What Happens in a Network Operations Center?
August 18, 2008 by Katie Solan, Public Relations in Fun Stuff, Tech Stuff, The Planet
The Planet’s Network Operations Center, although located in a prominent spot here at our Houston headquarters, is shrouded in a bit of mystery. Not exactly a “whodunit”-type mystery, but enough that when I walk past the blue-lighted, mission control-type room during my daily jaunts around the office I wonder, “Why do the NOC technicians get to watch CNN all day?” (Hint: Not because of Anderson Cooper’s smoldering good looks.) “What’s the purpose of all those monitors at the front of the room, exactly? Can I pull up the same information on my desktop?” (Spoiler alert: I can!) And, “Why is the room blue?”
To provide the answers to all of my burning NOC questions, I asked Vice President of Network Operations Stan Barber to lead me (and by default you, oh faithful blog readers) on a tour of The Planet’s NOC.
Take a look at the video below for the inside scoop on this cerulean wonder, and its role in providing great service to our customers.
The mystery of its blue lighting? Still under investigation.
August 20th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Nota Bene: Watch the video all the way through the end … “Oh booooy.”
September 1st, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Nice video, though a bit on the long side (key feature of best ‘net videos: short and to the point).
One thing that you need to address is the mike; chuck that one away and buy a good focused one that a shorter person can use when interviewing a taller one, because you’ve seen what’s happened here. It’s good enough for karaoke when you’re practically shoving it into your mouth, but not much else.
Aside from these issues, I hope that you keep up such interviews, they provide an interesting inside look.
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:14 am
Good points, UF. The time issue was a little tough to accommodate on this video in particular since there was so much content to cover and it made sense to include it all in a single sitting. 15 minutes is definitely an eternity in the world of online video, so the primary goal was to keep the discussion relevant and informative … I think we had around twice that amount of footage and we trimmed it down.
The camera’s built-in mic lets in far too much ambient noise and doesn’t have much of a range, and its mic connection (a standard headphone-sized jack) limits the kinds of microphones that can easily be used. Because these impromptu videos are not being professionally shot or edited, we are finding better and better ways to create and publish video content. If you have any recommendations on microphones in particular, please share (especially if you know of any good ones that we can pop into the headphone-sized jack).
September 4th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Why the blue light? I can understand dimming the lights, but why blue?
September 13th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Blue lights are most likely because it’s easier on the eyes then dim white/yellow light. Also does not have as much screen reflection.
For mic selection, you are likely using a standard “cardiod” type microphones. A “condensor” type is what you need (recommended by previous poster) because it has a built-in pre-amplifier which means it picks up much more sound from further away… you can get them in “uni-directional” format, which is what you want so it doesn’t pick up all the ambient sound. (Only picks up and amplifies what is directly in front of the mic, even from “far” away.)
The problem is they are expensive and not very common for amateur camcorders.
I thought the video was great. I like the amateur feel, and the “real life-ness” of it. Would be fun to have a “day in the life of” serious for all the senior execs…
September 17th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
WOW you guys are lucky
oracle never will never let us watch tv in the NOC
LOL
November 11th, 2008 at 4:57 am
hi wayne, you have asked question that is “Why the blue light? I can understand dimming the lights, but why blue?” I can guess here this blue light is trying give us feeling of planet and we can that we are traveling in planet i.e earth.