Understanding the NOC: network operations center
In data centers like UltraEdge's, the NOC (Network Operation Center) is the first line of defence against disruptions to all data center services. As the availability of services determines the performance of companies and government bodies, the NOC - an acronym for Network Operation Center - is a strategic element of any IT infrastructure, wherever it is located.
In short, the NOC ensures continuous monitoring, proactive detection of anomalies, and resolution of incidents affecting critical networks and systems.
NOC definition and objectives
Specifically dedicated to the network, a Network Operations Center (NOC) acts as a central hub managed by IT teams. More specifically, a NOC oversees the infrastructure and connectivity equipment of a hosting provider like UltraEdge, covering cabling, servers, wireless systems, firewalls, network peripherals, wireless systems, applications and even other data center infrastructures.
At the same time, it is a specialized team and the physical or virtual infrastructure from which networks and IT systems are being monitored.
Much more than a monitoring center, it's the pivotal point in the operational management of the company's IT infrastructure!
So the NOC is not just a room full of screens displaying colorful graphs and diagrams. It has a strategic function, as the human expertise of data center technicians, for example, is combined with advanced technologies and structured processes to ensure the reliability and performance of digital services.
Its main mission is to ensure operational continuity by detecting, analyzing and resolving any malfunctions in advance.
Key objectives and roles of data center supervision
At UltraEdge, the NOC meets a dual objective: to maintain high levels of performance, while ensuring continuous availability, both of which are key factors in the quality of our data centers. The NOC enables the supervision of data centers, the critical infrastructures that house complex systems and data in all their aspects.
To ensure this resilience, UltraEdge has set two fundamental objectives:
● Early and predictive detection of incidents, to avoid any impact on end-users and/or customers' hosted services. By continuously monitoring network equipment, servers, critical applications and storage systems, NOC teams identify any weak signals. For example, a sharp increase in latency on a critical network, or a deterioration in DB response times, can be identified and fixed before a high alert threshold is reached.
● Coordination of technical interventions
If an incident does occur, despite preventive measures, the NOC organizes its resolution by assigning the right resources, whether internal teams or external service providers. The centralized approach ensures a methodical approach, and avoids counter-productive actions with the potential to worsen the situation. When multiple and potentially interconnected technologies coexist, structured and unified coordination is essential.
The NOC enables you to continuously optimize the relevance and viability of your infrastructure. Thanks to its proactive dimension, it is a strong lever for all tech evolution decisions and correlated investments.
NOC and SOC: main differences
At a high level, the NOC and the SOC have the same main objective: to ensure that the company's or data center's infrastructures are able to respond effectively to service continuity requirements. Distinguishing the differences between NOC (Network Operations Center) and SOC (Security Operations Center) can be tricky for the less experienced.
The NOC focuses on IT infrastructure availability and performance. Its main objective is to ensure that networks, servers and applications are running optimally, so as to maintain uninterrupted service continuity.
Key KPIs such as bandwidth, response times and system resource utilization are monitored. If an anomaly occurs, the NOC aims to restore service as soon as possible, and then identify and correct the related technical cause.
The SOC focuses on the intrinsic security of the IT system and effective protection against all threats.
Its core mission is to detect, analyze and neutralize intrusion attempts, malware and other cyber-attacks targeting the company.
The role of an SOC analysis will be to examine security logs and trigger further investigation, for example if several requests are made from the same IP in a very short space of time. It sets up anti-intrusion alerts and analyzes any unusual behavior. Each potential threat must be contained, assessed for impact, and a response formalized following a security incident.
NOC and SOC work in perfect synergy at UltraEdge data centers. If a DDoS attack is the ideal example of this complementary partnership, the NOC analyzes the impact on network perf, while the SOC isolates the malicious nature of a portion of the traffic and coordinates the appropriate protection measures.
Features and scope
Proactive monitoring of IT infrastructure
This targeted approach stands in contrast to traditional reactive management, and aims to identify and solve any potential problems, without any impacts on users or critical services.
This monitoring extends to all IT infrastructure and data center components: network equipment (routers, switches, firewalls), physical or virtual servers, storage systems, business applications and infrastructure elements such as air conditioning or data center electrical systems.
Each monitoring tool collects hundreds or even thousands of metrics, providing a holistic view of the IT system's status.
AI and automated learning methods boost this activity. Early detection with tools such as Dynatrace enables rapid intervention, preventing degradation from being perceived by users.
Detection and management of critical incidents
Incidents can occur from time to time in highly complex IT environments. Early detection and orchestration of a coordinated solution to these incidents determines the NOC's impact on the company's business.
Two phases need to be distinguished: triage and qualification.
Alerting is based on a multi-criteria analysis, and answers the following questions : What is the expected impact on critical services? What volume of users will be affected? What workarounds are available?
The initial assessment assigns a priority level and then allocates the appropriate resources, in compliance with the procedures set up upstream.
Major incidents normally activate a crisis management process, which involves structured communication with all stakeholders. Regular visios monitor progress, and specific channels keep users informed of developments and anticipated recovery times. Avoiding working in “silos” helps to resolve severe incidents more swiftly.
Continuous improvement of network performance
Analysis of historical performance data enables us to identify key trends, anticipate saturation and recommend technological developments.
Specific reporting with predefined periodicity. Each Perf KPI such as service availability, app response time in milliseconds, resource consumption rate.
These measurements are highlighted in SLAs (Service Level Agreements). An SLA in a data center, for example, can monitor the server rack temperature, with a variation of a few degrees in the CRAC (Computer Room Air Conditioner) devices generating an automatic alert.
The NOC and its dedicated technicians carry out a post-mortem analysis of the most significant incidents, enabling them to identify areas for attention in existing processes, and then integrate optimizations. The resilience of the infrastructure and any risk of recurrence are thus optimized as part of a continuous improvement approach!
Why opt for NOC: strategic impacts for businesses
High availability of IT solutions
The availability of IT systems is now a strategic issue for any organization. An effective NOC directly contributes to maximizing this availability, ensuring users have uninterrupted access to critical services and applications.
The NOC acts proactively on identifying and correcting vulnerabilities before any interruption.
If a storage disk shows signs of saturation, then preventive replacement can take place and thus prevent a failure. Anticipation, a key characteristic of the NOC, helps to avoid potential incidents and avoid adverse consequences on activity.
Accurately and objectively evaluate any unplanned incident feed exchanges between prestas and technology partners. And to ensure that IT investments provide the added value expected by policy makers. Quantifying and optimising; two priorities for the NOC teams!
Reduce unplanned downtime
Unplanned downtime can be costly.
This represents a direct financial impact, as the various incidents negatively impact the reputation of the company or even the data center or the host and the perceived trust.
Frequency and duration of interruption are optimized by NOC performance. Advanced detection identifies early warning signs of incidents. And, the strong expertise of NOC technicians helps to limit changes and updates. When a breakdown occurs, a structured incident management process aids in the diagnosis and resolution of the incident, reducing future downtime.
Support for growth and innovation
The data center sector's pursuit of efficiency and more innovations is closely linked. The NOC is positioned as an indirect lever of growth and is often a pioneer in innovation for companies. It is necessary to combine knowledge of existing infras, and ensure to anticipate the technological evolutions with AI and IoT. It's imperative to connect it with any transformation project!
The data provided by the NOC allows to size the infras according to growth projections. Continuous monitoring monitors uses and identifies bottlenecks, and in fact an investment decision is made. All potential capabilities and limitations allocate financial and technical resources, for example, an additional budget for an advanced firewall on the server side of a host.
Structuring this approach allows more innovative solutions with AI in particular, which increases the stability of the most critical applications and services.
Tools and technologies
Network monitoring solutions?
The effectiveness of a NOC depends largely on the quality of the monitoring tools deployed. These technical solutions are the "eyes and ears" of operational teams, providing them with exhaustive visibility on the state of the IT infrastructure.
The NOC’s technology foundation is built on pro platforms such as SolarWinds, Nagios, Zabbix, PRTG and even in-house solutions.
The versatility of these solutions ensures monitoring of equipment and associated services, from network components to business apps.
Collection, centralization and correlation of data often from heterogeneous sources allow a unified view of the infrastructure, which ultimately facilitates the rapid detection of anomalies.
In critical environments or with greater complexity, specialized solutions can complement these already solid foundations.
A multilayered approach - paralleling the analysis of the application on the one hand and the experiential analysis - allow better understanding of the value chain, from the physical infrastructure to the user interface.
This trend is moving towards more unified solutions, with expert monitoring, distributed tracing and log analysis.
Automatisation, orchestration and alerting
Automation is a major lever to boost the efficiency of NOC, faced with more complex and dynamic environments. It becomes almost mandatory to pass generative AI to focus on tasks with higher added value.
The implementation of a "smart" alert makes it possible to constitute the first layer of automation.
Sophisticated algorithms coupled with an analysis with an AI agent can reduce false positives and prioritize notifications according to their potential impact. The adoption of CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System) by UltraEdge in its data centers strengthens its capabilities for anticipation and better management.
Reducing reaction time becomes a priority in the face of increasing complex incidents!
Finally, automating the patches represents the next level of this evolution.
If common incidents are well documented, then an automated runbook performs a set of actions without intervention and potential human error.
In the example of an edge data center with the introduction of CMMS, if an application brick is failing, dynamic resource allocation in the face of a load peak can be automated, and reduce the detection & resolution of the error.
To note, the IaC "Infrastructure as code" approach increases the speed and reliability of interventions with ideal traceability, which is more than necessary in highly regulated ecosystems.
BMS, ITSM or SIEM: what connections are available?
Leverage the efficiency of NOC and its business value by building connections through other enterprise management systems; each information flows more smoothly between technical functions.
ITSM platforms such as JIRA, ServiceNow are usually a first integration device. Tickets for each incident are managed for alerts seen by the monitoring tools. It ensures that they are supported according to the standardized processes already implemented by the organization. This is a win-win relationship because the NOC gains in process vision thanks to ITSM and the tickets exploit the detailed technical data obtained by the supervision tools.
For the IT infrastructure of data centers, integrating the BMS (Building Management System) is a good idea. The connection facilitates a clear and uniform view of each key component, including IT equipment, support infrastructures such as air conditioning or power supply.
In case of a significant incident, the identification and sourcing of causes with the coordination of the intervention is greatly simplified especially with the introduction of CMMS.
Interconnecting the NOC and SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) creates effective synergies.
Each performance anomaly detected by the NOC may indicate an early attack such as a complex cyber attack, with the contribution of the alerting generated by the SIEM. Neutralizing the most sophisticated threats, simultaneously impacting performance and security.
In-house or managed NOC: how to choose?
Outsourced NOC advantages
Internalizing or outsourcing has a strategic impact on organizations.
A model such as the managed NOC has the advantage that it is the specialized service provider who provides support.
Some major advantages to consider:
● Cost savings and cost sharing
Often one of the first factors in outsourcing. According to a specialized blog, about 10 technicians are required at least, without even counting the cost of infra and specialized tools.
Resources are used for multiple clients. A fixed cost structure in variable costs, and the flexibility is ideal to cope with fluctuations of activity.
● Broader expertise
Specialized providers invest continuously in the training of teams and especially for training in technological skills. Being exposed to multiple client environments, more prone to new or complex incidents diversifies their expertise.
The implementation of an internal NOC may take several months or more than a year, between hiring, training and tool deployments.
While a managed NOC at a host or data center such as UltraEdge will be operational in a few weeks, and this accelerates the potential ROI and facilitates the upgrading of IT supervision skills, especially in case of complex or unusual incidents.
What are the key criteria for a qualified service provider?
Selection of the qualified partner to outsource NOC requires a multi-criteria methodical evaluation
Industry experience first. It is important to choose a provider with an appetence and experience for your industry. Understanding your constraints, specific legal requirements or the most critical periods, seasonality are all points already anticipated by the partner, improving the relevance of interventions and the prioritization of incidents.
With this in mind, ask for customer references in your industry and ideally question the satisfaction of organizations most similar to yours.
As mentioned, make sure in a second step that the specific SLAs, included in the contract, cover the tech aspects with for example the average detection times or intervention times as well as the customer relationship dimension (frequency of exchanges, what communication media during incidents...)
In all cases, demand transparency in measurement mechanisms and proportionate penalties if previously agreed prerequisites are not met.
Although time-consuming, it can be useful to evaluate the quality of the provider’s tools with your systems, as well as the flexibility of its offer and the adaptation of these processes to your business or sector specificities for example.
To minimize potential interruptions and enhance the value of investments made in advance, the best NOC solution involves using a hybrid approach with specialized partner tools and your current solutions (if applicable), and facilitating exits or changes of accommodation contracts if necessary.
High-performance NOC: key practices
Internal organization and skills enhancement
Internal organization and quality of individual resources are pillars of NOC’s effectiveness. The ability to adapt to standards and technological change is essential. For example, in UltraEdge’s data centers, the skills, experience and commitment of the teams allow them to respond effectively to operational challenges.
Clarifying the organizational structure is the foundation of a successful NOC. A multi-level model remains predominant; the first-level operators will carry out continuous monitoring and process the most common incidents, according to the associated documentation.
Whereas experts level 2 or 3 are on complex issues. Prioritisation optimizes the allocation of resources and ensures treatment & follow-up in relation to the situation.
Investing in continuing education, with certifications for technicians, presents a long-term investment to boost the efficiency of NOC in order to cope with technological developments such as IoT and growing AI.
«Soft skills», crisis communication, stress management and the resolution of malfunctions in an agile team are essential. In this sense, technical documentation, although neglected, is a strategic asset for the NOC. Clarifying procedures, their updates ensure a coordinated and effective response, and to combat the preventive appearance of incidents and cyber attacks, and where necessary, their resolution within optimized time frames.
Knowledge management tools, for example a collaborative wiki and AI, are additional levers for better maintenance of the documentation.
Incidents: how to best adapt your response procedure?
In a nutshell, determining and adapting the incident response procedure determines the NOC efficiency and to deal with each situation; from the small anomaly to the most critical crisis.
The response is correlated to a fine categorization of incidents.
Classifying the nature of the incident by severity or degree of impact is not sufficient because other metrics will have to be used such as criticality level, technical complexity or potential volume of users.
Prioritization, choice of procedure or set of actions, allocated resources are all challenges that take into account this multidimensional reality.
Each major incident must result from the activation of a crisis cell.
It usually takes the form of regular conf calls, which ensures alignment between stakeholders and then facilitates communication to external (customers or suppliers for example)
This structured approach limits the dispersion of efforts and accelerates decision-making in complex situations.
UltraEdge helps organizations optimize their NOC, for example by deploying a managed solution. The innovative approach combines cutting-edge AI tools with effective and sustainable methodologies. Proactive supervision and our preventive incident management adapts to the most critical environments and with high level of requirements.