Done being a noc monkey

Hello ladies and gentleman I'm reaching out to you guys in hopes that you guys can possibly help. I've been working at a NOC for a little bit over a year and I've gained experience in everything from CUCM to VMware client to Nexus switches. (Just triage no configs/upgrades) So I don't see any room for advancement on to the engineer side just being a Tech dealing with b******* tickets and circuits that sort of NOC. I haven't really been studying for the CCNP as I have been busy doing other things. At this point I'm a little bit lost on on what I should pursue next obviously I'm well aware that I'm going to have to get the CCNP or at least a CCNA data center or voice or whatever field but I really can't tell which way I want to go with the seemingly limited experience that I've gotten but I'm hoping there is some general direction you guys could point me in I know that it seems like the answer could be whatever appeals to you but I'm wondering what would be a good next step in terms of a job

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Essendon

Welcome to the forums!

Where do your interests lie? If you are into networking get the CCNA ASAP, prep your resume and apply for the next level up you wish to target. Good luck!

Archon

CCNA seems to be the basics to start and progress in networking.

jimisrvrox

Archon wrote: »

CCNA seems to be the basics to start and progress in networking.

Sorry that I didnt mention I have my ccna.

phantasm

jimisrvrox wrote: »

Hello ladies and gentleman I'm reaching out to you guys in hopes that you guys can possibly help. I've been working at a NOC for a little bit over a year and I've gained experience in everything from CUCM to VMware client to Nexus switches. (Just triage no configs/upgrades) So I don't see any room for advancement on to the engineer side just being a Tech dealing with b******* tickets and circuits that sort of NOC. I haven't really been studying for the CCNP as I have been busy doing other things. At this point I'm a little bit lost on on what I should pursue next obviously I'm well aware that I'm going to have to get the CCNP or at least a CCNA data center or voice or whatever field but I really can't tell which way I want to go with the seemingly limited experience that I've gotten but I'm hoping there is some general direction you guys could point me in I know that it seems like the answer could be whatever appeals to you but I'm wondering what would be a good next step in terms of a job

So you've been busy "doing other things" and you're not happy with your job... but yet you admit you have limited experience. For starters, a CCNA is pretty much required. I'm assuming you have one since you mentioned, and I quote: "I haven't really been studying for the CCNP as I have been busy doing other things." What other things? Other certifications? I hope so.

If you want to get anywhere in Networking you need to show ambition. No one moves up or out of a NOC just doing the bare minimum. I spent 5yrs total in a NOC environment over 3 separate NOC's in various roles from Technician to Supervisor. My advice, work on your NP, talk with some of the Engineers and see if you can shadow or work on some low hanging fruit with them. Oh and work on your NP.

jimisrvrox

Thanks for the welcome. I lurk from time to time. I initially got into networking to get away from M$. Now, having exposure to VCenter & CUCM, Im not real sure which path Id want to go down just because I havent gotten far enough into either one to tell you! To top it all off, Im actually all over the map w my intrests lol. Currently trying to figure out SQLite for an Android project, plus would need to hit stuff on API's and review the Android based Java material. Also have books on CCNA Security, Voice, and a VMWare 5 Infrastructure book. My exposure thus far has been just triaging alarms for things like gateways down or dfs fails or phones either not registered or phones changing CM's on the voice side and disc alerts or netapp cpu alerts or volume alerts on the DC side. Guys at work seem to think that R/S is oversaturated and is pretty cut n dry and voice is good if you want to work with all the app layer stuff and that DC seems to be where the money is at especially with all the SDN talk. Not to mention all the CMs sit on them.

jimisrvrox

I made mention to the noc manager about shadowing engineers and hinted at a transition program but it has seemed to fall on deaf ears.

jimisrvrox

Thanks for the reply phantasm. I forgot to mention staffing issues might be one of the "reasons" they wouldnt consider a shadow program right now. On my shift its me and one other tech and sups are overlapped btwn first n 2nd. I happen to be on 2nd with a new sup and in terms of family time couldnt ask for a better shift 1pm-11pm but they are trying to get me to go to another shift thurs-sun 11pm-9am which is the worst so im trying to get the hell out before they think they can "fire" me for basically telling them no to a shift change(being inflexible) to them.

jimisrvrox

Between me and my shift mate we do about 40 tickets a night a piece for this MSP

bermovick

I worked 2nd (graveyard) shift at a NOC for just shy of 2 years before moving on. I had my CCNA when I got the job, and when I left I had the CCNA:Security and CCNP. Like you when I tried talking about shadowing our network people I pretty much got ignored (I even sent an email every day I was off for over a year letting them know I could come in and help out).

Eventually I got contacted for the job I'm holding now and I was upfront: I did a lot of voice work and some networking; studied for the *NP, but it was mostly book knowledge at that level.

The funny thing is they were actually surprised and a bit angry when I put in my 2 week notice.

jimisrvrox

bermovick wrote: »

I worked 2nd (graveyard) shift at a NOC for just shy of 2 years before moving on. I had my CCNA when I got the job, and when I left I had the CCNA:Security and CCNP. Like you when I tried talking about shadowing our network people I pretty much got ignored (I even sent an email every day I was off for over a year letting them know I could come in and help out).

Eventually I got contacted for the job I'm holding now and I was upfront: I did a lot of voice work and some networking; studied for the *NP, but it was mostly book knowledge at that level.

The funny thing is they were actually surprised and a bit angry when I put in my 2 week notice.

We have had multiple people move on already with the one most recently getting promoted to being a Service Delivery Manager after she had talked to the new director of MS and had applied for the req. So, Id be intrested to see if the director wants to follow through with his "campaign promise" if you will of retaining people instead of letting them walk.

slee335

Agreed i'm tired of being a NOC slave doing rotating shift not learning to much expect triage problem. and when i ask to shadow the higher level tech they said NO but maybe later on, but i still haven't got the chance yet i've been doing about a year and half i'm looking to leave this place so bad i had enough of there lies. i'm looking to move away from network to more system work. but people keep contacting about more NOC position.

bermovick wrote: »

I worked 2nd (graveyard) shift at a NOC for just shy of 2 years before moving on. I had my CCNA when I got the job, and when I left I had the CCNA:Security and CCNP. Like you when I tried talking about shadowing our network people I pretty much got ignored (I even sent an email every day I was off for over a year letting them know I could come in and help out).

Eventually I got contacted for the job I'm holding now and I was upfront: I did a lot of voice work and some networking; studied for the *NP, but it was mostly book knowledge at that level.

The funny thing is they were actually surprised and a bit angry when I put in my 2 week notice.

Blackout

A lot of people here who really don't understand how valuable NOC experience actually is, doing time in the NOC opens up possibilities everywhere, your touching so much gear that others will never get experience from, if you were expecting to work complex issues within your first year you probably set your expectations pretty high. As I said before the NOC is a great place to get your hands into a metric crap ton of technologies and the time to work your certifications, if you don't want to be a in the NOC then work your ass off get certified (You should already be a couple tests in or completely done with CCNP), and get all the experience you can.

I have been in TAC, let me tell you I wish I had the time to actually work on Certifications. I literally work from 6am to 4pm daily then go home and work for another 3 hours on my backlog, on the weekends I work between 4-5 hours in the morning on Saturday and Sunday (To keep up with backlog) Be careful what you wish for. You want to move up, work hard, study hard and make it so they cannot deny you.

slee335

That's what I thought about the noc at my noc the net eng treat us like admin just sending out notice n making calls to the carrier doesn't want us to learn **** then they complain how over work they are. They don't want us to help them. I have been studying not for ccnp because I don't want to do this anymore I got my ITIL got my security going for VMware hopefully be done working in a cold building by myself

bpenn

I would KILL to have an opportunity like you. There are no NOCs where I live. There are NO entry level network-type jobs. I am about to get access to configure some local switches and routers at my current job because I am about to complete my CCNA and I begged the network team to let me assist them. They actually listened and I am about to get invaluable experience I would have never gotten had I not shown initiative.

slee335

to be honest i think i learn more about networking at my last job the networks guys were a lot more friendlier and willing to teach and show me and shadow. this data center job the network guys think there the best and look down on us and when **** goes wrong blames us. NOC at my place gets no respect they way to set it up we watch and notify and don't touch and let the neteng handle it. they could throw in a secretary to do it at my place.

stlsmoore

Get your CCNA and then get out of the NOC NOW anyway you can! I went through the same exact experience when I jumped ship from M$ to the network side. Got my start at a NOC dealing with 40+ support tickets a day on a 12 hour shift. Stayed there exactly a year before moving to a medium enterprise; I know how you feel. After about 8 months there wasn't many new skills being learned due to being so restricted on troubleshooting environments. For me pure troubleshooting roles are hell to deal with.

jimisrvrox

bpenn wrote: »

I would KILL to have an opportunity like you. There are no NOCs where I live. There are NO entry level network-type jobs. I am about to get access to configure some local switches and routers at my current job because I am about to complete my CCNA and I begged the network team to let me assist them. They actually listened and I am about to get invaluable experience I would have never gotten had I not shown initiative.

Best advice I can tell you is to MOVE. I lived for 8 yrs in Albuquerque where I couldnt even find a networking job or anything even close to it and then moved back home to dallas where theres probably going to be recruiters blowing up my phone once my resume and linkedin profiles are updated.

jimisrvrox

The other thing is yes the noc is great for abot 6-12 months n then you get tired of doing n seeing the same **** every day with really no learning experiences to build on.

jimisrvrox

Blackout wrote: »

A lot of people here who really don't understand how valuable NOC experience actually is, doing time in the NOC opens up possibilities everywhere, your touching so much gear that others will never get experience from, if you were expecting to work complex issues within your first year you probably set your expectations pretty high. As I said before the NOC is a great place to get your hands into a metric crap ton of technologies and the time to work your certifications, if you don't want to be a in the NOC then work your ass off get certified (You should already be a couple tests in or completely done with CCNP), and get all the experience you can.

I have been in TAC, let me tell you I wish I had the time to actually work on Certifications. I literally work from 6am to 4pm daily then go home and work for another 3 hours on my backlog, on the weekends I work between 4-5 hours in the morning on Saturday and Sunday (To keep up with backlog) Be careful what you wish for. You want to move up, work hard, study hard and make it so they cannot deny you.

Guess you might be over in Richardson. Had a voice buddy of mine who worked at TAC for a while said hey dont work at TAC n described it the same way you just did.

jimisrvrox

slee335 wrote: »

to be honest i think i learn more about networking at my last job the networks guys were a lot more friendlier and willing to teach and show me and shadow. this data center job the network guys think there the best and look down on us and when **** goes wrong blames us. NOC at my place gets no respect they way to set it up we watch and notify and don't touch and let the neteng handle it. they could throw in a secretary to do it at my place.

I feel you there yesterday I decided that I was going to take an email ticket and ask the datacenter guy to help me work through the ticket so today he's going to create me a procedure on how to work that ticket but you're at yesterday my supervisor decided to put me back in a ready steak on the phone so that my damn phone can ring and I was kind of pissed off about it but I'm going to do it again today and will keep doing it so that I could learn what if my supervisor decides to keep putting me back on the f****** phones again I'm going to go up the chain and if that doesn't get fixed I'm going to go out the door

Verities

slee335 wrote: »

to be honest i think i learn more about networking at my last job the networks guys were a lot more friendlier and willing to teach and show me and shadow. this data center job the network guys think there the best and look down on us and when **** goes wrong blames us. NOC at my place gets no respect they way to set it up we watch and notify and don't touch and let the neteng handle it. they could throw in a secretary to do it at my place.

You don't happen to work at Earthlink do you? All of your posts in this thread describe my experience at a Earthlink NOC.

markulous

At least you've got some decent experience to put on your resume. Use that an a CCNA to get a network admin job.

My job is adding a NOC team, but from the sounds of it, it's hardly technical. Just relaying alerts and no actual troubleshooting network equipment.

SpetsRepair

Any advice for someone trying really hard to land a noc position?

jimisrvrox

markulous wrote: »

At least you've got some decent experience to put on your resume. Use that an a CCNA to get a network admin job.

My job is adding a NOC team, but from the sounds of it, it's hardly technical. Just relaying alerts and no actual troubleshooting network equipment.

Ive got the CCNA I might go get me an admin job but I think I might be more intrested in data center.

jimisrvrox

SpetsRepair wrote: »

Any advice for someone trying really hard to land a noc position?

The way I got mine was I was in school n worked at a call center. Then got my CCNA and degree then worked at a helpdesk n got experience with Remedy (ticket system) That led me to get the job I have now. Ticket system exp plus cert.

kurosaki00

SpetsRepair wrote: »

Any advice for someone trying really hard to land a noc position?

Customer service, softskills, professionalism, basic network knowledge.
And finally two very important things:
1. Have Logic, you would be surprised how often people lack the basic skill of 1+1 = 2.
For example if they ask you, if your company loses internet from point A to point B and have 10k ppl screaming, chaos, anarchy, what do you do?
Re-route traffic should be the first thing that comes to your mind, if not, err logic.
The ability to look at a problem and immediately realize that scenario 1+ 2 means it's very likely X.

And finally#2 - Multitasking. NOCs are pretty hectic places, sometimes you need to run half n hour or more with 3-4 issues at the same time. You need the capacity of storing that in your RAM (brain) and being able to put down into paper sometimes after having two and three calls in between about completely different subjects/issues.

The cool thing is that a lot of this can be trained and learned.

slee335

Verities wrote: »

You don't happen to work at Earthlink do you? All of your posts in this thread describe my experience at a Earthlink NOC.

no i don't work at earthlink

Blackout

jimisrvrox wrote: »

Guess you might be over in Richardson. Had a voice buddy of mine who worked at TAC for a while said hey dont work at TAC n described it the same way you just did.

No Sir. I am in Raleigh, NC. Don't get me wrong, TAC can be a ton of fun, and your literally drinking from the firehose when it comes to knowledge, its just not a 9-5 job, you have to actively work to keep your backlog down. Some people take to TAC like a moth to the flame, others burn out within the first 6 months.

UnixGuy

stlsmoore wrote: »

.... For me pure troubleshooting roles are hell to deal with.

I learned SO much doing those pure troubleshooting roles

First they're painful, then you get more efficient, then you start looking for harder issues to troubleshoot. It gives you confidence, and tons of knowledge, but yes doing it forever can take a toll on you...

Blackout

UnixGuy wrote: »

I learned SO much doing those pure troubleshooting roles First they're painful, then you get more efficient, then you start looking for harder issues to troubleshoot. It gives you confidence, and tons of knowledge, but yes doing it forever can take a toll on you...

^^^^^^This x1000, you get better and better at diagnosing the issue, and eventually fix things with relative ease quickly. Honestly if your scared or dislike troubleshooting Networks may not be for you. When you get into meat and potatoes Engineer roles your going to need to know how to fix things on the fly, under pressure.