitoring.
• Investigate and resolve DASD allocation failures, SB37/SD37/SE37, abnormal catalog states, and volume fragmentation.
• Execute volume initialization, pool additions, data migration, volume consolidation, defragmentation, and decommissioning.
• Identify and mitigate storage bottlenecks impacting CICS, DB2, or batch processing.
• Maintain enterprise tape operations, including IBM SL4000 environments and hardware health.
• Troubleshoot tape mounts, missing volumes, read/write errors, robotic arm faults, and drive degradation.
• Coordinate tape hardware failures and firmware updates with vendors.
• Administer, monitor, and troubleshoot Luminex MVT/CGX; monitor replication links and DR readiness.
• Use LTMon for telemetry and channel health diagnostics; support DR simulations.
• Manage media lifecycles, retention policies, and seamless coexistence with physical tape ops.
• Coordinate patching and incident resolution with Luminex support; keep runbooks updated.
• Ensure RACF compliance and ITIL-aligned change, incident, and problem management.

Skills

IBM z/OS Storage Administration

DFSMS suite

Tape Library Management

Luminex MVT/CGX/LTMon

TSO/ISPF

SDSF

JCL

JES2

ITIL Incident Management

Capacity & Performance Monitoring

Tools

DFSMSdfp

DFSMSdss

DFSMShsm

DFSMSrmm/CA-1

IDCAMS

Job description

SCOPE OF WORK & PURPOSE

The Contractor shall provide dedicated, hands-on senior technical administration and operational support for the enterprise IBM z/ OS mainframe storage ecosystem. The Contractor is responsible for maintaining high availability, capacity health, performance, data integrity, and disaster recovery readiness across enterprise Direct Access Storage Devices (DASD), automated physical tape libraries, and virtual tape subsystems.

DETAILED TECHNICAL RESPONSIBILITIES

2.1. DASD Administration & Capacity Management

• Monitoring & Allocation: Monitor, administer, allocate, and manage mainframe DASD resources across all SMS storage groups, volumes, and user pools.
• Capacity & Utilization Analytics: Perform continuous capacity forecasting, utilization tracking, availability verification, and I/O performance monitoring to avert space exhaustion.
• Space Incident Resolution: Investigate and resolve DASD-related allocation failures, out-of-space abends (SB37, SD37, SE37), abnormal catalog states, and volume fragmentation.
• Volume Lifecycle Support: Execute volume initialization, pool additions, data migration, volume consolidation, defragmentation, and decommission activities.
• Workload Safeguarding: Proactively identify and eliminate storage bottlenecks that may degrade online systems (CICS, DB2), production databases, or critical batch cycles.

2.2. Enterprise Tape & IBM SL4000 Tape Library Operations

• Tape Infrastructure Support: Maintain enterprise tape operations, catalog retention rules, and physical library hardware health.
• IBM SL4000 Administration: Monitor, manage, and audit IBM SL4000 automated tape library environments (or equivalent enterprise tape platform).
• Hardware & Mount Troubleshooting: Investigate and resolve tape mount timeouts, missing/unassigned volumes, media read/ write errors, robotic arm faults, and drive hardware degradation.
• OEM Vendor Coordination: Coordinate tape hardware failures, drive replacements, firmware updates, and scheduled maintenance with internal infrastructure teams and OEM service vendors.

2.3. Luminex Mainframe Virtual Tape (MVT) & CGX Administration

• Virtual Tape Platform Support: Administer, monitor, and troubleshoot Luminex Mainframe Virtual Tape (MVT) systems and Channel Gateway (CGX) components.
• Throughput & Telemetry Oversight: Monitor channel availability, virtual drive states, backend SAN/NAS storage capacity, data transfer throughput, and system error logs.
• Operational Tooling (LTMon): Leverage Luminex operational tooling (LTMon or equivalent utilities) for message auditing, telemetry analysis, and channel health diagnostics.
• Replication & DR Testing: Monitor Luminex replication links, virtual tape synchronization health, recovery readiness, and participate in formal enterprise DR simulations.
• Media Lifecycle & Retention: Manage virtual scratch pools, VOLSER ranges, retention policies, and maintain seamless coexistence with physical tape operations.
• OEM Support & Configuration Governance: Coordinate patching, microcode updates, and incident resolution with Luminex Technical Support; maintain architecture diagrams, inventories, configuration records, and operational runbooks.
• Risk Analysis: Continuously assess single points of failure, channel latency, backend storage saturation, and replication backlog risks, recommending mitigation plans.

2.4. Production Storage Batch & Workload Collaboration

• Storage Abend Remediation: Rapidly triage storage-related overnight batch failures, allocation delays, and dataset lockups to ensure uninterrupted batch completion.
• Early-Morning Stabilization: Provide hands-on early-morning support to stabilize storage pools and tape mounts prior to business start-of-day.
• Workload Control Alignment: Collaborate closely with Workload Automation / Production Control personnel to remediate storage-related job halts and align dataset availability.
• Multi-Tier Escalation: Escalate storage issues requiring Systems Programming, RACF Security, database administration, or third-party engineering support.

SECURITY, ACCESS & CHANGE GOVERNANCE

• RACF Compliance: Operate strictly within established RACF security profiles, dataset protection rules, and privileged access protocols.
• Operational Coordination: Maintain thorough comprehension of RACF security dependencies to safely coordinate storage volume maintenance without disrupting running workloads.
• ITIL Alignment: Adhere to enterprise ITIL processes for Change, Incident, and Problem Management; document RCAs and participate in change implementation reviews.

QUALIFICATIONS & TECHNICAL COMPETENCIES

• Experience: Minimum 6+ years dedicated experience in IBM z/OS Mainframe Storage Administration.
• Storage Software: Advanced proficiency with DFSMS (DFSMSdfp, DFSMSdss, DFSMShsm, DFSMSrmm/CA-1), IDCAMS, and catalog management utilities.
• Storage Hardware: Hands-on operational mastery of enterprise DASD storage arrays, IBM SL4000 automated tape libraries, and Luminex Virtual Tape (MVT/CGX/LTMon).
• Operating Environment: Strong competency with TSO/ISPF, SDSF, JCL, and JES2 commands.
• Incident Governance: Proven experience adhering to enterprise ITIL incident management SLAs (e.g., ServiceNow).