The following is a guest post by Stacy Dubovik, Financial Technology and Blockchain Researcher with ScienceSoft.
“High-quality service is the lifeblood of success.” This age-old adage rings true in today’s digital world, where user satisfaction is the key to unlocking growth.
To deliver top-notch service, companies must deeply understand their network operations, identifying and troubleshooting potential problems before they escalate into full-blown outages.
In this pursuit, deploying a Network Operations Center (NOC) can be an invaluable organizational asset.
With its 24/7 monitoring capabilities, a NOC can assist organizations in ensuring that their network is always functioning at its best and that any issues are addressed promptly and efficiently, resulting in increased user satisfaction and a boost to the bottom line.
What is a NOC?
Overall, a NOC represents a centralized platform where a company and its technical staff may provide 24-hour oversight of the network, its applications, firewalls, databases, and any external operational environments it utilizes
When protecting a company’s communications networks against cyber threats and outages, the NOC often serves as the first line of defense. Research suggests that by outsourcing your Network Operations Center, you can expect to experience up to 50-200% faster issue and root cause detection, as well as experiencing a 1.5-2x improvement in issue detection accuracy.
Understanding how the NOC functions
In all instances, the primary objective of a NOC is to maintain the network running smoothly and minimize downtime in any form. NOCs achieve this objective by performing critical operations to maintain optimal network performance.
These operations include:
• Monitoring the condition and performance of network servers, applications, and devices;
• Constantly monitoring the network for possible security risks;
• Assessing bandwidth use to detect bandwidth hogs;
• Offering firewall management assistance.
Exploring the benefits of NOCs
From quick issue resolution and customizable offerings to cost-effectiveness and exhaustive services, NOCs can provide essential support for a company’s IT operations.
Identifying and resolving issues quickly
Whereas help desks can only become aware of a problem when an end user reports it, NOCs can spot cyber threats before they can do any harm, thanks to their monitoring tools. Fixing network problems as quickly as possible helps keep networks running and preserves sensitive data safely.
Customizable offerings
NOCs offer flexible service packages to accommodate any company’s requirements. To meet the demands of businesses that need protection and network monitoring outside of typical business hours, NOCs provide these services around the clock.
Therefore, a top-tier NOC will be versatile enough to customize its capabilities to the proprietary circumstances of the firm leveraging them. Notable examples include the use of monitoring schedules and security software.
Cost-effectiveness
It is estimated that the typical salaries of IT employees now vary from little more than $61,000 for a systems administrator to roughly $98,000 for a senior software engineer. Businesses that used third-party suppliers witnessed an average growth in ROI and cost savings of 28%.
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Assistance to internal IT teams
In businesses with their IT department, NOCs may work alongside them in a limited capacity to assist in handling employee support issues, allowing the in-house IT staff to shift their attention to other initiatives.
Past studies demonstrate that an efficient approach to outsourcing optimizes attaining your business priorities, addresses a skills/resources gap, and enables the avenue to scale flexibly without incurring the fixed expenditures of extra staff.
Preventing network downtime
On average, 91% of businesses report hourly downtime costs above $300,000. To divert these situations, NOCs impose precautions like regular data backups and remote network monitoring to guarantee that their networks are always operational.
Comprehensive suite of services
Unlike Security Operation Centers and help desks, NOCs offer a more comprehensive suite of services, integrating cybersecurity services alongside systematic network support. For businesses with limited internal IT capabilities, NOCs can serve as a valuable resource for preserving the network’s overall health.
Bottom line
Without a doubt, a NOC emerges as a critical component in ensuring a company’s network’s availability, efficiency, and security. Its monitoring and maintenance capabilities and customizable and cost-effective offerings make it a valuable asset for organizations of all sizes.
A NOC is a must-have for any organization looking to enhance its IT operations and improve its bottom line through its breakthrough ability to identify and resolve issues swiftly, offer comprehensive services, prevent network downtime, and assist internal IT teams.
