Network Operations Center

Research a major technical company’s NOC. Discuss the techniques they use

Examples
“Best Practices
Many organizations implement network management systems. They try many different approaches. The practice of sampling the approaches that worked well for other organizations helps to avoid costly mistakes. In this section, you will learn about some network management practices that produced positive results in multiple organizations. These approaches are not the only effective approaches, but they do provide positive guidance for implementing an effective network management system.
Preventive Measures
The best faults are the ones that never occur. The best way to avoid faults or to keep small faults from getting worse is to enact preventive measures. Here are best practices in the area of prevention:

Ensure all documentation is current—Update diagrams, inventory manifests, procedures, and configurations.
Archive out-of-date documentation—Old documentation can cause confusion.
Identify all single points of failure—Change the infrastructure to ensure that there are no single points of failure.
Ensure all software is up-to-date—Update computers and devices with the latest software patches and firmware.

Communication
Making sure the right message gets to its destination isn’t just a technical network issue. Here are best practices in the area of communication:

Define clear roles and responsibility descriptions—Make sure everyone knows his or her assignments.
Make communication easy—Ensure team members have access to phones and radios at all times, especially during events.
Make policies and procedures available—Publish all documents related to policy, and make team members aware of them.
Set up a chain of command—Avoid letting issues fall through the cracks.
Train the team—Hold recurring training and simulations to keep everyone current.
Document each action—Keep a record of everything done during fault response.
Always debrief—After a fault resolution, debrief participants to collect vital experiences and lessons learned.

Reacting to Faults
One of the central ongoing activities for the network management team is reacting to faults. Here are best practices in the area of fault response:

Limit the false positives—Use filters and priorities to suppress and diminish less-important events.
Avoid reporting uncorroborated events—Attempt to correlate multiple events among several devices.
Identify scope of fault—Determine what the fault affects.
Choose the appropriate level of response—Develop clear guidelines to determine how the team should respond to each type of fault.
Establish a response time line—Know how long a response should take.

Escalation
Knowing when to escalate is important when responding to faults. Once the decision has been made to escalate—to involve more people, including people at higher levels within the organization, in solving the problem—it’s important to know how to escalate and whom to contact. Here are best practices in the area of issue escalation:

Establish escalation guidelines—Know what criteria indicate a need to escalate.
Set specific escalation time goals—Escalate if the team misses resolution time goals.
Determine when to call for extreme action—Define when to take extreme action.
Avoid “protectionism”—Resist the urge to “save face.” Always take necessary actions, and call for help when needed.

Being Proactive
Finally, take every opportunity to be proactive, not reactive. Here are best practices in the area of being proactive:

Automate—Use automation whenever possible to detect and resolve faults.
Predict faults—Use the information at your disposal to predict likely faults before they occur.
Recognize anomalies—Establish baselines and study normal operation to recognize behavior that isn’t normal (use automation).”