Hey Eric, Disclaimer: I work for LightSquare, LLC (http://lightsquare.us) and it's what we do. Look for high-touch, flexible people who work with you to meet your business goals. You don't want to outsource your network or security operations to a company who doesn't care about you or your business. Make sure they're not going to try to fit you into a box. I'd also look for a company who is going to adapt to your environment. They should have a plan and standard procedures for building institutional knowledge so they don't alert on the same thing over and over again. They should be trying to make your network better and look for ways to improve processes, technologies, etc. They should be able to show you an operations guide that describes exactly what they're going to do with different types of problems, who they are going to notify, what they're going to do, and when. You should have very clear expectations about what is going to happen and by when. You should get weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual reports that are meaningful, informative and customized. Let me know if you have more questions. Jacob On 3/6/12 1:39 PM, Eric Cables wrote:

I am evaluating outsourced NOC solutions, where all of the device monitoring and pro-active response is handled by a centralized NOC (NaaS? :-)). The goal is to reduce the day-to-day overhead of calling carriers to troubleshoot circuit problems, basic network troubleshooting when congestion occurs, pro-active response and notification when critical systems go down during off hours, etc. The focus is network related to start, but could branch out into servers in the future.

Any feedback on: companies used, what to look for, and general thoughts on a centralized NOC approach would be appreciated.

-- Eric Cables