Array of Things Systems Administrator at The University of Chicago (Chicago, IL)
The Array of Things is an experimental, urban-scale research instrument that will comprise hundreds of independent “nodes” installed around the City of Chicago and in other cities around the world. Nodes include embedded Linux devices and microcontrollers, with a software stack to support remote programming and administration, data management, security, and sensor sampling and reporting. Every node maintains connectivity to a central set of services for data reporting and management, configuration, and administration. The instrument in Chicago, and similar (smaller) instruments in other cities, will be managed in similar fashion to a compute cluster, with automation and scaling to enable efficient operation, troubleshooting, configuration, and management by a single administrator. Reporting to the Director of the Urban Center for Computation and Data, the AoT Administrator manages the system by configuring and monitoring the performance of all nodes and central servers, ensuring reliable data flow to central servers, and working with the open source software and design team to isolate and address any performance or functional issues. As new software stacks and node platforms are introduced, the AoT administrator will oversee a migration plan for introducing these into the instrument, including testing and validation. The AoT administrator will administer both the central servers for the Chicago instrument and guest servers for nodes in other cities.