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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for AIX Support Administrator

💰 $95,000 - $140,000

ITSystems AdministrationUnixAIXInfrastructure

🎯 Role Definition

The AIX Support Administrator is responsible for the day-to-day stability, security, performance, patching, and lifecycle management of IBM AIX operating systems running on IBM Power Systems. This role focuses on incident and problem resolution, platform hardening, automation of operational runbooks, capacity planning, and close partnership with storage, networking, backup, and application teams. The successful candidate will provide on-call support, execute maintenance windows and upgrades, and drive continuous improvement to reduce mean time to resolution (MTTR) while maintaining high availability SLAs.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Junior Unix / Linux Administrator with exposure to AIX or Power Systems.
  • Systems Administrator (Windows/Linux) transitioning to enterprise Unix platforms.
  • Infrastructure Engineer or Technical Support Engineer with SAN/storage experience.

Advancement To:

  • Senior AIX Engineer / Lead AIX Administrator
  • Unix/Linux Architect or Infrastructure Architect
  • Power Systems Platform Engineer / Cloud Platform Engineer
  • Infrastructure Manager or Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Lead

Lateral Moves:

  • Linux Administrator / Unix Administrator (other Unix flavors)
  • Storage Administrator (EMC/NetApp) or SAN Engineer
  • Virtualization Engineer (PowerVM/VIOS specialist)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Maintain, harden, and administer IBM AIX operating systems across multiple datacenters and cloud-connected Power Systems, ensuring systems meet availability, security, and compliance requirements.
  • Manage PowerVM virtualization infrastructure (LPAR creation, tuning and lifecycle), including VIOS and HMC administration, to provision compute resources and optimize host consolidation.
  • Lead planning and execution of OS patch management and kernel updates for AIX machines using NIM, bosinstall, installp, and smitty, coordinating maintenance windows and rollback plans to minimize downtime.
  • Troubleshoot complex production incidents including kernel panics, filesystem issues (JFS2), CPU/Memory bottlenecks, and I/O saturation, performing root cause analysis and implementing durable fixes.
  • Perform performance tuning using topas, nmon, vmstat, iostat, and other native/system tools to identify hotspots and apply system-level optimizations and kernel parameter changes.
  • Design and operate enterprise backup and recovery processes for AIX servers using Spectrum Protect / TSM or other backup solutions; validate recovery procedures and run DR exercises.
  • Implement, configure, and maintain NFS, CIFS/SMB, and Fibre Channel connectivity to SAN/NAS arrays (EMC, NetApp, Dell) including multipath I/O and zoning troubleshooting.
  • Develop and maintain robust automation and orchestration for common operational tasks (user provisioning, patching, upgrades, health checks) using shell scripting (ksh, bash), Python, Ansible or other automation tools.
  • Support onboarding, provisioning, and offboarding of applications by coordinating LPAR resource allocations, entitlements, ulimits, file system sizing, and network configurations as part of change control.
  • Administer user authentication and directory integration including LDAP, Active Directory integration, NIS/NIS+, Kerberos, and authorization configurations used by AIX servers.
  • Create and maintain runbooks, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and knowledge base articles to accelerate incident resolution and support knowledge transfer among teams.
  • Monitor system health and service availability by configuring and tuning monitoring/alerting tools (Nagios, Zabbix, Splunk, IBM Netcool) and integrate signals into incident management workflows.
  • Drive capacity planning and proactive resource forecasting by analyzing historical metrics and trends for CPU, memory, disk and network, and propose hardware or configuration changes to prevent constraints.
  • Administer logical volume management (LVM), file system operations, and disk reconfiguration tasks including mkvg, mklv, extendfs, and grow and shrink operations while ensuring data integrity.
  • Execute and manage OS installs, migrations, and version upgrades (AIX 6.1/7.1/7.2/7.3) including pre-checks, compatibility validation, and post-upgrade verification for applications and middleware.
  • Coordinate with network, storage, DBA and application teams during cross-functional changes and major incidents to isolate root causes and implement remediation across stack layers.
  • Maintain security posture through patching, vulnerability remediation, implementing best practices (CIS benchmarks), audit readiness, and working closely with InfoSec on compliance requirements.
  • Provide 24x7 on-call support for critical infrastructure incidents, participate in incident response, and ensure timely communication and escalation to stakeholders with post-incident reviews.
  • Assist in vendor management, hardware support escalations and warranty coordination for IBM Power hardware, firmware updates, and service requests.
  • Run system health and architecture reviews; propose improvements such as consolidation, virtualization tuning, and automation that reduce operational overhead and improve reliability.
  • Validate and maintain system backups, snapshots and ensure the integrity of backup images; own restore verification and disaster recovery procedures for AIX workloads.
  • Mentor junior administrators, lead small projects (server migrations, patch cycles, automation initiatives), and contribute to hiring and technical interview processes.
  • Conduct security hardening and configuration audits, implement SSH/Kerberos policies, and remediate misconfigurations that could affect system reliability or compliance.
  • Maintain lifecycle documentation and inventory for AIX assets, ensuring accurate CMDB entries, asset tagging, and hardware/software license tracking.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • IBM AIX administration (AIX 6.1, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3) — installation, patching, upgrades, troubleshooting, and kernel tuning.
  • IBM Power Systems expertise: PowerVM, LPAR management, VIOS, and HMC operations.
  • NIM (Network Installation Manager), bosboot, installp, smit, and alt_disk_install for OS lifecycle management.
  • Shell scripting (ksh, bash) and automation with Python or Perl for daily ops automation and tooling.
  • Configuration management and automation frameworks: Ansible, Puppet, or Chef (playbooks/recipes for AIX environments).
  • Storage and SAN knowledge: FC zoning, multipath, EMC/NetApp/Dell arrays, NFS, CIFS, and snapshot management.
  • Logical Volume Manager (LVM), JFS2/XFS file system administration, filesystem resizing and repair.
  • Monitoring and observability tools: Nagios, Zabbix, Splunk, IBM Netcool, or similar.
  • Backup and recovery solutions: IBM Spectrum Protect (TSM), NetBackup, or similar enterprise backup platforms.
  • Authentication and directory services: LDAP, Active Directory integration, Kerberos, NIS/NIS+.
  • Network troubleshooting fundamentals: TCP/IP, routing, VLANs, bonding, MTU, and network diagnostics on AIX.
  • Performance analysis and tuning tools: nmon, topas, vmstat, iostat, sar, and advanced troubleshooting of CPU/Memory/I/O.
  • Disaster recovery planning and execution, DR runbooks and failover testing for critical AIX workloads.
  • Patch and vulnerability management processes and tools; familiarity with security hardening and compliance frameworks (CIS, PCI, SOX).
  • Logical and physical infrastructure knowledge: HMC firmware, FIxes, and hardware support liaison with IBM or OEM vendors.

Soft Skills

  • Strong written and verbal communication skills for clear runbooks, incident reports, and stakeholder updates.
  • Excellent troubleshooting and analytical thinking with a methodical root cause analysis approach.
  • Customer-focused mindset with the ability to manage priorities and SLAs under pressure.
  • Team collaboration and cross-functional coordination skills across storage, network, DBAs, and application owners.
  • Time management and organization skills for juggling maintenance windows, on-call duties, and project deliverables.
  • Mentoring and knowledge-sharing aptitude to elevate team capability and cross-train peers.
  • Adaptability and continuous learning attitude toward new AIX features, Power Systems, and automation tools.
  • Strong documentation discipline and attention to detail for change control and compliance.
  • Project management basics to plan and execute patch cycles, migrations, and platform upgrades.
  • Professionalism and resilience for 24x7 support responsibilities and incident escalation.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Computer Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor's or Master's degree in a relevant technical field plus industry certifications (IBM Certified Specialist - AIX, Red Hat/Linux certifications, or similar).
  • Certifications in automation or cloud platforms (Ansible, AWS/Azure fundamentals) are a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Information Systems / Information Technology
  • Computer Engineering
  • Electrical Engineering (with systems focus)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 3–7 years of systems administration experience, with at least 2–4 years focused on IBM AIX and Power Systems in enterprise production environments.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years of hands-on AIX administration with proven experience in large-scale, multi-site datacenter operations, PowerVM (LPAR/VIOS/HMC) management, SAN/NAS integration, and enterprise backup/DR processes.
  • Demonstrated experience with automation (Ansible, Python), performance tuning, on-call rotations, and cross-functional incident management.
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