WILL NOC AUTOMATION ELIMINATE THE NEED FOR HUMAN PERSONNEL?

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.