Remote NOC engineers can use this NetOps toolkit
The era of remote network engineers has arrived, and one of the most important aspects of remote management is NetOps
It is almost impossible to imagine a time before Covid-19 when engineers would have relied on traveling to the site with a toolkit of applications to diagnose an issue and resolve it. In the last 16 months, however, restrictions have reduced social contact and unnecessary travel, which has led to a greater emphasis on remote access to networks to increase operational efficiency while reducing social contact. The age of the remote engineer has arrived, but which technologies will they need to be able to do their jobs effectively?
Using NetOps in Network Operations Centers
The emerging trend towards remote management is driven by NetOps, or network operations, which is a development of DevOps, which emphasizes integration, automation, collaboration, and communication between operational IT teams and developers. In NetOps automation, the independent management plane, which is separate from the production network, allowing remote access and proximity to existing network devices, facilitates the use of centralized management software and can enable network equipment to configure itself. Therefore, engineers can perform the same tasks from a remote location.
This approach provides an alternative method to remediate faulty or inactive networks. This also means that network engineers and NOC managers can use the independent management plane or OOB as a facilitator to access the network and its devices, enabling organizations to lock down elements of the wider network to ensure higher levels of security and reduce the risk of cyber-attacks. In the worst-case scenario, however, engineers can remotely access the system during an outage to fix the problem, even if it was caused by a network cable fault or misconfiguration.
Remote NOC engineers can use this NetOps toolkit – A new level of remote access
It is undeniable that OOB and a NetOps approach enable secure and effective access from remote locations, as well as transform the role of the network engineer because NOC tools running in docker containers can be applied and utilized. Previously, remote management of tools required a network operations center (NOC) with a reliance on an effective level of bandwidth to ensure a task could be completed. If the connection wasn’t fast enough, it presented an obstacle. Now, these tools can be run locally on-site while the management process takes place remotely.
The NOC engineers benefit by cutting down on travel time, reducing their workload, and tackling more remote tasks efficiently. NetOps also allows the organization to adopt a much less data-intensive and much more effective method of remote network management in real time. It is even more important to ensure this reduction in data transfer due to the increased complexity of modern IT networks and operations and the increased strain on bandwidth due to the exponential growth of data in recent years. Furthermore, since this approach does not require access to the main production network, it can also lead to further efficiency gains due to a smaller bandwidth impact.
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Providing effective NOC services
When it comes to equipping remote NOC or network engineers with NetOps tools, the key is to enable both engineers and the wider organization to benefit from efficiency in numerous ways, not just through reduced bandwidth requirements. With the number of skilled network engineers continuing to be in short supply while the need for computing resources grows, it is becoming virtually impossible to station engineers at the multitude of sites now requiring management. Having the ability to effectively remotely manage networks in an efficient manner is helping to provide the solution.
Additionally, it is important to emphasize automation’s connection to efficiency. Toolkits for NetOps can eliminate a lot of the repetitive manual work and time-consuming routines that engineers have previously been bound to. Take an incident that occurs on a critical network, for example. Previously, it would have been up to the network engineer to log into the system and run through numerous routines to pinpoint the problem with the network, which would have wasted both time and resources. With NetOps, each step can be automated and run through automatically, further simplifying the process of managing incidents remotely, eliminating human error, and helping to resolve skills shortages.
NetOps and its integration with remote management will, however, only be effective if the engineers are proficient in Python to fully utilize Docker containers. Additionally, engineers who have knowledge of how to deploy commonly used toolsets, such as Chef, Puppet, and Ansible, will be able to apply the technology to efficient and effective remote network management. Therefore, organizations must ensure that the relevant training is in place.
In what ways does a Field Engineer contribute to NOC Services?
Engineers at network operation centers (NOCs) are primarily in charge of screening large computer networks and servers for problems remotely or remotely from a centralized location.
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