In this blog, we take you inside of our Network Operations Center as one of our Tier 1 technicians works with a customer to resolve an outage. With our Managed and Support Services, you always have access to expert technical support for your mission-critical communications.
A Day in the Life
As a tier 1 technician at Motorola Solutions’ Network Operations Center (NOC), I’m constantly monitoring our managed services customers’ networks for current or potential issues using sophisticated event management and performance tools. This enables us to quickly resolve critical events as they arise, either remotely or by dispatching on-site field support.
The tools used at our NOC minimize the human error associated with network monitoring. Correlation tools provide a live view of network operations and incidents at remote sites. If a fault triggers a pre-determined threshold set for an individual customer, the system creates an incident ticket.
The instant that ticket is created, I’m automatically alerted. My job is to diagnose the root cause before it impacts the communication environment. It’s proactive management, rather than reactive service.
Resolution in Action
If a public safety customer is experiencing poor quality on two communication channels, I’ll attempt to remedy the problem remotely. If that’s not possible, the next step is to dispatch a technician to do on-site testing.Solving an issue may require checking many different parts of the system, from the network router and devices to the lines connected to the tower. Alternatively, the problem could lie with a backhaul agency. More than one agency or organization could be involved, as well as our operations engineers, and engineers or teams on the client’s side.
In these situations, I act as the “quarterback,” serving as the one point of contact for the customer throughout the entire process and making sure that vital information is communicated to everyone who needs it.
In a recent case, the telecom link that connected a customer’s site to the master site went down. As a result, the users connected to that site experienced limited communications. We had already been notified by the telecom company about the issue and quickly dispatched technicians to the site. So when the customer called to alert me of intermittently dropped voice calls, I was able to assure him that we were already working to resolve the situation.
I’d worked with this customer before, so I knew he’d want details. I explained the steps that had already been taken. The customer requested an update every half hour and whenever the status changed. So that’s what I did. I also made our team aware of our customer’s sentiments and the sensitivity around this case while I served as the single point of contact to keep the customer informed until the issue was resolved.
Summary
Replacing the telecom link was complex because we had to replace wires and switch the customer on and off the backup system to prevent further downtime.
The entire job—as complex as it was—took only a couple of hours. This kind of speedy resolution is our goal at Motorola Solutions’ Managed Services. We are always ready to provide expert service and proactively mitigate network risks.
