A Network Operations Center rests at the heart of every telecom network or major data center, a place to keep an eye on everything.
Some of these NOCs are really “dressed to impress”, while others have taken a more mundane approach.
So, for inspiration, here is a set of pictures of different NOCs from telecom companies and data centers (and one content delivery network) that we here at Pingdom have collected from around the internet.
Dressed to impress
These NOCs are obviously designed to impress visitors on top of being useful. We don’t even dare to think what it cost to build some of these (especially the one from AT&T).
AT&T’s Global NOC in Bedminster, New Jersey
Reliance Communications’ NOC in India
Lucent’s Network Reliability Center in Aurora, Colorado (1998-99)
Conexim’s NOC in Australia
Akamai’s NOC in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Slightly more discreet
While still impressive on a smaller scale, these NOCs have taken a slightly more conventional approach. We noticed a divide here. Data centers tend to have more scaled-back NOCs while telecom companies often fall in the “dressed to impress” category, perhaps partly due to having more infrastructure to monitor than the average data center (and shareholders).
Easy CGI’s NOC in Pearl River, New York
Ensynch’s NOC in Tempe, Arizona
TWAREN’s NOC (Taiwan Advanced Research & Education Network)
The Planet’s NOC in Houston, Texas
KDL’s NOC in Evansville, Indiana
And the not-flashy-in-the-least award goes to…
The people at Rackspace are apparently not big on the flashy stuff at all.
Rackspace’s NOC in San Antonio, Texas
Image sources:
AT&T NOC from AT&T, Reliance NOC from Suraj, Lucent NOC from Evans Consoles, Conexim NOC from Conexim, Akamai NOC from Akamai via Bert Boerland’s blog, Easy CGI NOC from Easy CGI, Ensynch NOC from Ensynch, TWAREN NOC from TWAREN, The Planet NOC from The Planet’s blog, Rackspace NOC from Naveenium, KDL NOC from Kentucky Data Link.
