Operators are moving from a Network Operations Center (NOC) model focused on network performance to a Service Operations Center (SOC) model focused on understanding customer experience with different services like Facebook, YouTube, and phone calls. A SOC provides real-time insight into how customers are using services and experiencing issues in order to quickly fix problems and improve customer satisfaction. Implementing a SOC requires analyzing vast data sources using big data solutions to understand customer behaviors and service performance. This allows operators to make smarter operational and business decisions based on customer intelligence.

1. NOC to SOC: A Next-Gen
Approach to Understanding
and Proactively Assuring
Customer Experience

2. | empirix.com
Operators today need a more sophisticated, real-time view of performance, one that
provides a deeper understanding of how customers are using and experiencing specific
mobile services, be they Facebook, video streaming or talking on the phone. With greater
insight into customer experience—by application—service providers can streamline
operational process to quickly fix and proactively preempt subscriber impacting issues
to avoid:
uu Customer dissatisfaction when they experience issues with beloved applications
uu Churn as issues go unnoticed and uncorrected
uu A disconnected conversation between customers and support due to an operator’s
inability to see all the factors that impact a specific application or service in one view
uu Excessive time to repair
With mobile usage exploding, service providers today are struggling to find the most effi-
cient, elegant solutions for managing growth and effectively ensuring user experience in
real-time. Many operators are saddled with reactive and fragmented surveillance solutions.
Engineers are running in every direction when customers complain about problems with
YouTube, Facebook or phone service.
Unfortunately, the complexities inherent in delivering mobile service have also increased
exponentially. New, more sophisticated applications are being released daily. Each of
these applications utilize multiple protocols, components, transcoding methods and
access points to provide a complete service for the user. Of course, operators must
also assure the performance and interoperability of the underlying LTE, WiFi Offload
and Packetcable IP-based access mechanisms to deliver the best possible experience.
Today, most operators cannot see into the complex interactions that must work flawlessly
together to deliver a specific application’s service.They need real-time visibility and intel-
ligence to quickly fix issues—and proactively preempt them.
Operators need more than network performance metrics to fully understand what the
customer is experiencing. After all, no one calls in to report that the server’s video queu-
ing mechanism is overloaded. Instead, they complain about not being able to satisfactorily
watchYouTube videos. Customers don’t report unacceptable packet loss or high retrans-
mission ratios during their 4G data sessions. Rather, they criticize the service on their new
4G phones.
Empirix is the
recognized leader
in delivering
end-to-end
network
performance
visibility and
analytics.
Figure 1: Quality of Experience as key driver for all the Business decisions

3. | empirix.com
THE NOCTO SOC EVOLUTION
To master these new complexities, smart service providers are evolving from a network-oriented
view of their operations to a more service-oriented view, effectively moving from a Network Opera-
tions Center (NOC) into a Service Operations Center (SOC). It is an inevitable evolution of how
companies organize operationally. Moving beyond a model focused on managing only network
equipment, the SOC examines services as well as client-server applications for performance and
availability, and determines how customers are impacted by detected service issues. It provides a
real-time view of how customers are experiencing each service, be it Facebook, YouTube or Skype.
By evaluating issues through this lens, operators can take a more proactive approach to providing
a great experience, especially for the services (and the subscribers too) that generate the most
revenue.
The operational benefits are easy to understand: proactive assurance, faster time to repair and
increased productivity. Organizations with visibility into customer experience in real-time will be
in a better position to efficiently allocate software, hardware and human resources. The SOC also
provides a greater understanding of how customers are using mobile services in general, which
applications are most popular and how behaviors are evolving over time. This intelligence benefits
both operational teams and the organization as a whole.
IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES
Although monitoring is an essential element of both the NOC and SOC, creating a service-oriented
understanding of customer experience in real-time requires significant work. Every communication
event—whether it is a machine talking to a machine, a customer making a phone call or a teenager
posting a new Instagram photo—generates a tremendous amount of data. All the data needs to be
collected and correlated instantaneously with information from other billing and operational systems,
as well as off-net data sources.
New models of customer behaviors and functional service components must be created in order to
identify anomalies and take a proactive approach to ensuring services.
There is a need for a common data container and transport to assure data integrity across the multi-
tudes of data warehouse and network element management systems.
Figure 2: Filling the gap between the indicators measured at network level and the experience as perceived by the subscribers

4. | empirix.com
The SOC must
be able to
quickly mine
a vast amount
of network,
application,
customer, billing
and, some cases,
partner network
data. SOCs need
access to Big Data.
The Empirix Approach
A BIG DATA CORE
To provide a real-time view of customer experience by application or service, the SOC
must be able to quickly mine a vast amount of network, application, customer, billing
and, some cases, partner network data. SOCs need access to Big Data.
Today, most service providers are in some stage of implementing a Big Data solution. In
some cases, these are department specific implementations. Others are using a central-
ized solution to improve decision-making across their entire organization.
Regardless, operators can leverage these Big Data investments to create service-orient-
ed solutions that provide intelligence on performance issues. Of course, additional data
science work will be needed to develop the correlations and algorithms that will provide
the exact information required to successfully operate a SOC.
Operators that have to first implement a Big Data solution before they can design the
SOC will have a more complex undertaking.
CAPITALIZING ON INNOVATION
The benefits of creating a SOC extend beyond to bounds of the operations depart-
ment. SOCs offer an unprecedented understanding of customer behavior with regards
to which services they are using, including the how, when and where. This intelligence
enables smarter decisions across the organization. For example, marketing groups can
tailor personalized offerings or determine which content provider would generate the
most “premium service” revenue. Operators can better design innovative, business-crit-
ical services for valued corporate clients. Finance can endlessly examine the factors that
impact cost per bit delivered. And, planning departments can optimize customer experi-
ence by pinpointing where and when to deploy the next LTE hotspot or service upgrade.
GETTING STARTED
To ensure the success of this important undertaking, service providers need to outline
their approach. First, the company must identify its key business objectives (KBO), the
goals that the business would like to achieve by deploying a SOC. Once these goals have
been set, they need to be realized. This requires defined measurements of success.
These metrics can drive the inventory and validation of all the data, which then provides
the blueprint for the SOC’s architecture design. After the system dg NOC facility or a
new Services segment. Of course, best practice suggests a controlled trial before full
deployment. Interestingly, it is not always the VP of Operations leading the SOC charge.

5. | empirix.com
Innovative executives who understand the value of a “data-driven” culture are also cham-
pioning these efforts. Others have a specific set of KBOs that only this type of solution
can help achieve.
No matter the reason, the benefits are clear. Analyzing performance, not by how well the
bits and bytes are flowing across the network but rather by how well customers are able
to use specific mobile services, offers a better understanding of customer experience.
This service-oriented approach provides actionable intelligence on problems that will
streamline operational processes, enabling operations to quickly fix and proactively pre-
empt subscriber impacting issues. With a clearer understanding of real-time and evolving
customer behaviors, companies can optimize both revenue and cost models to maximize
profitability. Leveraging this intelligence at every turn, companies have the insights they
need to out- compete anyone.
ABOUT EMPIRIX
Empirix is the recognized leader in delivering end-to-end network performance visibility
and analytics, empowering our clients to improve business performance through solu-
tions that enable Service Providers to proactively preempt problems by predicting the
customer service experience.