IT Security

NOC vs SOC – What’s the Difference?

NOC vs SOC – What’s the Difference?

The distinction between network operations and security operations has blurred quite a bit over the years. The two disciplines are essential—they deal with the security of an organization’s information assets, after all. But in practice, many organizations treat the two areas interchangeably or as two different departments.

This has created a lot of confusion about the actual responsibilities and required skill sets of network and security operations workers.

What exactly is a Network Operations Center (NOC)? What does it do? How does it differ from a Security Operations Center (SOC)?

This article will help you understand the difference between NOC and SOC networks and how they work together to secure your network.

What Is the Purpose of a Network Operations Center?

A NOC is a centralized location that engineers, and technicians use to monitor the status of an IT network for a client. Their role is mainly to provide the technical support and backbone that the IT system requires to reduce downtime and keep operations going. Their job is to schedule updates and patches and reduce system interruptions that affect the flow of business.

What Is the Purpose of A Security Operations Center?

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A SOC network is, like a NOC, a centralized location where professionals come together to monitor a network security. This time, though, the purpose is to protect the network from security threats, like cyberattacks, not to keep systems maintained and updated. A SOC will usually monitor the security position of a firm from multiple angles, taking into consideration the threats that it faces today and those likely to emerge in the future. SOCs, therefore, engage in strategies to help protect their clients or the businesses in which they operate.

The day to day job of the security operations center is to monitor and analyze servers, databases, websites, applications, and user endpoints. By crunching the numbers and looking for patterns, it aims to augment the effectiveness of regular antivirus and firewall software. It deploys experienced humans trained to recognize potential security breaches and counter them fast. If there is a security failure, SOCs investigate the source and create reports that they then use for purposes of transparency and rectifying the issue.

What are the challenges of SOC?

Security Operations Centers (SOCs) are responsible for protecting networks from cyber attacks. SOCs monitor network traffic and detect suspicious activity. They also provide incident response teams with information about threats and vulnerabilities. The main challenge of a SOC network is to ensure that they do not become a bottleneck in the organization’s ability to respond to incidents.

In order to protect against this threat, organizations must invest in tools that allow them to quickly identify and remediate any potential issues. These network tools should be able to automatically scan all systems for known Network Vulnerabilities, and then alert administrators if any problems are found.

The first step towards protecting your organization is to understand what threats exist. This requires understanding where those threats come from, and why they are so dangerous. A recent report by Verizon revealed that over half of all attacks were targeted at specific industries.

Which Is Better: a NOC or SOC?

NOC vs SOC is not an either-or choice. Both are needed to ensure that corporate infrastructure is capable to sustain business operations. The NOC is responsible for ensuring that the network infrastructure is capable of maintaining business operations, while the SOC is responsible for protecting the corporation against cyber threats that could interrupt those business operations.

The NOC and SOC are complementary, each focused on protecting different types of risk to network performance and corporate productiveness. A NOC (Network Operations Center) is responsible for maintaining a company’s computer system’s technical infrastructure. A SOC network (Security Operations Center) is responsible for monitoring security threats and protecting the data stored by computers.

Network monitoring is an important part of maintaining network health and security, but there is no need to spend too much time doing so if you don’t have the time.

NOC vs SOC: Two Different Types of Operations Centers

In summary, it is important to note that NOC and SOC differ. Both have very different roles in companies, yet there are overlaps in their operations, especially regarding structure, tools, and skills.

Network Operations Centers (NOC) usually deal with natural occurrences, whereas Security Operation Centres (SOC) are usually dealing with external threats against the enterprise network.

Companies use NOCs primarily to help them fulfill their service level agreements with their customers. Their goal is to address issues that affect the performance and availability of the network. Companies need IT systems that work flawlessly to enable them to deliver goods and services to their clients. Network operations centers, therefore, focus on dealing with security issues that might lead to downtime.

SOCs, on the other hand, try to buffer the company against anything that might affect the security of information assets. That could include things like creating private clouds, monitoring packets of data in and out of the IT network, and even training colleagues about the dangers of phishing attacks. The focus here is on protecting customer and company data to prevent the loss of trade secrets and maintain trust in the brand.

NOCs and SOCs, however, rely on similar sets of skills and monitoring technology. A NOC needs people with proficiencies in systems engineering, application support, and network maintenance. A SOC network engineer requires some knowledge of these security issues as well as an understanding of NOC cybersecurity threats. A typical SOC would not have the capability to detect or respond to optimal network performance issues unless they invested in additional tools and skills.

When thinking in terms of NOC vs SOC, companies need to consider the fundamental differences in the role of the people that they employ. NOC security primarily concern themselves with passive computers that often run into problems in a predictable and foreseeable way. SOC, by contrast, must deal with decision-making adversaries who are often thinking two or three steps ahead. Engineers and technicians in security operations centers need to bridge the gap between purely technical problems and human motives.

Network engineers and security analysts often have different missions, but improved collaboration between NOC and SOC can only improve the efficiency with which they respond during crises.

NOC and SOC networks do different things so they offer the most benefit when implemented side by side. Firms rarely have one but not the other.

Engineers Are Essential to Keep Both NOC And SOC Running

While there’s a trend towards automation in the world of network management, the software is not able to take over completely – and it is unlikely that it ever will. Companies, therefore, will always need people with the skills and training to keep both their SOC and NOC running.

Getting workers with those skills through the regular channels, however, is challenging. Firms often have to pay costly recruitment fees and bring people in on a full salaried basis, even if the requirement for their services is temporary.

Fortunately, you don’t have to go down that route. With us, you can get access to the technicians that you need to run your NOC or SOC on-demand, lowering your costs and reducing your onboarding time. Choose us to get the skilled people you need today and take your network security operations to the next level.

Summary

We hope this article has helped you understand what a network operation center (NOC) and security operations center (SOC) are, how they differ, and why you should choose us to provide them to your business.

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About Gary McCauley

Gary McCauley is responsible for management and sales of ExterNetworks National Accounts. He has over 20 years of experience in providing technology services to the channel and providing insights and trends to help business decision makers implement sound strategies.

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