TF-NOC has launched a survey about the operational experiences and software tools used for the main functions of Network Operation Centres (NOC), including those related to monitoring, problem-solving, performance, change management, ticketing, reporting and communication. The survey will also collect basic information about NOC internal structures, organisational processes and potential collaborative efforts.

Experienced NOC staff are invited to complete the survey at http://mam.uninett.no/limesurvey/index.php?sid=98535&lang=en by the end of September. The survey targets NOCs responsible for network operations and for network and service operations from National Research and Education Network organisations (NREN), regional and metropolitan network operators, research institutes and campuses. Results will be available before the end of the year.

The survey was designed at the recent TF-NOC meeting on 28-29 June 2011 hosted by SWITCH in Zurich, Switzerland.  Meeting participants heard encouraging presentations about the importance and usefulness of standard procedures and practices such as the TM Forum Business Process Framework (eTOM) and the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). Meeting attendees agreed to create a ‘Standardization/Methodology promotion' sub‐group, to share motivations and use cases for applying standard-based procedures and to determine recommendations and strategies for convincing managers, customers and internal staff to follow standard procedures. 

Participants also heard brief NOC overviews from SWITCH, NORDUnet and CARNet and a presentation about how to build an inexpensive 24x7 NOC by the Israel Inter-University Computation Center (IUCC). Various software tools and practices related to Layer 1 (L1) documentation, topology monitoring, the multi-domain operations of GÉANT infrastructure, incident management and trouble ticketing were also presented.

Attendees expressed their desire for a one-day workshop on Open source NOC tools focused on L1/2 documentation tools, in which participants’ home-grown open source code and corresponding licenses are presented and potentially shared. This workshop may be organised in conjunction with the next TF-NOC meeting, planned for October 2011.

Further Information

The TF-NOC survey can be found at http://mam.uninett.no/limesurvey/index.php?sid=98535&lang=en

The TF-NOC meeting notes and presentations from 28-29 June 2011 can be found at http://www.terena.org/activities/tf-noc/meeting3/programme.html