2. A BRIEF HISTORY
Early versions of NOCs have been around since the 1960s.
A Network Control Center was opened in New York by AT&T in 1962
to display switch and route information, in real-time, from AT&T's
most important toll switches.
1977 - AT&T later replaced their Network Control Center with a
NOC in Bedminster New Jersey.
3. PURPOSE OF A NOC (WHY?)
To OVERSEE complex networking environments 24X7X365 days in
order to DETECT, RESOLVE and REPORT events as they happen so
as to MITIGATE service degradation and downtime within a
telecommunications network; in other words, to IMPROVE the
telecommunications network infrastructure’s uptime and
consequently DRIVE better service delivery to the subscribers.
Oversee:
To Direct. To supervise. To manage. To look-over. To examine. To inspect
4. WHAT IS A NOC
A NOC (Network Operations Centre) is a 24x7x365 days available
CENTRAL LOCATION from which an organization
OVERSEES/MONITORS its computers and telecommunications
network infrastructures - servers, applications, routers, switches,
Transmission Lines (Optical fiber cables, microwave radios, satellite
communication circuits), rectifiers/power supply, environmental
sensors, environmental cooling system (Air conditioners), security
cameras and others.
5. TYPICAL FUNCTIONS OF A NOC TOWARDS ITS PURPOSE (HOW?)
• Network monitoring
• At the bare minimum, you will receive requests from your customers/Care
center
• NOCs analyze problems
• Perform troubleshooting
• communicate with site Engineers and other NOCs if needed(Communications
management)
• Track problems through resolution
• When necessary, NOCs escalate problems to the appropriate stakeholders.
• For severe conditions that are impossible to anticipate, such as a power failure
or a cut optical fiber cable, NOCs have procedures in place to immediately
contact technicians to remedy the problem.
• You will communicate resolution to the customer/Customer care, and/or keep
customer updated on status
• Record keeping
6. CHARACTERISTIC COMPONENTS OF A NOC
• Several rows of desks (all facing a video wall)
• several computer monitors on the desk (to monitor the systems
or networks covered from that desk)
• A video wall/Large Screen(which typically shows details of
highly significant alarms, ongoing incidents and general network
performance;
• A Television - a corner of the wall is sometimes used for
showing news or weather TV channel, as this can keep the NOC
technicians aware of current events which may have an impact
on the network or systems they are responsible for).
• Primary servers and other equipment essential to running the
network
• Communication mediums : Telephone consoles, Skype etc.
• Environment Conditioners: Air conditioners, Cameras etc.
8. TYPICAL DUTIES OF A NOC ENGINEER
A NOC engineer has several duties in order to ensure the smooth running of the
network. They deal with things such as:
• remote support,
• Network and Systems Management/Monitoring
• ensure Core, Transmission and RAN network stability
• Monitors DDoS Attacks
• Respond/communicate power outages
• Prevent or communicates network failures
• Monitoring activity, such as: network usage, temperatures etc.
• They would also have to install equipment-systems and Network and cabling
• The majority of NOC engineers are also on call and have a 7 day Roaster,
working both day and night, on and off respectively.
9. STANDARD SKILL-SET OF A NOC ENGINEER
• Understanding of : WAN, LAN , Security, QoS, Routing, Switching, ISP -
Cisco
• Experience of Data Communications Protocols: REP, STP, BGP, OSPF,
IP, VLAN,VPN, MPLS, VRF, Tunneling, IPsec -Cisco
• Knowledge of Network monitoring Techniques/Tools: SNMP, Agent,
Agent-less,Polling,Trapping,TR-069, OPmanager, Cacti, MTRG, Nagios, Zabbix,
Specialized NMSes e.g - AlvariSTAR, ACS, Quality e.t.c
• Knowledge of NOC services: Incident Management, Problem
Management, Configuration Management, Capacity Management, Service
Level Management, Change Management, NOC Reporting
• Knowledge of Unix / Linux Systems/Servers/Services: DNS, DHCP,
Mail, Web, FTP, Proxy
11. NOC KPIs – BEST PRACTICES
KPIs for Systems Management:
• Device Availability
• Server/OS Health Statistics
• Process/Service Availability
• Process/Service Availability
• Advanced CPU Statistics
• Service Response Times
• General Server Statistics
• Network Interface Statistics
• System Uptime
• RMON/Netflow Statistics
• Virtualization Statistics
• Device Health
KPIs for Network Management:
• Device Availability, Latency and Packet Loss
• Interface Statistics
• Link Statistics
12. CONCLUSION
The NOC brings VALUE to the business by providing Real-time network-wide visibility that
is essential to :
• Revenue protection
• Infrastructure Protection
• Cordial relationship with other stakeholders in the industry-other NOCs, vendors etc
• Application interaction
• Service delivery and Quality of experience to subscribers
• Operators understanding of subscriber behavior
• Subscriber-base tracking and their performance
• Revenue Projection
13. References
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_operations_center NETWORK OPERATING CENTRE
• Part II: The Nuts and Bolts (The Practice Of Making a Good NOC); NANOG 24 - Miami, FL – TCB
• Mobitel Core Network HLD_Rev1.5.2
• http://www.monolith-software.com/blog/2012/07/which-network-kpis-are-important/
