Is Your In-House Team Overwhelmed? The Case for Outsourcing NOC & SOC to PJ Networks

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Is Your In-House Team Overwhelmed? The Case for Outsourcing NOC & SOC to PJ Networks
Is Your In-House Team Overwhelmed? The Case for Outsourcing NOC & SOC to PJ Networks
Is Your In-House Team Overwhelmed? The Case for Outsourcing NOC & SOC to PJ Networks
Is Your In-House Team Overwhelmed? The Case for Outsourcing NOC & SOC to PJ Networks

Hard-Won Lessons from Thirty Years in IT and Cybersecurity

Now after my third cup of coffee this morning — and you better believe that’s when the serious thinking starts — I’d like to humbly offer up a few hard-won lessons from thirty years in the IT and cybersecurity trenches. I’ve been a network admin and sysadmin of some flavor or another since ’93 and ran everything from plain mux setups for voice and data over PSTN to Slammer hand-to-hand (or byte-to-byte) back in the day. Oh, have things changed since.

Fast forward: Nowadays I own PJ Networks, a company that focuses on Managed NOC and SOC products, advanced firewalls, servers and routers, with the cyber-security priority always in mind. I just returned from DefCon’s hardware hacking village and am still shaking from it – and, honestly, what I continue to find is that IT security infrastructures are becoming more complex. If you’re trying to do it all in-house and you already feel like you’re drowning, you need to read today’s post.

Increasing IT Operations and Security Complexity

Here’s the thing: IT was easier back when I was a beginner. You had your routers, switches, a little voice and data and some basic firewall rules. Now — wow — it’s a battlefield with hundreds of devices, cloud workloads, mobile users, zero-trust architectures and advanced persistent threats. And they are not random threats, not at all — state actors, cybercriminal organizations, opportunist hackers — all of them are there, waiting, poking at your defenses every minute of every day.

This complexity gives new meaning to “keeping the lights on” for your IT ops and security teams—they’re now running just to keep up, to comprehend new attack vectors and get intelligent solutions into place. It’s stressful even for the most experienced network admin (me included).

The In-House Dilemma: Expense, Gaps and Burnout

When a company starts to expand its media and digital capabilities, the decision to hire a new person to fill the unfamiliar role often comes up.

Nothing like pride in the in-house team, right? The fact that you have boots on the ground, face to face, direct communication, immediate response. In theory, it sounds great. In practice? It often means:

  • Soaring costs are sending many to the brink. Attracting, Hiring & Retaining Talented NOC & SOC Analysts? It’s war out there. Anything worth talent is worth the best price.
  • Skills gaps. I’ve observed teams that couldn’t keep up with changing attack methodologies or new technology stacks. Nobody can be an expert on everything.
  • 24/7 coverage strain. Cyber attacks do not keep office hours. Rotating shifts cause people to burn out, make mistakes, and eventually quit.

— A diversion from the main business targets. Your internal teams are getting attention so misguided, they’ll find themselves putting out fires all day long instead of having a chance to worry about strategy or innovation.

Based on my experience, it feels a bit like trying to keep an old school carburetor engine running with replacement parts from a modern fuel injection system: you can make it work, but at what cost and efficiency?

The Advantage in Outsourcing: Why It Pays Off

Here is where outsourcing your NOC (Network Operations Center) and SOC (Security Operations Center) really begins to make sense. And yes, I mean outsourcing — not only because of cost cutting, but for leverage and resilience. Here’s why:

  • 24/7 expert coverage, with no burnout
  • Access to specialized talent that would take years to hire and onboard internally
  • On-demand scaling up/down of capacity as required => no costly bench strength overhead
  • Enable your internal team to focus on what they do best core business and strategy initiatives

We’re your extended team (not some black-box vendor). We plug into what is around us: your technology stack, your way of doing things, your objectives. We don’t just watch — we actively hunt threats, review logs, and act decisively based on deep expertise developed over decades spent fighting actual attacks.

Control Costs and Budget with Predictable Spend

Listen, if you’re thinking outsourcing is an added cost, I understand it. You could be trapped in the old school CAPEX vs OPEX thinking. But the reality is different:

  • No extra costs for overtime, turnover or emergency recruitment as part of the agreement.
  • Fixed monthly pricing based on the size and complexity of your environment.
  • Your exposure to risk is lower, which saves money in the long-term (because breaches are not cheap).
  • Proper ticket and incident management results in less downtime and higher productivity.

Ironically, I have clients who used to complain about outsourcing who they now spend a lot less on IT overall and get much better security results. That’s the sweet spot for us, especially after we just successfully helped three banks migrate to zero-trust architecture with not one hiccup.

Specialized Expertise and Technology (Compliments of Fortinet!)

Here’s a bit of a pet peeve. Everybody’s piping up with AI-boost security solutions these days. And I’m skeptical of those buzzwords — AI is not magic, it’s a tool, and if you don’t have the right human brains behind it, it can be worse than useless, even dangerous.

What makes PJ Networks different is a combination of human expertise and powerful technology – including the Fortinet line-up that we rely on every day.

Fortinet helps us deliver:

  • Complete end-to-end visibility into all of your Network Landscape
  • Instant threat intelligence updates
  • Automated threat detection WITH expert analyst review

This combination allows you to stay ahead of bad actors — not simply in response to an attack, but in anticipating one. My point? When you come to us, you’re not just purchasing a SOC, but a well-oiled machine with years of experience and solid tech behind it.

PJ Networks – Your Extension, Not a Vendor

We don’t do the “here’s your box, now good luck” deal. At PJ Networks, clients are partners. When I speak to customers (or return from a whirlwind DefCon visit) I tell them straight up: the cybersecurity world is not going to magically become simpler. Your threat environment will become more complex. So your approach must evolve as well.

Outsourcing with us means:

  • We seamlessly integrate with your processes and your people. Just think of PJ Networks as an organic part of your IT and security operations.
  • Continuous improvement. We don’t just monitor, but provide counsel, advice and help you outrun what’s coming for you.
  • Transparent communication. You receive in-depth reports, actionable insights and 24/7 support.

Here’s the crux. It doesn’t mean your team is not skilled if you are unable to manage NOC & SOC in-house. It’s because the asks are, frankly, border-line, unsustainable. That outsourcing is a smart, strategic choice—one that allows you put your talent to work on what they do best, while putting the heavy lifting of day-to-day monitoring and incident response in the hands of people who do it all day, every day.

I’ll leave you with this: do you remember the Slammer Worm in the early 2000s? I was there, sweating through patch management – and I’m here to tell you, with the kind of threat intelligence and 24/7 managed services we have today, that nightmare would have been far less painful.

If you’d like to talk over how PJ Networks can help your business flourish — and to let you sleep better at night — give me a shout. We’ll get your NOC and SOC humming so you can concentrate on building your business, not just protecting it.

Quick Take

  • IT and security complexity is spiraling out of control; in-house teams are failing to keep up.
  • It is expensive and difficult to recruit/retain a team of experienced NOC/SOC personnel.
  • Staff get burned out and coverage (24/7) saps internal resources.
  • Outsourcing guarantees you costs you can know (know) in advance, focused expertise and bleeding-edge tech.
  • PJ Networks leverages decades of experience and Fortinet tech for solid defense.
  • We work alongside your team — we are an extension, not simply providers of a service.

Bottom line: Your cybersecurity isn’t a side dish — it’s the main course. How crazy-eyed teams serve yesterday’s leftovers. Allow PJ Networks to cater you with a meal of resilience and security.

Cheers from my desk,

Sanjay Seth
PJ Networks Pvt Ltd

PJ Networks Cybersecurity

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Is Your In-House Team Overwhelmed? The Case for Outsourcing NOC & SOC to PJ Networks
Is Your In-House Team Overwhelmed? The Case for Outsourcing NOC & SOC to PJ Networks