Checklist of the information a manager of a NOC needs to have close at hand

This is a checklist devised by DS of the information a manager of a Network Operations Centre (NOC) needs to have close at hand:

Command and control

Date and time of current shift including start, finish and handover.
NOC manager on duty
Shift leaders
Service Delivery Manager on duty/standby
Major Incident Manager on duty/standby

Tiger Team status (refer here for process)

echo
whisky
delta
romeo
bravo
alpha

Red-Amber-Green (RAG) of the trenches

Security
Data centre
Apps
Support
Infrastructure

Notifications

Ongoing Service Level Agreement (SLA) or contract violations
All Major Incidents
All failures and outages
Last 10 maintenance tasks completed
Next 10 maintenance tasks scheduled
Planned continuity tests scheduled (inverter/generator tests, network path protection tests, business continuity or application high availability tests)
Resources available to the NOC
Resources unavailable to the NOC
Changes completed during the past week (includes the status on whether they were successful or failed)
Changes scheduled for the next week
Emergency changes completed or in progress
Top 10 most important projects that are ongoing
Top 10 congested links
Top 10 devices with temperature alerts
Top 10 devices with cooling alerts
Top 10 devices with storage or capacity alerts (including raid failures)
Systems/devices with known problems or symptoms of degradation
Top 10 network with path protection faults

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Using OPENDNS on a Mikrotik

At the office we use a Mikrotik which is connected via fibre to Cool Ideas. We use OpenDNS as a Information Security tool. It prevents ransomware and bots from becoming major incidents within the office.

The router is scheduled to do a daily update via script of the OpenDNS settings. Below is the example:

:local opendnsuser "user@domain.co.za";
:local opendnspass "itsprivate";
:local opendnshost "office";

:log info "OpenDNS Update";
:local url "https://updates.opendns.com/nic/update";
/tool fetch url=($url . "\3Fhostname=$opendnshost") user=("$opendnsuser") password=("$opendnspass") mode=https dst-path=opendnsupdate.txt
:local opendnsresult [/file get opendnsupdate.txt contents];
:log info "OpenDNS: Host $opendnshost - $opendnsresult";

The importance of the major incident process

ITIL mentions the Major Incident process as a special case of the incident management process as well its close relationship to problem management. However, the Major Incident process requires greater clarity and specification as in many large enterprises the process is crucial for overcoming a crisis. A Major Incident typically defined as an incident with severe negative business consequences and an important duty of any designated Information Technology (IT) resources is to deal with Major Incidents in a structured manner. We will address this important topic in a series of articles that specifically addresses the process and crisis management in general.

Read the full article here.

On board PowaINFRA gateway deployment

DS has an on board version of the PowaINFRA gateway that can be deployed on a vehicle. The gateway is powered by the 12V of the vehicle and typically installed under the dash. Additionally, the gateway has an extra sensor and metric ability of using Geo-location. The on board PowaINFRA gateway has the same capabilities as the standard PowaINFRA gateway and is compatible with the sensors in the PowaINFRA range.

Other vehicle tracking systems are typically wired and thus rely on the sensors to be connected to contacts on the main unit. No only is this a more difficult installation but it limits the number of sensors installed in a vehicle as it is not cost effective. Most vehicle installation of refrigerated trucks only have one temperature probe installed, either on the output or return vents of the cooling units. This is typically located at the front of the refrigeration trailer and the cooling varies within the trailer. Thus it is likely that the load can experience fr…

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