Whether you're working in a
dedicated network operations center (NOC) or operating something similar as
part of a team that handles incoming tickets, you've probably heard rumors
about the concept of NOC automation. There may have been an understanding that
this technology would almost eliminate the need for human workers. Maybe you
are already improving your resume, you are considering going back to school or
you are even thinking about changing your career. Will NOC Automation really
replace HR? Okay. In fact, by contrast, there are five ways you can really do
your job better.
Avoid Alert Fatigue
The NOC and its small
counterparts handle an incredible amount of tickets daily. Logic predicts that
the more tickets you have, the more difficult it will be to work effectively.
That is why many people in this space experience exhaustion, also known as
alert fatigue. Additionally, the large number of minor issues that have been
addressed can hinder proper care in critical situations and can affect the
entire organization.
NOC automation can change many of
your routine repetitive tasks to your machine, streamlining and optimizing your
entire alert process. Add the option for self-service automation. This enables
end users to handle many of their own simple demands, such as resetting
passwords, and frees trained IT professionals to apply their time and talent to
more important tasks.
Improve Communication
When an incident occurs in a busy
noc support environment, it's surprisingly easy for a process to become a bottleneck
and shuffle. This is especially true in situations where climbing is required.
Frontline employees can initiate requests right away, but unless the process is
properly managed, they don't know where to go from there. NOC Automation is
specifically designed to streamline the notification and escalation process so
that everything passes through the pipeline smoothly and in a timely manner.
When IT staff responds to the
notification, an automatic follow-up message is triggered after a predefined
period of time. When the problem is resolved, the incident will be closed and a
recovery notification will be sent. If the problem remains unresolved, an alert
is automatically sent to the system administrator for further consideration and
action. This keeps the lines of communication open and free, eliminating costly
delays.
Greater Incident Management
If the incident is triggered and
a NOC employee is available, it is usually okay. But what if that person isn't
available or doesn't have the ability to respond in a timely manner? Without
some form of automated strategy in place, the risk of a ticket overriding is
greatly increased. Implementing NOC automation makes the incident management
process much more efficient.
When an incident is triggered,
the appropriate person is notified. Here technology really makes a difference.
If the person does not respond within the specified time, the system
automatically escalates the incident to the next person. In addition,
notifications and responses can be sent in a variety of ways, including email
and SMS, simplifying the whole process.
Better Knowledge Of Best Practices.
Top-performing NOC teams know
that continuous process improvement is needed to stay ahead of the game. This
is accomplished through detailed strategic reporting and analysis. If done
manually, this can be difficult to do and is probably at the top of the list of
least interesting tasks. The good news is that NOC automation can improve
tracking and reporting. This means you can use the data you need on the go at
the click of a button. You can then conduct advanced analysis to identify and
develop best practices for continued success and future improvement.
Management Or Escalation To
Clients
Depending on the type of service
provided by the NOC, it may be necessary to give the client visibility into the
status of the incident. In addition, those with leadership roles within the
organization, including management and possibly certain shareholders, must keep
abreast of situations such as major disruptions. In either case, understanding
who needs to know what and who is responsible for directing this communication
and running open dialogues can be a difficult and time-consuming task.
With NOC automation, you can
automatically send alerts to designated parties, keeping them up-to-date and
setting up workflows to notify other business parties of critical incidents. In
addition, detailed Incident Resolution Performance and Mean Time to Repair
(MTTR) reports can be generated to keep management up-to-date and reduce the
need for manual monitoring and status reporting.
In conclusion, NOC Automation is
not designed to take over and replace human workers, but is designed to
strengthen and complement qualified personnel working inside.
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