A NOC Job ? ? ?

sKGP

Guys i'm still studying right now and working on my CCNA simultaneously . The thing i wanted to ask you guys is what happens in NOC job . The people who work their , What do you do actually ? You can say i'm just too curious to know happens behind the scenes out their . Will be glad if some one briefs me about this

ehnde

I wish I could give you a better answer than what I'm about to give you, but this is my understanding based on starting a new job at a NOC on Monday:

It depends on your role, the purpose of the NOC, and your skill level. First of all no matter the purpose you can expect monitoring at the lowest level. Solarwinds or other monitoring type software is used and also maybe some sort of ticketing system so that technicians can claim ownership of a problem and work to resolve it as it comes up. You'll probably sit around doing nothing alot, and many employers encourage you to study during this time (if you're lucky).

Depending on the NOC, you may find yourself working mostly with switches and almost never touching a router, or vice versa. You could find yourself dealing mostly with VOIP (or not at all). You could be doing IOS upgrades. More hands-on type work is done at night than during the day (unless it's an emergency).

In my case I'll probably never talk to a customer, but again that can vary based on who you're working for and your role.

For me, knowledge of OSPF and switching is the most important technical knowledge...however, your focus is *entirely* dependent on who you're working for and their goals (like I said earlier).

MPLS seems to be very popular, you're likely to see that. But at the CCNA level you're very unlikely to touch MPLS.

sKGP

ehnde wrote: »

I wish I could give you a better answer than what I'm about to give you, but this is my understanding based on starting a new job at a NOC on Monday:

It depends on your role, the purpose of the NOC, and your skill level. First of all no matter the purpose you can expect monitoring at the lowest level. Solarwinds or other monitoring type software is used and also maybe some sort of ticketing system so that technicians can claim ownership of a problem and work to resolve it as it comes up. You'll probably sit around doing nothing alot, and many employers encourage you to study during this time (if you're lucky).

Depending on the NOC, you may find yourself working mostly with switches and almost never touching a router, or vice versa. You could find yourself dealing mostly with VOIP (or not at all). You could be doing IOS upgrades. More hands-on type work is done at night than during the day (unless it's an emergency).

In my case I'll probably never talk to a customer, but again that can vary based on who you're working for and your role.

For me, knowledge of OSPF and switching is the most important technical knowledge...however, your focus is *entirely* dependent on who you're working for and their goals (like I said earlier).

MPLS seems to be very popular, you're likely to see that. But at the CCNA level you're very unlikely to touch MPLS.

Hey man that was good . So for a guy coming fresh from CCNA ,what work responsibility is he given ? So how big is the campus that you are monitoring right now in your job ? Is the monitoring only intranet or extranet ? Does your comapany use those leased lines and Framerelay for secure line thing ?

shodown

I'm going to say depends on the NOC.

When I worked service provider NOC and pretty much checked T1's and called people when they went down.


I worked at a Enterprise NOC for a large company 35,000 Global users and did everything from T/S circuts, to OSPF, MPLS, VRRP, HSRP.

ehnde

sKGP wrote: »

Hey man that was good . So for a guy coming fresh from CCNA ,what work responsibility is he given ? So how big is the campus that you are monitoring right now in your job ? Is the monitoring only intranet or extranet ? Does your comapany use those leased lines and Framerelay for secure line thing ?

Mostly monitoring, and if you prove yourself reliable, knowledgeable, and trustworthy you eventually get configuration access to some devices (as a fresh CCNA).

One of the first things I learned was that as a fresh CCNA I don't know squat....and that's ok - it's the reason why job experience is so important! I can tell you that the service provider I'm going to work for has fiber leased lines, but I don't know how big. They have 10's of thousands of customers.

I think frame relay is getting to be a bit dated. You know how they cut things out in the new CCNA objectives (e.g. no more IPX or ISDN)? I'm wondering if that will happen with frame relay within the next few years. I've heard that some of the higher level SPs, like Level3 no longer offer frame relay.

phantasm

I've worked in two NOC's... one carrier and one enterprise.

As a fresh CCNA and being new expect to be in Tier I which means you'll be doing a lot of ticket creation and answering the phones. That's life. Frame-relay still exists but Metro-E is pretty common as well. Some customers still use ATM as well. Just because you have a CCNA doesn't mean your a network guru. That takes time and skill.

I've worked in a nationwide carrier NOC and more recently a worldwide enterprise NOC. In the worldwide NOC I operated in a Tier II role which meant heavy router and switch configurations plus taking escalations from Tier I and assisting the Engineers.

It's good for experience, but every NOC is different.

NOC-Ninja

Like they said it depends on your position. The less people you are with at the NOC , the better it is because lots of responsibilities will fall into your hands.

Anyhow, I deal with: patching cables, deploying a brand new switch, swapping switches, pretty much supporting/troubleshooting Tier 1 and 2 (getting in too much details will eat all of my time typing), supporting engineers/architect with their projects.

Pertaining to the routing protocol, you will deal with this depending on your companies networks design so you might not use all the routing protocol knowledge that you will learn in CCNA.

sKGP

Well u guys really giving me a brief idea of what's going on really out their . The other thing i wanted to ask is What is a tier -1 / 2 /3 jobs . What responsibilities are given at each level ?

networker050184

sKGP wrote: »

Well u guys really giving me a brief idea of what's going on really out their . The other thing i wanted to ask is What is a tier -1 / 2 /3 jobs . What responsibilities are given at each level ?

No one can really tell you that as its going to depend on where you work. Every place is different. Tier 1 is usually lower than 2 and so on. The rest is just speculation at this point.

ehnde

I've been told that you don't touch stuff on a production environment here on TechExams and thought "well, duh" - but the breadth of it hadn't hit me till today

It doesn't matter how good you are, unless you're in the night time maintenance window (and you'll still only be doing stuff that was scheduled and peer-reviewed).

I saw something today that is really, really smart. A proposed configuration change is put in a document in a step-by-step format. It is peer reviewed, then signed off on by management. Only then can it be implemented (during a maintenance window).

I always pictured a NOC being like this:

#1 Problem occurs.
#2 Investigate
#3 Log into misconfigured device and correct problem.

It's not at all like that.

sKGP

ehnde wrote: »

I always pictured a NOC being like this:

#1 Problem occurs.
#2 Investigate
#3 Log into misconfigured device and correct problem.

It's not at all like that.

Well that's what i had picturized about a NOC too .

networker050184

ehnde wrote: »

I've been told that you don't touch stuff on a production environment here on TechExams and thought "well, duh" - but the breadth of it hadn't hit me till today

It doesn't matter how good you are, unless you're in the night time maintenance window (and you'll still only be doing stuff that was scheduled and peer-reviewed).

I saw something today that is really, really smart. A proposed configuration change is put in a document in a step-by-step format. It is peer reviewed, then signed off on by management. Only then can it be implemented (during a maintenance window).

I always pictured a NOC being like this:

#1 Problem occurs.
#2 Investigate
#3 Log into misconfigured device and correct problem.

It's not at all like that.

If something broken in the middle of the day someone better fix it before waiting until the middle of the night. If you want to keep customers SLA that is. But scheduled maintenance is a whole other story.

phantasm

networker050184 wrote: »

If something broken in the middle of the day someone better fix it before waiting until the middle of the night. If you want to keep customers SLA that is. But scheduled maintenance is a whole other story.

Bingo. There's a big difference between a break fix action and maintenance. Also, I do configuration work all day long in the NOC I work in. Most of it is configuration modifications to support changes at the site or new installs and turnups. But any change to a hub or core device is done in a maintenance window and everybody and their mother signs off on it.