Former NOC Techs

superdat1

Hello All,

I've recently made my way into the IT Industry and fortunately found a position as a NOC tech. I've been learning a lot of things over this past month! Of course I want to use this as a stepping stone to gain knowledge and experience to move up the totem pole.

My questions for the former NOC techs, and even current techs are;

How long were you in this position before you moved forward?
What path did you choose and how did your NOC experience help out?
Any suggestions of what I can do here to really take advantage of the learning?

Thanks!

YuckTheFankees

Good questions superdat1. I have been in a NOC position for a year and I would also like to know what other members have to say.

How long were you in this position before you moved forward?
I have been in the NOC for a year and I'm thinking I will be in the NOC for another year or two. They pay very well at my current company, so I am not in a hurry to leave. I would like to finish my bachelors and masters while I am here (so they can pay for it ).

What path did you choose and how did your NOC experience help out?
Even though I am still in the NOC, I have a couple idea's of where I would like to go next. I have 3 vague idea's of where I would like to be after the NOC; A.) Network Engineer B.) Management C.) IT consultant. Each of the options have many pros/cons but I am young, so things can change. At this point, I think Management would be my first choice and consulting would be my 2nd choice.

Any suggestions of what I can do here to really take advantage of the learning?
Learn your network like the back of your hand and learn what every piece of equipment in your network does. Another good idea, is to draw out the network and erase "something" from the drawing (DHCP server, AAA server, Agg switch, etc.), then explain what would happen if that particular piece was taken out.

paulgswanson

How long were you in this position before you moved forward?
I was in the NOC for roughly 6months before stepping back to my previous role. That was partially the managers fault at the time though. I was told there would have been plenty of room for cross training in Network maintenence, however when the time came I was passed over for the trining 3 differnt times. Then 6months came along and our company was bought and layoff papers were handed out. I refused the severance pay and suggested they let me bck into my Desktop support role. They accepted.


What path did you choose and how did your NOC experience help out?
I wanted my role to lead to Network managment. As for how my role exp helped out...I was able to see a high level overview of how everything fit together. Reading about it and actually seeing how it works are 2 radically different things. Plus I literally got my foot in the door, now i can try L2 NOC support instead of simply being a L1 NOC support agent

Any suggestions of what I can do here to really take advantage of the learning?

Like Yuck said:

Learn your network like the back of your hand and learn what every piece of equipment in your network does. Another good idea, is to draw out the network and erase "something" from the drawing (DHCP server, AAA server, Agg switch, etc.), then explain what would happen if that particular piece was taken out.

superdat1

Thanks for the answers guys!

Looking forward to see what others have to add!

darkerz

How long were you in this position before you moved forward?

I am still in the position, but our NOC is very small and irregular. I am more or less the Cisco Network Engineer and Cisco/ShoreTel Design, Review, Deploy, Troubleshoot and Configuration guru.

What path did you choose and how did your NOC experience help out?

Initially I was a NOC Tech turned MSP NOC Engineer, it helped with understanding the Service Provider/ Core Provider picture. Also, 99% of our Enterprise IT and Networking Local "Contacts" are 30 IQ points of understanding away in terms of IGP/EGP's, Security policy, compliance and VoIP (UC or PBX).

Any suggestions of what I can do here to really take advantage of the learning?

Volunteer for all and any projects, work over time and take on call seriously. If its an ISP/MSP, you're going to get a rocket fuel injection in terms of your career.

prtech

I've been in the NOC for two months now. We are a service provider so it's mostly routers and switches. I would like to move into a Network Engineering role within a year.

To take advantage of the learning, volunteer to shadow or work with the engineers during your free time.

Mike-Mike

about to start in a NOC, looking forward to looking over this thread later

superdat1

anyone else have any input?

cvuong1984

In 1st NOC for almost 2 years. Left that position due to Contract Ending. (Ability to learn and cross train was in abundance due to skeleton crews) - Started in Servers and ended doing Security/Network/Server Monitoring (most ppl had dual screens in our company, i needed 4....)
Joined 2nd NOC for another 1.5 year. (Even tho this was a higher paying position, it was a step back in terms of responsibility, almost no admin rights to anything.)
Left that position and became a systems admin. (been here for about a year or so now.)

PRTECH is def right, and was exactly what I did, when SOC or Network team lost a member, I said I would help, and was cross trained due to that.

NotHackingYou

Bring a good attitude to work every day and learn everything you can and everything else will fall into place.

networkjutsu

I did my time as a NOC guy (department was called Network Control Center). It was my first networking gig. As previously stated by other members of the TE in a separate thread, every NOC is different. The NOC at the time had full privilege access and were responsible for Cisco routers, switches, Symbol APs, VSAT, and VoIP (only in the CUCME piece and read-only access to CUCM but was still limited). When I left the department, the environment started changing and had more stuff added like UTMs and Cisco APs and WLCs so I didn't get a chance to play with them. That department will now be outsourced but if I remember correctly it will still stay in the US (not entirely sure).

Anyway....

How long were you in this position before you moved forward?

I was there for almost three years. The department was not viewed very highly by other departments especially the next tier up due to the fact that most people feel that the manager ran it like a call center department and some people were just too lazy to really dig in before escalating it to the next tier. With that being said, even there was an opportunity to move up to the next tier only the guys who were close to the management were given an opportunity to move up even though they didn't deserve it. Though, eventually, I was able to be promoted to the next tier. Did I deserve it? Probably or probably not. Depending on who you asked, I guess.


What path did you choose and how did your NOC experience help out?

Due to the fact that our NOC was only responsible for networking devices unlike other NOCs out there, it was only logical to move to the networking engineering group. Besides, that's why I left the bay area in the first place to be in the networking field. Wasn't so lucky to find a job in the bay area with no networking experience, so I just started looking internally to move to the NOC department which required me to move to IL. Hello Chicagoans! I'll probably visit Chicago next year. Would love to meet some of you!Any suggestions of what I can do here to really take advantage of the learning?

Do not, I repeat, do not work on easy tickets. Pick the tickets you've never worked on before. You'll learn from those tickets and not the ones you already know. Try to at least write down that ticket number if it needs to go on more than your scheduled hours so you can track what the resolution was.

Try to teach fellow NOC techs if you know something that they don't. Teaching help retains information in my opinion. Even though you're new to the group or in the industry, they'll learn something from you and you'll learn something from them.

If not busy, try to read a book and don't waste time surfing the Internet or watching YouTube. If you're not reading a book, try to read some blogs. You'll definitely learn from TE members' blog, INE or IPExpert, and etc. Some people think it is a waste of time joining Twitter, but I find it very good in collecting other people's blog links. Obviously, I try to follow only the guys or girls I know I'll learn from. Some of these people are networking authors, CCIEs, and etc. So definitely don't cross out Twitter on the list.

Good luck to you! Have fun learning!