Backup, DR & Migration Consultant

Job Title: Backup, DR & Migration Consultant

Experience: 5+ years

Location:Maidenhead, United Kingdom

Job Type: Contract/Freelance

Role purpose

Assess and design a resilient, vendor-neutral backup, catalogue and DR capability independent of the incumbent Dell Networker/Data Domain, and define the migration and transition approach for a safe, phased move of a multi-petabyte estate within the fixed vendor-support deadline and the client's data-centre space constraints.

RequirementsKey Responsibilities

• Assess current backup/recovery and DR – Networker configuration and catalogues, Data Domain capacity/dedupe and retention, success/failure rates, replication topology and RTO/RPO.
• Design a vendor-neutral target backup & DR capability independent of Data Domain/Networker, incorporating immutable/air-gapped copies and ransomware resilience.
• Define RTO/RPO targets per workload with client owners; design the DR replication and test approach.
• Develop the migration & transition strategy – phased, wave-based, respecting data-centre space, power and cooling constraints; sequencing by criticality; non-disruptive cutover; pilot validation; rollback; and legacy decommissioning once each wave is verified.
• Contribute backup, DR and migration requirements and risks to the registers; facilitate workshops with the backup/DR owner, infrastructure and service owners.
• Contribute to the costed design-phase estimate and roadmap for the Discovery gate.
  
  

Deliverables owned

• Current-state assessment for WS3 and WS5.
• Backup/DR and migration content of the Requirements Register and Risk Register.
• Target backup & DR design and the migration strategy & roadmap – design phase.
• Input to the Discovery Report and the design-phase estimate & plan.
  
  

Essential skills & experience

• Extensive enterprise backup, recovery and DR design experience at scale.
• Hands-on with Dell Networker and Data Domain / PowerProtect (or directly comparable), plus modern alternatives (e.g. Veeam, Cohesity, Rubrik, Commvault) – assessed vendor-neutrally.
• Immutable and air-gapped backup and ransomware-resilient design.
• DR architecture – replication, failover, and RTO/RPO definition and testing.
• Large-scale (multi-PB) data migration planning and execution – phased/wave approaches, non-disruptive cutover, rollback and decommissioning.
• Data-centre transition/consolidation experience and awareness of physical space, power and cooling constraints.
• Strong risk management, planning and documentation; confident workshop facilitation and stakeholder engagement.
  
  

Desirable

• Higher-education or public-sector environments; research-data retention.
• Migration tooling at scale (e.g. Datadobi, Komprise, Cirata/WANdisco, or vendor migration utilities).
• Contributing to vendor-neutral procurement specifications.
  
  

Certifications (desirable)

• Dell certifications (Networker, PowerProtect Data Domain).
• Backup-vendor certifications (e.g. Veeam VMCE, Cohesity, Rubrik, Commvault).
• ITIL; a project method such as PRINCE2, PMP or Agile for migration planning.
  
  

Behaviours

• Methodical and risk-aware, with a safety-first approach to migration and cutover.
• Vendor-neutral; clear communicator and strong on-site collaborator.