Network operations center

[3] NOCs are implemented by business organizations, public utilities, universities, and government agencies that oversee complex networking environments that require high availability.

NOC personnel are responsible for monitoring one or many networks for certain conditions that may require special attention to avoid degraded service.

Satellite network environments process large amounts of voice and video data, in addition to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information.

Example organizations that manage this form of NOC includes Artel, a service provider of commercial satellite bandwidth to the United States Department of Defense, located in Herndon, Virginia.

[2] NOCs are frequently laid out with several rows of desks, all facing a video wall, which typically shows details of highly significant alarms, ongoing incidents and general network performance; a corner of the wall is sometimes used for showing a news or weather TV channel, as this can keep the NOC technicians aware of current events which may affect the network or systems they are responsible for.

Overview of a typical NOC. Status monitors (front), backbone overview (back), and news broadcast on TV-set (right). Note the safe under the desk, typically for backups, passwords, or hardware cryptographic devices. - Picture of the Global Network Operations Center [GlobalNOC] at Indiana University
Technicians in Architel NOC