Networks in Buildings

One of the most critical topics to consider when it comes to supporting service providers who utilize third party networks in buildings is the remote management of the building network infrastructures. When discussing networks in buildings, there is a large spectrum of devices that may need to be monitored. Many of these services may fall on one of the following categories: data services, Voice over IP (VoIP) services, or Television over IP (IPTV). There are other subcategories such as wireless communications, alarm systems, virtual tunnels and more.

The primary goal of remote management is to reduce cost, enhance service delivery, improve network uptime and standardize the processes and procedures in managing a network in a building. Organizations that monitor these sites or buildings may also be known as Network Operation Centers (NOC) among many other names. The main purpose of a NOC is to provide support to the service provider's end users and monitor all network infrastructure equipment. In this case, the network infrastructure company acts of behalf of the service provider by providing NOC support.

Network Operations Center (NOC):

The Network Operations Center (NOC) provides around the clock services such as alarm surveillance for buildings, switches, data, and transport equipment, change control, performance analysis, software configuration, equipment testing and translations trouble shooting for contracting telco, enterprise, and end users (the service provider's customers). The NOC responds to troubles or alarms that are called in directly from the end user or its agents. Switch, transport, optical, VoIP, and data trouble conditions are resolved either by NOC's remote diagnostics and restoration capabilities or by referral to the end user- identified agents or by field technicians. The NOC monitors and controls all aspects of alarm/trouble recognition and resolution.

NOC Procedures:

Event Notification: The NOC tool provides automated, timely delivery and notification of network events. The Network Operations Analyst receives indication of the status polling or network trap report (Event Notification).

Problem Identification: The NOC attempts to identify the problem by separating resulting symptoms from the source of the problem. In response to the event the analyst will first develop a clear understanding of the type of problem involved.

Fault Isolation: The NOC will next determine the point of failure or fault for the identified problem. Information is then gathered from multiple sources such as the network management system, element manager tools or user hypotheses. This information is then analyzed in an attempt to isolate the problem. Once fault isolation is determined, the NOC can proceed with steps necessary or escalate to the appropriate resources to resolve the problem.

Problem Resolution: A resolution is achieved when the source of the problem has been accurately identified, corrected and no other failures or symptoms arise as a result of the correction, repair and/or replacement made.

The NOC becomes the central point of expertise, access, control and correlation of incidents to identify problems in the network that could affect end users in the building. NOC support is typically separated into two functions: incident and problem management.

Incident Management: The Incident Management Team follows a troubleshooting methodology to ensure consistent, reliable steps are taken to isolate network problems and expedite problem identification and resolution. In order to identify and isolate network problems, troubleshooting guidelines utilized by the NOC are based upon product technology.

The Incident Management Team supports provisioning of services; end user reported troubles and alarms provided through the operational support systems (OSS). It is further divided by technologies and expertise and subdivided into end user touch and back office support positions. Both positions are built by skill set (tier I-III). Lower tier handles physical layer problems and single call failures and the higher tier handles logical and transport layer problems and more complex outage issues. The goal of the Incident Management Team is to restore the end user's system to pre-outage performance levels in the shortest time possible, using all available means at their disposal.

Problem Management:

The objective of the Problem Management group is to ensure end user networks and network elements provide the highest possible grade of service by observing trends, monitoring service performance and degradations, resolving trouble indications and ensuring timely and accurate software configuration changes, backups, and routine patch application. Each site's performance and software status is reviewed routinely and compared to the operational objectives. Any exceptions are identified and documented for corrective actions.

The Problem Management Team focuses on root cause analysis and providing a fix to the problem that caused the initial incident. They team will leave no stone unturned to ensure a final resolution is found by looking at the process and procedure around supporting the equipment along with analyzing the logs, traps and alarms to determine how to fix the problem. They also work closely with the vendors and service providers to drive them to provide software and hardware repairs.

NOC Tools:

A number of different operational support systems (OSS) and element managers are connected to end user equipment to electronically collect and analyze various systems outputs and to report any anomalies and/or alarms as they occur. All OSSs retain the collected data for a specified interval. Analysts monitor this information and systems generated reports for trends and indications of service or performance degradations that could identify developing maintenance issues before they affect end user service or SLA components.

All potential trouble conditions are recorded and tracked in NOC's trouble management system (TMS). The troubles are resolved by remote diagnostics, referral to the end user, referral to the vendor, or referral to end user's service provider. The NOC monitors and controls all aspects of trouble recognition and resolution.

Each level of service assurance has specific amounts of time to work on network element problems before the problem must be escalated. Escalation intervals are dependent on the severity of the trouble and are detailed in the appropriate end user interface documentation. A building will contain servers, applications, switches, routers, hubs, printers, faxes, wireless access points, video equipment and call servers.

One of the most innovative aspects of this system is that these sites are monitored remotely. There are many tools that have been developed for the network management and remote administration of these network infrastructure devices. Some of these tools may include Remedy, Clarify, Intermapper, Netcool, NAS, HP Openview and TTI-NetTrac.

To ensure the NOC is aware of the physical and logical inventory of equipment and protocols, a database and inventory system are critical to remote management. The inventory has a portal to the Operational Support System (OSS) platforms which maps the equipment logically and physically from the building and into the tools. Rules, thresholds and business logic can be built to allow for fault automation. World-class NOCs leverage tools and technology to correct faults remotely with little human intervention.

Remote Management

There are four major factors that are needed to ensure proper service is provided to monitor and provide the necessary support for the networks in multiple buildings.

A Network Operation Center (NOC): Building infrastructure where all the subject matter experts in various technologies may monitor and support end user needs with the necessary resources to resolve any issue.

Network tools and resources: The tools and resources are the software and hardware required to ensure that all the subject matter experts can effectively monitor and troubleshoot network infrastructure devices. Resources may include access to vendors, manufactures and other subject matter experts in the industry. These resources may require valid contracts for technical support.

Subject Matter Experts: The personnel that work in the NOC and have different technical expertise.

Processes & Procedures: The process which has taken the forefront in enterprise management is the information technology infrastructure library (ITIL). This process incorporates nine different methodologies that will improve the mean time between failure (MTBF) and reduce the mean time to repair (MTTR). However, the following are five primary areas which have the largest impact on networks in buildings:

1. Incident management is a service interruption reported from either an alarm or end user trouble.
2. Problem management identifies the root cause and fixes the problem so it does not create another incident, including building control measures into the process to ensure the fix action remains valid and working.
3. Release management is typically a team of experts that can design, plan and ensure a change is implemented in a concise manner with limited or no.
4. Change management pertains to the enablement, deletion or movement of the service in the building. There are many types of authorizations that are required at this level to ensure the affect on the end user is minimized.
5. Security management is one of the most critical areas of managing a building in a network. This would include the policies and or rules designed to protect the end user, the alerts and how to deal with them and the advisories that are announced by the various vendors.

Network infrastructures in buildings have many parts that are necessary from its inception through its delivery up through the entire operation and maintenance phases. There may be many ways to manage a network infrastructure. However, ensuring that there is a central operational location such as the Network Operations Center (NOC) requires the dedication of many subject matter experts, a good infrastructure with the proper tools and resources that are dedicated in maintaining the organizations success.

-- Daniel Santos, a Network Operations Center Engineer for Connexion Technologies. For more information, please e-mail Daniel.Santos@cnxntech.com or visit cnxntech.com