Building and Operating a Network Operation Center: It’s Easier than You Think

In today’s highly competitive business environment, all the running enterprises depend on sophisticated networks and technologies to protect their critical data and provide better service quality to their customers. In order to derive maximum benefits from their existing infrastructure, every organization is increasingly depending on the service providers to manage their tools and process with skilled and experienced resources at an optimal cost, allowing the companies to concentrate on their core business and smooth service delivery thereby increasing efficiency and productivity within the organization.

Network management services are generally defined by the customer, and include scheduling and performing software updates, providing help desk support for employees and customers, as well as monitoring, analyzing and responding to alarms. The team performing these activities is termed as NOC staffs that schedule on-site support as needed, and work in conjunction with front line maintenance and global service center if necessary. The NOC also provides 24/7/365 monitoring, ticketing system, disaster recovery and contact with a live person, not a touch-tone menu.

A GNOC is nothing but a (NOC) Network Operations Center that operates for multiple networks across various geographies from one central location.

Monitoring network devices, from different vendors, and network interconnections is crucial to any organization. It’s responsibilities to allow our customers to discover all these devices efficiently, optimize network management and performance, and understand alarms and events.

GNOC connects with telecom networks, Operation Support Systems, Element Management Systems, and multiple NOCs and operates out of one centralized location. It works as a large delivery center for network support, fulfillment and readiness. All alarms, customer complaints, service requests flow into the GNOC as input, engineers at the GNOC process the inputs and generate corresponding outputs. With a GNOC, a network provider can achieve scale and improve service efficiency, quality and flexibility.

The benefits from a GNOC are mentioned below:

• Quality Consistency: Since at a GNOC tasks are repetitive in nature, it leads to better knowledge accumulation from actual operations and scope for improvement.
• Better Traffic Management: GNOC goes through a 24/7 work model, it allows for the constant view of the entire network with proper data visualization in place. Network providers can therefore monitor, manage and maintain geography-wise service levels at all times.
• Lower Cost: It leads to the streamlining of the operational processes. In case of a GNOC, IT infrastructure costs are contained and high levels of automation leads to a considerable cost reduction.
• Higher Security: With the centralization of the NOCs, providers can actually invest well into the different standards of security, such as physical security, data network security and information security. With so many upsides lined up for a GNOC, there is little or no space for network Managed Service Provider providers to think otherwise than invest in one.

Network Monitoring is a term that can encompass both active and passive monitoring systems that handles anything from intrusion detection to Internet and protocol analysis, network troubleshooting, application performance ratings, access control, VoIP analysis, IPTV service assurance, and on and on. In terms of IP Communications, a great deal of ‘network monitoring’ has to do with maintaining a high Quality of Service — checking for packet traffic congestion on the network along with any accompanying physical infrastructure problems.

Elena is an professional content writer as well as editor live in Texax US.