OMG!!! I KNOW WHERE I WANT TO WORK NOW!!! I LOVE SCREENS!!!

I AM GOING TO GO WORK AT A NOC!!!

alin0steglinski

@CheekyBreastfeedingMonkey: Odd coincidence- the large wall screens at New Jersey Transit's Operations center are also for the supervisors and visiting brass; the dispatchers have a 5 screen display at their desks.

Skeptical_Geezer

Speaking as a former NOC monkey, the big screens are for shift supervisors to notice things and yell out to the staff "Is anyone working on that alarm?"

Also to show off to executives and clients during a shiny objects tour.

CheekyBreastfeedingMonkey

oh and idk if it was posted... too lazy to read that much... but i think the walmart thing is a thing the Walton family built after 9/11 for their safety. not 100% on that one i think its in some walmart documentary

hazlo1

wow... i never knew this was practically down the street from where i live. Might have to go check that out one day.

hazlo1

A client of mine built their NOC specifically to show to clients. No one really watches the screens. There's monitoring software that will notify the appropriate people if something goes wrong. They can pull up any NOC screen they need remotely.

napdaddy

@teqsun.com:
Thanks for your comment... I could only find this as that whole part of data operations is top secret. 2,500+ people in a facility that large... no problem at all.
Everyone, including "she" had to sign NDA's... I didn't
= )

[eyeball-series.org]

ANoel

Oh, and the link to an iPhone unlock story causing the 'death star' (how many times are you going to go to the well on that one? It's as tired as the mac vs. pc ads) to explode?

Jesus christ.

keene

Of course it's impressive, they are the most profitable and most successful telecom for a reason.

But this continued hatred by gizmodo against all things at&t is ridiculous:

"where they work to suppress good wireless reception and run their Random Billing Generator."

I have no complaints with at&t, never had a billing problem, and reception is second to none.

Give me a break, giz, and start being objective please.

keene

I maintain that these things are entirely for the purpose of impressing executives, shareholders, and customers. Essentially, morons who don't know what any of it does.

eblack

Who would have thought the Death Star really exists? And that it would be in New Jersey?

duroc

Those screens are retarded. Whose idea was this, anyway? How do you find what you're looking for on them? If someone changes anything on the screen you have to start looking all over. Totally impractical for actually helping get work done - more desktop monitors for users to control would be far more useful.

andrewkfromaz

@ANoel:

My job involves working for one of walmarts contractors who do retail merchandizing. If they really had 1 person per store, analyzing each and every transaction, they would need a room a lot bigger than that and not to mention I wouldnt have a job.

teqsun.com

@sharmanova: As I mentioned in my first post, the Akamai NOCC is basically for marketing purposes. The NOCC workers only care about what's on the monitors in front of them and don't pay any real attention to what's up on the walls.

IphtashuFitz

@MagnoliaBoy: The NOC workers I've dealt with at Akamai and elsewhere aren't SME's waiting around for a chattering NIC to go off. They're basically monkeys who know how to respond to a flashing light, look up the correct procedure to follow for that flashing light, and perform the documented steps. Typically the last step is "escalate to XXX" so the true experts can deal with the unusual situations. Think of NOC workers as the CSR's you call at Dell when you have a problem with your computer. They're simply following a script to identify & hopefully resolve the problem. If they can't resolve it themselves by following the documented procedures then the problem gets escalated to higher & higher tiers of specialists who typically don't hang out in the NOC.

IphtashuFitz

Sure it looks flashy but in the back there are probably a bank of slave monkeys on stationary bikes generating the electricity.

What's the point of all those screen beyond trying to look the part? Who could read anything on them? Who's looking at them versus their personal screens?

sharmanova

I bet we don't see pictures or specs for the NSA's "No American Left Behind" program.

johnnyabnormal

@Xavoc: Wow, that's a beautiful story...

It all depends on your responsibilities. I'm young but have been doing IT and Software Engenerring for almost 10 years now. I'd love to be the guy that sits around watching DVDs on the 4 grand digital projector, waiting for a chattering NIC to go off, getting paid an absurd sallary for being a SME (Subject Matter Expert).

MagnoliaBoy

@MagnoliaBoy: None of the actual work is ever done in the NOC. If you want to be paid very little while you sit around and answer/make phone calls. Woo! Go for it! =)

The problem I have w/ such setups is when I had a cubicle in the NOC @ one of my jobs (They'd started to disassemble the NOC because it wasn't an efficient use of space for what needed to be done) I had the lovely pleasure of watching Sept 11th on a bunch of huge screens everywhere you turned. Some tool had even turned on the sound so we could hear the thumps of bodies hitting pavement.

Xavoc

Whatevs. It's nothing compared to the sports book at Cesars Palace.

SlinkyDink

Akamai has a marketing video of their NOCC and other information here: [www.akamai.com]

IphtashuFitz

I worked at Akamai for a while and spent some time in their NOCC (they use a second 'C' since they consider it a Network Operations Control Center - their NOC deals with NOC's at various ISP's around the world so they're a step above a NOC). But I digress. The funny thing is that big displays on the walls are nothing more than show for potential customers. The Akamai NOCC is right on the ground floor next to the receptionist, and you have to walk by it to get to the conference rooms where they have meetings with potential customers. All the NOCC workers rely on what's on the screens in front of them. The only thing on the walls that they might pay attention to is the TV tuned to CNN. The rest is just to make it all look fancy for the potential customers.

IphtashuFitz

You have to now do a "worst of" operations centers. My old desk used to be a door on two filing cabinets at an ops center I worked at in college.

mikesfree

pretty sure that first pic ( http://gizmodo.com/photogallery/intarwebsnoc/1001600258 ) is Verizon Business NOC in Ashburn, Virginia. I worked there for 6.5 years (UUNet to MCI/WorldCom to MCI to Verizon Business) here's some of my pics (took some but not sure which ones were mine) http://skillzilla.com/upload/052003/noc.jpg http://skillzilla.com/upload/062003/noc300dpi.jpg the seoncd pic is probably the best to compare

WhitneyCachai

Why did you have to remind me!
My ex was a Senior Executive Bitch at MalWart.
She got to visit the football field-size computer installation in Bentonville.
Like in these pics, there were huge monitors encircling the perimeter, one flat-screen monitor per store, one human monitor per store, plus banks and banks of mainframes. They followed every transaction in real-time and so could create the instant-inventory logistics that sets that company apart.
The most interesting aspect though, was that a exact, redundant, mirror facilty operates in caves under Salt Lake City.

ANoel

it looks like one of N64 Goldeneye stages ... they just miss natalia and a lot of stupid soldiers

mpar

Okay, it looks impressive .. But, what is the point? I can understand the Sports Book at Mandalay Bay since you could have hundreds of people following a bazillion different games. But, what is the point of this? Unless the people at AT&T use it to watch sports when no one else is looking.

Monty

So why is there no one in the AT&T control room? If that is the Global Network Operation Center, wouldn't you think that they would have that place fully stocked with a human force 24/7? Of course, if all they are doing is supressing good wireless signals and running their "Random Billing Generator" then I guess they don't really need a lot people to be there. Oh well, when the world goes to hell and we can't call anyone we can blame them, cuz they didn't have anyone running the show to given preventative measures.

CasualGeek

@discounteggroll: I was thinking the exact same thing....now the damn music is playing in my head.

slowreader

I want the big recliners in the front like ESPN Zone.

gooph

What exactly do they do in this place? Holly shit looks impressive!!

Jumep

definitely no porn surfing at work based on the layout. got about 80 eyes on your screen at all times. bummer.

bernielomax

@Brian10:my thoughts exactly.

wecanfreakit

@DashTheHand: Mrs Modo,

Is your son playing tonight?

No, he has a bad back.

flyboy

And in the middle; Dr. Evil in an egg chair...

Cookiefox

i can just make out a target on the giant screen.....

Its a Sprint logo.

flyboy

I always have liked The Chair at XM's BOC (on the bottom...)

[xmradio.mediaroom.com]

TVGenius

actually the random charge generator (not random billing generator - it makes a bill for you every month) runs out of dallas texas, atlanta georgia, and seattle washington.

drewheyman

The desks look very, very uncomfortable. Look at all those people hunched over their desks like Quazimodo.

DashTheHand

This looks like the floor of a common Energy Trader room. No biggie.

Brian10

My life long IT dream has been to work in a beautiful NOC like this. Maybe one day, one day for sure....

MagnoliaBoy

Better link to see the control room:
[www.kcscout.com]

Yeah, not as good as above, but hey, I did this one.

TheCapt

Those places look cool but it doesn't look like anyone has their own workspace, its probably all shared by shift workers. I would prefer my own dreary cube to something lavish but isn't mine.

mynameisjoe

@discounteggroll: Goldeneye was the FIRST thing i thought when i saw the pictures. You walk in that room and then Natalia comes then you have to shoot people coming from both sides of the room. Oh man, that was my favorite.

wolfenstein-3d

........Joshua?

xint

AND I want WAR KITTENS on my Capital One card!

BWAAaaHAAAAAAHAAAHAAAA

schrosa

strangely reminds me of goldeneye for N64 and COD4. damn video games

discounteggroll

I did one of these for the Kansas City traffic system call KC Scout www.kcscout.com

Not quite as big as these, but still has 8-50" plasma, 16-52" rear projection, 32-server racks, plus hookups for the local media.

TheCapt

Looks less impressive than the Sports book at Mandalay Bay.

Darrone

Cool...Akamai

Y2KGTP

@erik1974:
There also this Austrian guy who did build a nice control room for his daughter.

Rigald

This is ground control to Major Tom.... I want to work at one of these places. I don't know what they do exactly, but I want to work there none the less.

maven2k

We built a control room like this -- for show.

We don't let the customers see where the real work gets done.

Windhawk

There is some Austrian company which also have some nice control rooms!
[www.eaz.at]

erik1974