“NOC Knock...” ...who's there? NOC Frontend Development & Improvement Rachael Holt (HEAnet) & Gareth Eason (HEAnet) TF-NOC Preparation Meeting, Copenhagen, 3 r d May 2010
Who am I? (slide 2 of 318) • Gareth Eason - Network Operations Manager, HEAnet • Rachael Holt - School's Network Operation Centre, HEAnet
(slide 3 of 318) Don't worry... ... I do not really have 318 slides.
...however... This is only presentation #1 (of at least 2 ) ... because this one has no answers, only questions...
Overview • What does your NOC look like? • Who are your users and what do they want? • How do your users interact with the NOC? • What expectations do your customers have? • Faults, SLAs & Contracts • Reporting & Statistics • What do you want from your NOC (and how to get it?)
Overview I want to change: 1. how you think about your NOC 2. how your NOC thinks about its customers
Overview • What does your NOC look like? • Who are your users and what do they want? • How do your users interact with the NOC? • What expectations do your customers have? • Faults, SLAs & Contracts • Reporting & Statistics • What do you want from your NOC (and how to get it?)
What does your NOC look like?
What does your NOC look like?
What does your NOC look like?
What does your NOC look like?
What does your NOC look like?
What does your NOC look like?
What does your NOC look like?
What do you call your NOC? • NOC / Network Operations Centre • NMC / Network Management Centre • Service Desk (ITIL) • Call Desk • Support Desk / Technical Support • Help Desk • The Hell Desk?
What is a NOC? • SpoC (Single Point of Contact) - for users / customers / clients - for suppliers - for the rest of your business • Gatekeeper for change management
What is a NOC? • Public face of your company
Overview • What does your NOC look like? • Who are your users and what do they want? • How do your users interact with the NOC? • What expectations do your customers have? • Faults, SLAs & Contracts • Reporting & Statistics • What do you want from your NOC (and how to get it?)
Who are your users? • Customers • Suppliers • Other parts of your business - Service Development? • Other NOCs • Potential new customers • General Public - Law enforcement? • The internet at large
What do users want? • Easy to contact • Available • Accurate, timely information • Honesty (realism?) • Consistency • Empowerment • Understanding of their needs
What does failure mean? • Employees sitting idle? • Systems unavailable? • Project funding deadline missed? • Loss of revenue? • Irate end-users? • Loss of good-will?
What does failure mean?
Overview • What does your NOC look like? • Who are your users and what do they want? • How do your users interact with the NOC? • What expectations do your customers have? • Faults, SLAs & Contracts • Reporting & Statistics • What do you want from your NOC (and how to get it?)
How do users interact with you? • Phone • E-mail • SMS • Web portal • Front desk • Ticketing system
...when there's a fault?
...when there's a fault? • Out of band? • Website on alternate ISP? • VoIP v POTS • Twitter / Instant Messaging Are you most contactable during a fault ?
Communications Policy • Who contacts who when a fault occurs? • Status page? • Do you have a communications policy?
IVR Phone Systems • Interactive Voice Response • Direct call to right place? • Annoying?
Tiers of support • Silos of knowledge (horizontal) v • Silos of authority (vertical) Level 3 Multimedia Networks Authority Systems Level 2 Level 1
Tiers of support • Ease of escalation • Who is customer facing? • Can customer find the 'right' contact quickly? • Frustration == bypass the process
Overview • What does your NOC look like? • Who are your users and what do they want? • How do your users interact with the NOC? • What expectations do your customers have? • Faults, SLAs & Contracts • Reporting & Statistics • What do you want from your NOC (and how to get it?)
Customer expectations
Measuring expectation • Set reasonable expectations • What do customers expect? • Have you asked them? • How do you measure achievement?
What do users expect? • Easy to contact • Available • Accurate, timely information • Honesty (realism?) • Consistency • Empowerment • Understanding of their needs
Improving • Customer forum • Mailing list • FAQs • Status page Create a community of customers
Overview • What does your NOC look like? • Who are your users and what do they want? • How do your users interact with the NOC? • What expectations do your customers have? • Faults, SLAs & Contracts • Reporting & Statistics • What do you want from your NOC (and how to get it?)
Faults • Communication plan - Who alerts whom? - Who needs to know? - What do they need to know? • Regular updates? • Resource management - Communication v repairing
Triage • Assigning priority to faults • Who decides priority? • Visibility of priorities to customers • Priority for - Faults - Customers
SLAs • Service Level Agreements • Agree them! • Measurable • Meaningful • Realistic
Contract Management • Does the NOC know the contract details? • MSA -> SS -> SLA MSA • Contract must reflect what you need SS SS SS • => what your SS customers want SLA SLA SLA • Details for another presentation
Overview • What does your NOC look like? • Who are your users and what do they want? • How do your users interact with the NOC? • What expectations do your customers have? • Faults, SLAs & Contracts • Reporting & Statistics • What do you want from your NOC (and how to get it?)
Reporting & Statistics “Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable” -- Mark T wain
Useful reporting • What's useful to the customer? - Availability? Throughput? Latency? - Reason for fault? - Mitigation / prevention of future faults? - Open / Pending issues? - Usage? - Compliance with SLA? - Unused services? (Up-selling to clients!)
Doing it wrong • The core network is 99.999% available... (but does the client have service?)
Measuring goodness • Is the NOC doing it's job? - Customer satisfaction survey? - Time to repair? - Service availability? - Response time (on phone? Via e-mail?) - Reputation – what are people writing on blogs?
Overview • What does your NOC look like? • Who are your users and what do they want? • How do your users interact with the NOC? • What expectations do your customers have? • Faults, SLAs & Contracts • Reporting & Statistics • What do you want from your NOC (and how to get it?)
Best NOC provides comfort
Getting the best from your NOC • NOC (as SpoC) represents the face of your company! • Hire & retain the right people • Communication plan • Customer self-service • Available during a fault • Get to know your customers and their needs
AT & T Self Service
NOC of the future • Managing cloud services
Conclusions I want to change: 1. how you think about your NOC 2. how your NOC thinks about its customers
Conclusions I want to change: 1. how you think about your NOC 2. how your NOC thinks about its customers NEXT TIME: We'll look at tools and processes to help Clue: You have one already, the TF-NOC!
“NOC Knock...” ...who's there? Doctor... ...Doctor Who? Yes! How did you know? Is it because my TARDIS is parked on your lawn?
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