A TYPICAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS NOC (an overview) Prepared by: Bode A. Oladipo
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.
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
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.
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
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.
PICTURE OF A TYPICAL NOC ENVIRONMENT
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.
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
UNDERSTANDING WHAT WE MONITOR (MOBITEL S NETWORK-WIDE TOPOLOGY DIAGRAM)
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
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
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/
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