In case you are wondering what i do for a living, I am a Network Operations Center Team Lead. A group under the big “Information Technology” Department. Everyone knows what IT is and for those who are already working, we know that there’s an IT department in every company – big or small ones, it’s a must. But what everyone don’t know is that IT is divided into several groups depending on specialties. I will not dive deeper into each one but Network Operations Center is one of them.

So, What is NOC? How come we don’t know their existence? Do we need them? Are they important?

Those are some of the questions that I have to answer when people ask me what i do for a living. Simple questions which apparently is hard to answer. Why? Because explaining NOC is complicated. When I hear those questions, there’s a lot going in my mind before uttering a word – to make sure that I answer it in a clear and understandable manner.

Well, to make things simple(?), let me do an analogy.

Imagine a Cruise ship and every crew members are IT people catering to guests as our clients. Like any other organization, there’s a hierarchical level in each crew – the Captain being the highest. He is the overall responsible officer, acting on behalf of the ship’s owner. He needs to ensure that all departments under him perform to his requirements for the sake of the guests. We also have the navigators to make sure that the ship reaches its destination in the safest route possible. There are also architects responsible for the design of the machinery of the ship which they continuously do improvements on and then the engineering departments which continuously maintains the ship’s components whether used by guests directly or not. All for a smooth sailing voyage. There are crew members that caters directly to the guests every time needed and can be easily reached. And then, we have those inspectors. They are responsible in inspecting the ship’s condition 24×7, reports whatever problems they see – big or small and then coordinates with proper departments – be it the engineering, the architects or if necessary, to the captain directly – to make sure that it is fixed. NOC is basically those guys. We have to have a “basic” understanding on each of the ship’s component – when I mean each, I mean everything (from the engine itself to the smallest screw) – to properly assess if it’s good or not. We need to do a diligent job to prevent disastrous things happening to the ship that might have an impact to guests and we need to do it endlessly as long as the ship is in operation.

Now, enough with analogies. A Network Operations Center (NOC) is a place from which IT support monitors and maintain systems and network infrastructure.

NOC is the focal point for network and systems troubleshooting, performance monitoring, and coordination with affiliated networks.

NOC is composed of several folks which has numerous duties in order to ensure the smooth running of systems and network operations. They deal with things such as power outages, network failures, and routing black-holes. There are of course the basic roles, such as remote hands support, configuration of hardware (such as routers and switches). NOC engineers are also responsible for monitoring activity, such as network usage, infrastructure changes, etc.

When IT is operating at peak efficiency, end-users or clients isn’t even aware of NOC’s presence, BUT – we can assure you that we are here. We are here to prevent possible IT problems that might hinder you from doing your job, and even if the problem is already happening, we are here coordinating with different IT sectors for a faster resolution. We. Are. Here.

With all that said, I’d like to shortly answer above questions:

Who is NOC? – Ship’s inspectors. How come we don’t know their existence? – Now you are. Do we need them? – YES. Are they important? – Hell Yeah!