Network Operations Center (NOC): Build an Efficient One

A Network Operations Center (NOC) is a central location where a company and its personnel supervise the company's network 24x7. This means that a NOC is the first line of defense against any problems that can impact the network and the services provided by the company.

Not all organizations have the budget to have staff working 24x7 though. But there are ways around this issue. Having an efficient remote monitoring system is the main one.

How to Build a NOC Using a Remote Monitoring System

A remote monitoring system will work just like a NOC center. It will keep an eye on your remote network and notify you immediately when an alarm occurs. This eliminates the costs of having techs working 24x7, instead, you and a handful of other people can efficiently manage your network.

To design a NOC center you need to invest in the right monitoring devices. They need to have advanced features that will provide you with the best alarm collection and reporting. The devices that you will need to build your NOC are:

• Remote Telemetry Units (RTUs)
  The RTU's role is to gather all equipment alarms and conditions happening at your remote sites. After collecting an alarm, the RTU will send all the information about it to your master station. This process gives your technicians important details that will help them make informed decisions.
• Master Station
  The alarm master station is the brain of your NOC center. It groups all the alarms brought by RTUs into one screen and notifies your technicians of any issues that occur. You can customize how you want the alarms to be displayed in the master station's interface, as well as what kind of notification will be the most efficient for you.

Rich Alarm Notification for Proactive Network Management

T/Mon SLIM is a competent master station that has many advanced features to make your remote monitoring more efficient, including:

1. Detailed, plain English alarm descriptions include severity, location and date/time stamp.
2. Immediate notification of COS alarms, including new alarms and alarms that have cleared
3. Standing alarm list is continuously updated.
4. Text message windows displaying specific instructions for the appropriate action for an alarm.
5. Nuisance alarm filtering, allowing your staff to focus its attention on serious threats.
6. Pager and email notifications sent directly to maintenance personnel, even if they're away from the NOC.
7. Derived alarms and controls that combine and correlate data from multiple alarm inputs and automatically control remote site equipment to correct complex threats.