Home / Blog / IT Managed Services / Benefits of an outsourced Network Operations Centre (NOC)

November 27, 2018

Keeping pace with the mobile and digital transformation of organisations, you can be sure that regardless of the type of business or industry in which you operate, all your devices (internet connections, computers, laptops and other mobile devices, switches and routers etc) are networked as part of your IT infrastructure.

An increasing number of demands are placed on internal IT teams to maintain an ‘always on’ infrastructure – crucial to a business’ success.

A minute-long server downtime (or service restrictions) can cause significant disruption, potentially jeopardising critical business functions – and therefore introduce significant costs / lost revenues. Today, this forms the backbone remit of many organisations, utilising a Network Operations Centre (NOC) to keep the business running smoothly 24/7.

Benefits of an outsourced NOC (Network Operations Centre)

In-house or outsourced?

So today, the importance of a NOC is unquestioned, however many IT departments are stretched, or outright unable to offer 24/7 network monitoring and IT support with 9-to-5 staff. There is a limit to the amount of out-of-hours support calls 9-to-5 personnel will tolerate!

Keeping this function in-house with your own dedicated IT team can be cost-prohibitive for any size of organisation, especially if you include indirect costs such as recruitment, training and staff retention / churn etc.

On-demand, fully outsourced, or co-managed…

Given the importance of IT to any modern business, outsourcing NOC services has been a smart step, even for businesses with a large budget, keeping 100% of your infrastructure / network monitoring in-house doesn’t always make the most sense for organisations and business owners alike looking to drive efficiencies and cost-effectiveness.

NOC services

An outsourced NOC operates from a centralised location, is staffed by a dedicated team of specialists and provides continuous monitoring, management and IT support services to any number of system networks and IT infrastructures 247/365.

A NOC’s primary function is to ensure your network is running smoothly and any issues are identified and resolved as soon as they hit the surface.

Why outsource?

An outsourced NOC will provide as much or as little support as you need, helping you flex and scale internal IT resource and overcome challenges faster to meet your wider business objectives:

1.  Around-the-clock support

The common and often unavoidable problem with in-house monitoring teams is the delay in detecting and then resolving issues – particularly out of regular office hours (or the weekend).

Unfortunately, issues seem to occur at the most inconvenient times!

An outsourced NOC will have a team of qualified engineers available 24/7… nights, weekends and holidays – to keep an eye on your network infrastructure and resolve issues. All with the singular purpose to maintain uptime and build resilience. You shouldn’t know there has even been a problem.

Comtact's UK Network Operation Centre (NOC)

2.  Access to specialist expertise

Your internal team will be skilled in many areas, and know the in’s and out’s of your business.

Whereas NOC engineers will have built up a highly focused skillset, having managed and maintained IT infrastructures many complex (and differing) organisations. To know truly how to apply expertise – and provide end-to-end view into the health of all your critical systems.

Bringing these skills in-house is often not possible – and retaining these skills can be a operational risk and headache.

3. Focus on business priorities

Despite the fact that network operations maintenance is an essential part of a business, it is often not seen as your core business. As a result, infrastructure monitoring is sometimes less of an internal priority.

For your NOC partner, that is not the case.

Removing the burden of the day-to-day IT management means that monitoring and service delivery is a NOC partner’s only focus – it’s what they do! This higher-level and dedicated focus will improve your system reliability and Quality of Service, benefiting both IT staff, stakeholders and customers – enabling you to focus on more critical projects to fuel growth for your business.

4.  Eliminating monitoring noise

A common complaint when organisations deploy network monitoring solutions , is that although highly capable they quickly overwhelm an organisation with the volume of alerts generated. This inability to see the wood from the tress results in alarms being ignored and outages can be missed!

Enlisting an expert partner can help configure and fine tune alerts to your organisations’ unique requirements. Internal IT staff should only receive notifications of REAL problems.

Comtact-NOC-SOC-dashboard-0317-1200x628px

That way, your team isn’t wasting time chasing false positives and bogus alarms – and more importantly, they also won’t miss the real ones.

5.  Reduced costs / Greater control over IT costs

Costs and overheads govern the operations of every business. One of the main benefits of outsourcing your NOC function is cost.

In any field, including IT, sensible outsourcing aligns to your business priorities, to address a skills/resource gap, or provide flexibility to scale up/down, as required, without fixed overheads of additional personnel resource.

  • Firstly, by identifying and prioritising your critical business and IT functions, you can understand any skills and/or resource limitations.
  • And then you can selectively outsource, but prioritising the extra capacity you require to meet your wider business objectives. So you can flex and scale your ICT environment, without the costs of a fully staffed, fully resourced Network Operations Centre.

This lowers your risk and helps forecast spend more consistently. Taking a ‘virtual’ NOC approach allows you to operate at full capacity, while receiving ‘on tap’ support from the latest expertise and technologies – all at a fraction of the cost of building your own NOC.

6.  Flexible, scalable & collaborative outsourcing

When it comes to network operations, different businesses will have different requirements; there’s no one-size-fits all solution.

Which is why outsourced NOC services should be designed to fit YOUR requirements.

(i)  What service/solution has a resource/capacity/skills gap?

e.g. Network monitoring (incl. websites, databases, servers, applications etc.);
Infrastructure management;
Patch management;
IT Service Desk / IT Helpdesk
etc…

(ii)  What partnership do I require?

e.g. Fully outsourced
Co-managed (in partnerships with internal teams)
Overspill / on-demand

(iii)  How is the service consumed?

e.g. 24/7
Out of hours
On-demand

By building your own tailor made solution, you can enhance your internal capabilities, with the ability to flex and scale as part of a collaborative knowledge-sharing process.

Want to learn more?


Further reading


About Comtact Ltd.

Operating 24x7x365 from the heart of our state-of-the-art UK NOC, we’ve built our reputation helping the UK’s leading organisations leave behind reactive processes – >helping you simplify and solve today and tomorrow’s IT challenges.

Comtact’s outsourced NOC services & Enterprise IT helpdesk help you flex and scale your ICT environment through highly skilled technology and support, extending your capabilities with on-demand Enterprise IT services – at a fraction of the cost of building your own.