Not every internet exchange has an in-house Network Operations Centre. At LINX, ours is one of the things we’re most proud of.
Operating 24/7, 365 days a year, the NOC is responsible for everything from provisioning new member connections and managing support requests, to monitoring and triaging engineering alarms across our nine global interconnection hubs.
In 2016, we made the decision to bring the NOC in-house rather than outsourcing the responsibility. It means our members deal directly with engineers who know the LINX network inside out and that depth of knowledge plays a key role in the quality of service we’re able to provide.
How we keep every shift consistent
When you’re running a 24/7 NOC across shifts, an engineer troubleshooting at 3am needs to be able to follow a process just as confidently as the person who wrote it.
A few years ago, the NOC took a step back to review its processes and documentation to make sure that was the case. The team mapped every service LINX offers and every action the NOC is responsible for; provisioning, de-provisioning, moves between data centers, upgrades, downgrades and more and used that as the foundation for a standardised template that now covers every process. Crucially, it doesn’t just cover the tools involved and the steps to follow, but the reasoning behind each one too.
Processes are written and reviewed by the team before going live, built out at the point of proof of concept so the NOC is ready before any service is available to members. The same approach has since been extended to support documentation, with flexibility built in to reflect the more varied nature of support processes compared to provisioning.
Why it matters to our members
The investment the NOC has made in its processes directly translates into the service our members receive. It means faster provisioning, more consistent support, and a team that can respond with confidence at any hour, whether that’s a routine request or something that needs immediate attention.
It also underpins our ISO 27001 certification. A formal three-year review cycle is in place across all documentation, which is a commitment to maintaining the same high standard over time, not just at the point of writing.
“All of this came from internal accountability. We recognised where we could improve and held ourselves to a higher standard, not because we had to, but because we wanted to make it better for everyone.” Sion Hopes, NOC Manager, LINX
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