1 / 106

How to Build a NOC: Customers, Staffing, and Tools

This panel discussion provides insights on building a Network Operations Center (NOC), covering topics such as customer expectations, staffing requirements, organizational structure, tools, and funding. Case study from Indiana University and Global NOC.

xanti
Download Presentation

How to Build a NOC: Customers, Staffing, and Tools

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. How to Build a NOC Quilt NOC Workshop Panel Discussion: Indiana University/Global NOC WiscNetPacific Northwest GigaPopOctober 3, 2007 How to Build a NOC

  2. Customers and Expectations • Who are your customers and what are their expectations/SLA’s? • Campus, University System, StateNet, GigaPoP, RON, National Backbone, International Connections • 24x7, Business Hours, Best Effort • Problem Resolution, Triage, Problem Identification, Service Desk How to Build a NOC

  3. Supported Services • In addition to networking, what other services does your organization support? • Computer Operations • Support Center • Security Response • Grid Computing • Consulting How to Build a NOC

  4. Monitoring and Troubleshooting • How large and complex is your network? • Large and Simple, or Small and Complex • Types of Networking Supported • Optical DWDM • Layer 2 – Switch Network • Layer 3 – Routed Network • How many hats being worn? Incestuous operational and support relationships? How to Build a NOC

  5. Monitoring and Troubleshooting • What level troubleshooting and/or monitoring will your NOC do? • Troubleshooting is based on delegation of responsibility within a NOC organization and/or other related NOC’s • Monitoring based on SLA’s and health of the network & services provided How to Build a NOC

  6. Monitoring and Troubleshooting • How will you communicate outages and planned work to customers? • Phone • Email / Listserv • Web page announcements • RSS How to Build a NOC

  7. Staffing • Staffing requirements due to SLA's or after hour service response policies • 24x7, Business Hours, Best Effort How to Build a NOC

  8. Staffing • Service Hours - Hours of coverage?  Not all NOCs need to be 7x24x365, but what     about holidays?  Weekends? On-call? How to Build a NOC

  9. Staffing • What level of staff needs to be present, and when? • Tier One: Service Desk (Call Center), Customer Service, Problem Assessment, Network Knowledgeable • Tier Two: Engineering, Problem Resolution, Perform Maintenance • Tier Three: Advanced Engineering, Complex Problem Resolution, Escalation Point, Network Planning How to Build a NOC

  10. Staffing • Means of responding to issues when NOC is not staffed 24x7? • Other group within organization answering phone, email, and watches monitoring, contacting the on-call • Monitoring sends message directly to the on-call pager • Out-Source after-hours How to Build a NOC

  11. Organizational Structure • What staffing tiers/hierarchy will you have for support? Techs?  Leads?  NEs? How to Build a NOC

  12. Organizational Structure • Escalation practices and policies   • When to move a ticket to an escalation group or person within an organization • When to inform key personnel within organization or network supported about outages/problems How to Build a NOC

  13. Organizational Structure • Writing/updating procedures, training manuals, etc. • Who is charged with this? When is it accomplished? • NOC personnel in conjunction with their other responsibilities • Dedicated resources How to Build a NOC

  14. NOC Location •  What is your facility like? • Does your facility have any unique or particular advantages?   • How do you want to arrange your staff?  Separate offices?  "War room"? How to Build a NOC

  15. NOC Funding • How is your organization funded • University funds • State appropriations • GigaPoP / RON revenue • Contracts, grants How to Build a NOC

  16. Tools • How will you track trouble tickets? • Enterprise wide systems shared used on university or state wide level • Proprietary system supported by the NOC and/or other related support groups • Commercial application or Homegrown How to Build a NOC

  17. Tools • How will you track customer information?  (Database needs, CRM?) • Ticketing system • Database • Web or Wiki information repository How to Build a NOC

  18. Tools • How will you monitor and troubleshoot?  Tools, specifically. • Network monitoring system like Nagios, WhatsUp Gold, HP OpenView • Weather Maps • MRTG How to Build a NOC

  19. Tools • Are you writing any of your own tools? • Who will maintain your applications? How to Build a NOC

  20. Reporting • What are the key metrics for a NOC? • How will you measure these? • Uptime availability • Nodes monitored • Trouble tickets • Phone calls • Emails How to Build a NOC

  21. NOC Evolution • What factors have determined operational changes for your organization - new services, expanded hours, increased number of customers, new equipment types, deeper skill level How to Build a NOC

  22. Building a NOC Indiana University/Global NOC Case Study Steve Peck October 3, 2007 How to Build a NOC

  23. Customers and Expectations • Who are your customers and what are their expectations/SLA’s • Indiana University • Indiana GigaPoP & IP Grid • I-Light (state of Indiana Higher Ed) • Internet2 • National LambdaRail • CIC OmniPoP IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  24. Customers and Expectations • Who are your customers and what are their expectations/SLA’s • TransPAC2 • AMPATH • MAN LAN • HOPI • Connecticut Education Network (pending) • OneNet (consulting) IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  25. Supported Services • In addition to networking, what other services does your organization support? • REN-ISAC (Security service) • Open Science Grid (Grid monitoring service) IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  26. Monitoring and Troubleshooting • How large and complex is your network? YES!!! • Types of Networking Supported • Optical DWDM • Layer 2 – Switch Network • Layer 3 – Routed Network • How many hats being worn? Yes! • Incestuous operational and support relationships? Yes! IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  27. Monitoring and Troubleshooting • What level troubleshooting and/or monitoring will your NOC do? • Within the division of work between our Service Desk and Network Engineering groups, our NOC is able to perform all levels of troubleshooting and monitoring. Ranges from simple layer 3 connections to complex DWDM systems. IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  28. Monitoring and Troubleshooting • How will you communicate outages and planned work to customers? • Email / Listserv • Web page announcements • RSS Feeds • Web and iCalendar based Maintenance/Outage Calendars • Phone (in limited circumstances) IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  29. Staffing • Service Hours - Hours of coverage?  Not all NOCs need to be 7x24x365, but what     about holidays?  Weekends? On-call? • Service Desk: 24x7x365 • Engineering: Business Hours & On-Call • Systems Engineering: Business Hours & On-Call IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  30. Staffing • Staffing requirements due to SLA's or after hour service response policies • Service Desk: 24x7x365 • Engineering: Business Hours & On-Call • Systems Engineering: Business Hours & On-Call IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  31. Staffing • What level of staff needs to be present, and when? • Service Desk: 24x7x365 • Engineering: Business Hours & On-Call • Systems Engineering: Business Hours & On-Call IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  32. Staffing • Means of responding to issues when NOC is not staffed 24x7? • We have on-call rotation for Engineering and System Engineering groups, as well as Service Desk Supervisors. IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  33. Organizational Structure • What staffing tiers/hierarchy will you have for support? Techs?  Leads?  NEs? Service Desk • 2 Shift Supervisors (Day & Night shifts) • 5 Senior Technicians (at least one on every shift) • 13 Technicians (including hourlys) • 5 Off Front-Line support personnel IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  34. Organizational Structure • What staffing tiers/hierarchy will you have for support? Techs?  Leads?  NEs? Network Engineering • 17 Network Engineers • Network Engineering Team • Network Planning Team Systems Engineering • 7 Systems Engineers (+1 open position) • Application Developers • System Administrators IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  35. Organizational Structure • Escalation practices and policies   • Service Desk has 15 minutes to assess problem or outage before escalating to Engineering. • Standard “escalation” processes for outages and problems (immediate, 1 hour, 4 hours, 12 hours, etc.) IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  36. Organizational Structure • Writing/updating procedures, training manuals, etc. • NOC personnel in conjunction with their other responsibilities (Service Desk & Engineering) • Recently have hired dedicated resources to focus on internal documentation environment IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  37. NOC Location •  What is your facility like? • State of the art • Does your facility have any unique or particular advantages? • Showpiece for tours, on the edge of downtown Indianapolis, close to State Capitol • How do you want to arrange your staff?  Separate offices?  "War room"? • War room (for most part), plus offices for appropriate staff IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  38. NOC Funding • How is your organization funded • Contracts, grants • University funds • State appropriations • GigaPoP revenue IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  39. Tools • How will you track trouble tickets? • Footprints ticketing system (manufactured by Numara) for all GRNOC networks & projects • Peregrine for all IU campus related tickets IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  40. Tools • How will you track customer information?  (Database needs, CRM?) • Ticketing system • Great Database (developed in-house) • Web or Wiki information repository IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  41. Tools • How will you monitor and troubleshoot?  Tools, specifically. • Monitoring: AlertMon homegrown web based alert interface links Nagios to Footprints ticketing system • Visualization: Weather Maps, Utilization Graphs (SNAPP) • Management: GRNOC Database and linked systems (RADIUS, DNS, etc.) • Other special-purpose tools (examples: Spanning Tree state map, Juniper Firewall Filter Grapher, Syslog Analysis Scripts, prefix list diff checker, etc.) IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  42. Tools • Are you writing any of your own tools? • Yes. Large deployment of custom developed and open source software with a sprinkle of commercial software. • Who will maintain your applications? • Systems Engineering Team: Software Developers and System Administrators. IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  43. Tools: Monitoring • AlertMon: “Big Board” front-end to monitoring system • Nagios: open source network monitoring system with custom-developed Plug-ins and monitoring agents. Monitor variety of services: BGP session status, Interface up/down, IS-IS Adjacency, Router/Switch CPU load, MSDP status, etc. IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  44. Tools: Monitoring Nagios Monitoring System IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  45. Tools: Weathermaps “Mini Maps” embedded in NOC web sites IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  46. Tools: Weathermaps IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  47. Tools: Management GRNOC Database • Network Management System including: • Contact Management • Device Management • Inventory • RADIUS-based authentication • DNS record generation • Configuration archiving • Tied to utilization measurement system • Circuit Management (Layer 0, Layer 1, Layer 2) • IP Address Management • Services Management IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  48. Tools: GRNOC DB IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  49. Tools: GRNOC DB IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

  50. Reporting • What are the key metrics for a NOC? • How will you measure these? • Uptime availability • Services monitored • Trouble tickets • Phone calls • Emails IU/Global NOC How to Build a NOC

More Related