NOC at Georgia State University

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The Network Operations Center (or NOC) at Georgia State University is a 5,500 sq ft showcase facility located in the heart of downtown Atlanta, Georgia. It is staffed and managed 24x7x365 by the University's Information Systems & Technology (IS&T) department and is part of IS&T's University Computing & Communications Services (UCCS) division. From this centralized location, staff monitor critical services and related systems provided by the University for faculty, staff, and students such as e-mail, payroll, registration, and file services. A staff of 16 technicians provide around-the-clock monitoring and troubleshooting of network services and environmental control systems such as HVAC and power. The NOC technicians are also in charge of racking all devices, providing power and network connectivity to hosts, and after-hours Help Center support for the University.

The GSU NOC is an environmentally "green" facility. There are no batteries used anywhere in the delivery of protected power to the approximately 400 hosts and servers housed in the NOC. Protected power is provided by a 300 kVA CAT flywheel/generator system^[1] and a 100 kVA ActivePower CoolAIR UPS^[2].

During the Fall of 2006, the Georgia State University underwent a $4,000,000 network renovation where all of the networking equipment across the campus was upgraded and replaced without any detectable downtime to the delivery of campus network services of the NOC facility^[3].

GSU's NOC is home to the Georgia Public Library System, GALILEO Interconnected Libraries, the New Georgia Encyclopedia, and the second of 27 SURAGrid-networked IBM P575 Supercomputers^[4].

The facility has been the subject of presentations at several national AFCOM conferences as well as two virtual tours hosted by AFCOM.