Vineet R.S
14 Jul , 2022
Networks are expensive but imperative to maintain the core business aspects. To consider NOC as a service (Network Operations Center), you need to understand the catastrophic damages that can arise from downtime and outages. While outages are common to most types of businesses, the severity of them can cost businesses money and time.
According to ITIC 2021 Hourly Cost of Downtime Survey, a single hour of downtime can cost businesses about $300,000 loss which would rise from productivity disruptions, loss of business opportunities and remediation efforts.
Source: ITIC 2021 Hourly Cost of Downtime Survey
Outsourcing to a NOC is a cost-effective strategy to ensure the proper maintenance, security, analysis and monitoring of networks and to prevent network outages. With NOC as a service, MSPs can lessen the possibility of network outages for their clients with the best resources. Additionally, NOC as a service undertakes the management of networks and supports micro-services.
With NOC as a service, MSPs can unburden their resources who are otherwise tasked with the constant monitoring and management of client networks. This can further improve and enhance business efficiency and productivity.
In this article, we’ll explore more about NOC as a service, its functionalities, benefits and even more. Let’s dive into it.
NOC as a service refers to the practice of outsourcing your NOC requirements. More specifically, it can refer to the practice of associating with a third-party NOC provider to either improve and enhance the performance of existing networks or function as a NOC.
You need NOCs to manage the networks appropriately. Most businesses prefer to keep in-house NOCs to maintain and manage networks. However, they do not have the required capabilities and efficiencies to manage and hire appropriate resources to manage them. Therefore, you can save the costs that full suite NOC software and tools bring in.
A NOC support provider, on the other hand, has the expertise, tools, and knowledge of complexity to manage your networks. Many companies often presume NOC providers to have high price tags. In reality, outsourcing NOC costs a fraction of the costs and makes network management easy.
The overall results of a NOC are as follows;
Some of the generic functions of NOC include the following;
NOC has all their resources dedicated to the sole maintenance and management of your networks. With a managed NOC, you can avail support through remote or onsite means. NOC as a service means all major network issues of the organization, i.e, from workstation issues to server-side issues are promptly handled and redressed.
NOCs operate round the clock 365 days without any breaks. You can be assured that the performance of your networks is constantly monitored and they are functioning at optimum performance levels.
As mentioned earlier, frequent network outages can elicit additional cost overheads for businesses. With NOC as a service, you can balance your CAPEX and OPEX efficiently. The operating overheads are reduced considerably since there are no additional resources deployed to maintain the company’s networks.
NOC as a service is customizable as per your requirement. You can consult with the MSP and arrive at the best strategy to manage the networks. Some organizations prefer to allow MSPs to manage and monitor the networks while others give specific guidelines to manage them. The latter will have in-house resources to manage the pending aspects that are not outsourced to the MSP.
A network disaster is one unfortunate event that can invite unpleasant consequences to an organization. However, with NOC as a service, you can rely on proper recovery procedures and backup strategy. NOCs manage, design and implement an action plan that can restore the network functioning to expected levels. With a dedicated NOC, you can minimize the damage caused by a severe network disaster.
Technology has blessed organizations with a wide array of tools and softwares to maintain networks. However, in the long run, these can elicit more costs than a NOC. Additionally, you would require resources to handle these tools and softwares efficiently and put them to their full use. Here is where NOC would prove advantageous to businesses. NOC already has tools that can maintain and manage networks. Therefore, businesses need not have to make additional investments to manage the networks.
The protection of your network environment is crucial to protect the confidentiality and integrity of your business. A NOC routinely scrutinize your network to find any discrepancies in security and initiate remedial action. They also offer backup management facilities to organizations.
Proper health checks and subsequent reviews help you ensure that the network performance is as per expectations. Moreover, routine health reviews will help your organization understand the current performance of the networks. A great advantage of NOC as a service is that you can rely on preventive maintenance checks to ensure the servers, network devices and PCs are functioning reliably, securely and optimally.
The response time for network issue identification is incidentally lower. They can initiate quicker response procedures which ensure that any deviations from normal network activity are promptly addressed.
Businesses always look to cap operational costs. When firms usually opt for in-house NOC building and maintenance they are inviting additional costs that come with a high amount of support and technology.
Without proper expertise and workflow, in-house network management activities can demand more resources. Whereas, a NOC classifies each incident to appropriate queue lines and manages networks as per an established flow.
Again a lack of expertise and resources invites inefficient troubleshooting responses which further impact the performance of networks. The disorganized network management team may work in confusion and fail to achieve the pre-defined standard objectives.
Your network may be exposed to constant threats and vulnerabilities without the proper resources to handle them. A NOC with the right personnel having expert knowledge can mitigate this risk.
Many companies struggle with the complexity and costs of managing networks. NOC as a service is a great diversion for businesses that are looking for innovative solutions to manage them. Regardless of the scale of operations, outsourcing NOC services can help MSPs come up with strategic initiatives that can save cost, money and effort.
NOC as a service is definitely turning the discourses in networking and support. With a reliable White Label partner, MSPs can scale business operations and enhance client satisfaction.
Eynetech is your reliable on-demand partner to help you scale virtual operations. With 24*7*365 monitoring support, our experts help reduce NOC workload and enhance ROI with business-wide optimization.
