The Dedicated MVP NOC: The Simplest Way to Achieve Next-Gen NOC Support

It’s a question we hear all the time: “What’s the simplest, most cost-effective way to turn up 24x7 NOC support on INOC’s framework/platform with a team dedicated to us?”

Framed slightly differently: “How can you help us free our internal staff from break/fix work while improving performance against our service levels in a way that’s most cost-conscious?”

Here, we answer these questions by introducing and briefly explaining what we call the Dedicated MVP NOC.

In short, the Dedicated MVP NOC is the simplest, least expensive way to turn up 24x7 NOC support on the INOC Platform and reap the benefits of INOC’s operational framework (i.e., unburdening the internal support team from frontline monitoring and management activities and improving uptime and availability across the supported environment.) 

Companies that engage INOC for 24x7 NOC service typically reduce their high-tier support activities by 60% or more, sometimes as much as 90% over time. Results like these are possible thanks to the operational framework we’ve refined for over 20 years and the platform we use to deploy it with our NOC clients.

Many challenges signal the need for an external 24x7 NOC support solution that includes these operational and platform capabilities.

Here are just a few of the most common:

If you don’t have the budget or support utilization to justify a more comprehensive NOC support operation, the Dedicated MVP NOC offers a way to receive the core benefits of one for a fraction of the cost and complexity.

“So much of the support work that ties up internal technical teams can be resolved by a highly-trained Tier 1 team armed with great runbooks and a NOC support platform that makes their actions efficient and consistent. With the Dedicated MVP NOC, we can spin up a 24x7 NOC service so teams can get their time back.”

— Prasad Ravi, CEO, INOC

What is a "Dedicated MVP NOC"?

A Dedicated MVP NOC is the bare minimum needed to stand up and operate a 24x7 network operations center to perform its most basic functions.

While the “minimally viable” NOC as we describe it here offers a comparatively quick and cost-effective way to turn up 24x7 NOC support, it’s only equipped to support the infrastructure as it exists; it’s not equipped to bring new assets (network components, circuits, infrastructure, applications, etc.) into the supported environment.

Two main groups will find this model attractive:

Note: In addition to Dedicated NOC support solutions (e.g. Dedicated MVP NOC), INOC provides other options for 24x7 NOC support: Shared, Hybrid, and Designated NOCs.

What Does a Dedicated MVP NOC Include?

In short, the simplest 24x7 NOC is comprised of ten full-time employees responsible for three core tasks:

• Event Management
• Incident Management
• Change Management (specifically, Scheduled Maintenance Support)

Why ten people? Because running a 24x7 NOC requires staffing three shifts a day, 365 days a year. Factoring in things like PTO, we’ve found that ten is the absolute minimum number of staff required to operate a round-the-clock NOC with as little “slack” as possible to reasonably ensure coverage at all times.

Why Event, Incident, and Change Management? Because managing events and incidents are the core functions of the NOC. Scheduled Maintenance Support—a component of Change Management—is necessary to suppress those processes during scheduled maintenance windows. Without it, the NOC would receive false alarms that arise due to planned downtime. 

The easiest way to dig deeper into the MVP NOC is by describing the three essential elements that comprise it: people, process, and platform.

People

Let’s briefly break down that ten-person Dedicated MVP NOC team.

Usually, such a team is composed of eight Tier 1 staff with one Tier 2 engineer and one manager. 

The actual composition of any specific MVP NOC may require more than this, of course. For example, a company may find that, based on its alarm flows and SLAs, it actually needs three Tier 1 engineers during a certain shift. The staffing plan would be adjusted accordingly.

Note: Staggering Tier 1 NOC staff allows for smoother incident hand-offs between shifts. However, a well-defined Incident Management process is important for quality control and operational management. In most cases, the Tier 2 resource(s) and manager should be scheduled to work during standard business hours to allow for timely interaction with company staff from other departments.

Below is a high-level overview of each level within the NOC organization. Again, like everything described here, these are subject to change based on the factors at hand.

• Notification Support is responsible for detecting and identifying events from alarms, calls, and emails related to things like network and security equipment, circuits, cloud infrastructure, and applications. This also might include creating incidents and notifying or escalating them to the client or customer until they’ve been acknowledged.
• Tier 1 Support is responsible for initial event correlation, infrastructure and service impact determination, and incident prioritization within established SLA timeframes (in addition to the scope of Notification Support). These engineers should have fundamental expertise in network and IT technologies. Many times, Tier 1 may also need expertise working with multiple third-party companies to manage the service restoration process. We typically recommend Tier 1 resources be utilized 25% of the time for Event Management, 60% for Incident Management, 10% for training, and 5% for administrative work.
• Tier 2 Support expands on the Tier 1 expertise to include a deeper, more investigative level of troubleshooting expertise in network and IT technologies. Specific competencies are subject to the particular technology environment being supported.

The list below goes one step deeper, outlining a generic breakdown of duties and responsibilities at each level. In most cases, Notification and Tier 1 support are both provided by the Tier 1 staff.

A word about training

To ensure advanced engineering resources aren’t overutilized for support work, the Tier 1 team should eventually be expected to resolve most incidents. Here at INOC, our typical goal at the Tier 1 level is 60% to 80% frontline resolution.

Achieving a high frontline resolution target like this requires robust training for the team—both initially and on an ongoing basis. That almost always includes incorporating foundational technical skills and certifications, ​​creating and testing against a competency matrix with technical skills, and establishing a mentoring program to transfer knowledge from other departments.

📄 Read our free white paper—Empowering the IT Service Manager—for a closer look at how to operationalize a NOC to significantly reduce the burden of support on advanced technical resources.

Process

While the Dedicated MVP NOC only performs three processes, the procedures that fall within them need to be highly efficient to make the best use of very limited resources. The higher the volume of support activity, the higher the stakes on efficiency.

While we can’t outline every single procedure a Dedicated MVP NOC would need to have documented and trained on, here’s a high-level breakdown of what specific roles and responsibilities fall under each process:

Note: AIOps can reduce and possibly eliminate Event Management activity and instead allow the NOC team to focus more on Incident Management. Download our whitepaper, The Role of AIOps in Enhancing NOC Support, for ideas.

Platform

There are three primary types of tools required to run the most basic NOC operation and report on its performance (however, specific support requirements may require additional tools be used):

• An ITSM/ITOM tool (such as ServiceNow)
• An NMS tool (such as SolarWinds)
• A reporting tool (such as ServiceNow, Tableau, or PowerBI)

📄 Get expert tips for operationalizing tools in the NOC: NOC Tools and Software: An Operational Perspective

With an MVP NOC specifically, it’s important to select tools that offer more versatility and can be configured to do more with less. ServiceNow is a prime example of this level of versatility, as it can be used for ITOM, ITSM, and reporting if desired. Additionally, ServiceNow’s Service Portal can be provided to supported departments for ticket visibility, tracking, updates, and requests. 

To illustrate its simplicity, a sample event and ticket flow with this configuration might look like this:

While tool selection is critical in designing an MVP NOC, the way those tools are configured and integrated is equally important to ensure the smallest possible NOC team can still work efficiently to meet SLAs while preventing the stress (and eventual burnout) that results from constant operational frustrations.

Over the 20+ years INOC’s been refining NOC operations, our team has developed a unique playbook of platform configurations and integrations that enable our Dedicated MVP NOCs to operate with minimal resources. These best practices speak to our core competency and often require (or are at least greatly enabled by) the INOC Platform.

This includes, for example, configuring the ServiceNow ITSM as a “single pane of glass” for the NOC team by:

We also employ “standardized” best practices to configure workflow management by:

Effective and complete runbooks are critical for keeping a Dedicated MVP NOC efficient. These operations also need documented procedures for tool usage, Scheduled Maintenances, shift hand-offs, and on-call/department escalation contacts.

Reporting is one area most NOCs in general struggle with. What reporting exists is often solely focused on performance-based KPIs; resource utilization tracking is just as important—especially in the context of a Dedicated MVP NOC.

Whether using a multi-use tool like ServiceNow or a tool like Tableau, reporting should be configured to:

Service Level Management

As mentioned earlier, every NOC should have clear guidance for measuring service levels to ensure its holding up its commitment to the organization or customers it serves. 

Each core task of the NOC that’s assigned an SLA should be further broken down into discrete Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and Service Level Indicators (SLIs) with time targets and descriptions that clearly articulate the expectation for service.

📄 Read our in-depth guide to SLAs and SLM for more: NOC Service Level Agreements: A Guide to Service Level Management

Access INOC’s Support Framework & Ops Platform for a Fraction of the Cost and Complexity

Want to learn more about our Dedicated MVP NOC, and how INOC can help you hit your uptime and performance targets while saving your team valuable time and resources? Use our contact form or request a free NOC consultation to tell us a little about yourself, your infrastructure, and your challenges. We'll follow up to better understand your goals and challenges, and explore possible NOC solutions.

Want to explore the benefits of strategically outsourcing your NOC support? Read our definitive guide to outsourcing and grab our free white paper below, which identifies the top 10 challenges NOCs face with practical advice for solving all of them.