Automated and Integrated NOC and SOC.

Teams from network operations centers (NOC) and security operations centers (SOC) play distinct responsibilities to maintain an organization's security and dependability. For example, the SOC monitors cybersecurity and guards against attackers, whereas the NOC is concerned with system availability and connecting end users with support services. To perform its duties, the SOC must seize assets and examine connections and identities, which occasionally causes well-intentioned NOC efforts to lag.
The significance of SOC and NOC
What is NOC?
A streamlined, centralized technology operations center is known as a NOC. It takes care of routine tasks so businesses and IT staff can concentrate on important business applications and maintain uninterrupted service. An effective NOC is built around the following principles for managing and monitoring:
         1. Hardware, software, and networking for continuous health improvement
         2. Constant & Proactive Monitoring
         3. Updates and Patch Administration
         4. Downtime reduction and alert management
         5. Management of Data Backups & Constant Data Flow 
What is SOC?
Locating any incidents or alerts that compromise the security of information assets primarily focuses on information/data security. SOC staff members regularly monitor and assess organizational security to keep organizations' IT infrastructure secure. They also respond to any vulnerabilities as soon as they are identified. As a result, SOC's primary operational focus is cyber security. An agile SOC integrates skilled engineers with threat detection and avoidance solutions, such as:
        1. Daily Network Current Vulnerability Endpoint Surveillance
        2. Detailed investigations: Preventing future attacks requires understanding how and why a breach happened.
        3. Security Procedures & Policies: Ensure all specifications are current and compliant with all laws.
        4. Research & Analysis: Security log data examines, identifies, and documents predictable and unpredictable tendencies.
        5. Ransomware and other intrusion protection technologies are included in the threat detection and risk mitigation category.
Integrated SOC and NOC
The complexity of organizational network topologies is rising today, a reality made worse by the expansion of remote work, the widespread use of cloud services, and the requirement for flexible IT everywhere. It is usual for IT leaders to reevaluate the structure of their conventional Network Operations Center (NOC) and Security Operations Center at such a turning moment (SOC). The likelihood of severe cybersecurity events increases as reliance on networks becomes increasingly mission-critical. For networks to be secure and agile simultaneously, security can no longer be added on top of the network like a shield.
Enterprises are integrating their network operations centers (NOCs) and security operations centers to reduce costs, maximize resources, and improve the speed and efficacy of incident response and related security responsibilities (SOCs). Connectivity and uptime are the main concerns of network teams. They reply to tickets for problems, outages, and performance declines. Alerts, incident response, and cyberattack analysis are what motivate SOC teams. Network specialists examine packet flows. SOC teams attempt to understand an attacker's thoughts. Conceptually simple to understand, SOC/NOC integration might take much work to implement.
NOC and SOC convergence challenges
Certain challenges are associated with the integration of NOC and SOC. They are
Process complexity
The pursuit of efficiency emphasizes those processes that follow different paths and arrive at similar conclusions. Therefore, processes should be reviewed for similarities and streamlined to reconcile and fit both areas of operation. 
Finding the right tools
SOCs and NOCs typically have various tools to meet their needs. These tools should be inventoried and evaluated for functional fit within the converged operations center.
People and skills
Integration of NOC and SOC creates a lot of overlapping skills and redundant people. This will generate a lot of re-skilling, redundancy elimination, and cultural issues. 
Lot of redundant and false events
With many tools, streamlining processes and tools leads to many redundant and false events. Also, it demands the need for greater depth in event correlation.
Benefits of integrated NOC and SOC
In many firms, integrating both groups at the point of defense could be the most effective method to reduce costs, boost efficiency, and effectively utilize resources. So let's have a look at some more of them.
More security
Networking teams frequently get alerts about performance issues that, upon closer inspection, appear to be security-related problems, such as a denial of service attack. Collaboration among the teams improves the organization's security posture.
Enhanced network performance
On the other hand, security-related concerns can occasionally be the main culprit behind network performance issues, such as a new firewall rule that unintentionally blocks legal traffic. The teams can immediately identify the cause of a network performance issue by cooperating.
Improved response time
In an integrated SOC/NOC situation, the combined teams can shorten the time security professionals need to react to an event or attack. A quicker response time means lessening the financial impact of a breach when it comes to halting the bleeding during an emergency.
Increased operational and financial efficiency
SOC/NOC cooperation can reduce expenses by eliminating duplication in toolkits. In addition, operational efficiency reduces the time needed for mundane tasks, freeing security professionals to focus on more strategic endeavors.
Integration between NOCs and SOCs is starting to take off. The industry's decision to implement NOC/SOC integration as a best practice will likely be influenced by various factors, such as the cost of managing two different teams, the time it takes to respond to an initial incident, collaboration on up-channel communications, and reporting. As the cybersecurity industry matures, time to resolution, workflow/data/dashboard consolidation, compliance, and auditing challenges should all be addressed. To know more about Algomox AIOps, NOC, and SOC please visit our AIOPs platform page