As mentioned in the last WAN newsletter, we recently completed some market research into the changing role of the Network Operations Center. As part of that market research we surveyed 176 IT professionals and interviewed 7 of them. This newsletter will describe what that market research said about how the NOC is perceived.

One of the most troubling findings of the research was that only 58% of the survey respondents believe that the role of the NOC is understood by the entire IT organization. We will elaborate on this later in this newsletter. Given the amount of change that has taken place within the NOC, it is understandable that its role would not be well understood. However, in order for the NOC to get the kind of support that it needs to make further changes, senior NOC management needs to do a better job of marketing the role and the value provided by the NOC.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Jim Metzler is vice president of Ashton, Metzler & Associates.