• 08 June, 2025
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The Convergence of NOC and SOC: Ultimate Secure IT Management

I’m writing this after my third cup of coffee today — so forgive me if I’m a bit scattered. I’ve been at this cybersecurity thing since the early 2000s, but my story goes back even further. Back in ’93 when I was nothing but a network admin, I was elbow-deep in muxes for voice and data over PSTN lines. Now fast forward a bit, and yes, I was there for the Slammer worm madness as it happened, and baby, what a ride it has been. Now I run PJ Networks and specialize in cybersecurity strategy, enabling banks just last quarter to modernize their zero-trust architectures. Oh, and I just returned from DefCon. The hardware hacking village? Still buzzing. It’s that sort of energy which led me to write this post on why the convergence of your NOC (Network Operations Centre) and SOC (Security Operations Centre) isn’t just some fad, but the ultimate in secure IT management.

The line of sight operations and security in the Cyber Age

At one time, NOC and SOC were akin to different planets orbiting the same sun: NOC people fretted about uptime, performance and network health. SOC teams? They concentrated on threats, attacks, and root cause forensics.

But guess what? Those lines have blurred. The bottom line is that today’s IT field features curveballs that straddle the line of both velocity and secure. Think about it: a DDoS attack isn’t just a security event; it’s a network performance hell. And misconfigured networks? They represent security risks waiting to materialize.

Your networks aren’t little islands—availability and performance itself is an important element in security posture. You can’t defend against what you don’t understand. And understanding requires cooperation — close, continuing, embedded cooperation.

Drawbacks of Siloed NOC and SOC

But here’s the thing — keeping NOC and SOC teams apart? It’s a recipe for response delay, knowledge gaps, and lots, and lots, of finger-pointing.

• Alerts are streaming in, but the NOC sees network metrics only and the SOC sees only security logs.
• Context disappears — what appears to flicker as a network congestion may in fact be a covert malware beaconing back to its command and control.
• Incident triage suffers. Teams are scrambling without a unified picture.

I harken to when I helped deal with one of the first outbreaks of the Slammer worm — if we’d had different teams, we would have lost precious hours not piecing together network slowdowns and infection patterns.

And just to be clear, I have been guilty of “siloed pride” myself and staying in it far too long, hoping specialization equaled efficiency. It doesn’t.

Advantages of Integration of NOC-SOC

Here, we use the word (game) in a new light; rather than get yourself down, realize combining or, at the very least, syncing up is not only practical but it also changes things. Here’s why:

• Quicker Response: When ops and security teams have one platform and one source of visibility, incident detection leads to immediate collaboration, not a handoff that eats the clock.
• Better Context: Imagine investigating a network slowdown and discovering that it’s part of a larger APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) campaign. Integration can help mitigate the chasing of ghosts.
• Streamlined Operability: Less tools, converge towards a single dashboards, escalate in a coordinating matter and less operations overhead. You get more transparent reporting, better data linkage.
• Predictive and Proactive Capabilities: With new tech like AIOps and SOAR, which automate repetitive tasks and orchestrate incident response—integrated teams can pre-empt issues, rather than always acting and reacting.

I have personally deployed ‘Zero Trust’ models for three banks where we brought together all these layers and put them on top of integrated solutions provided by Fortinet. The results? And with less downtime, quicker threat mitigation, and happy security and network staff for all.

Fortinet’s Security Fabric The Facilitator of Integration

Here’s a key reason we bet on Fortinet for this end-to-end approach at PJ Networks: most of all, their Security Fabric is not some marketing term. And it’s an ecosystem that actually ties security and networking together in an amazing way.

• One-pane-of-glass for visibility from firewall, switch, endpoint, wireless and even cloud workloads.
• Automatic threat intelligence sharing, so a threat spotted on one device triggers an alert for everyone else.
• Close API integrations with leading orchestration systems supporting AIOps and SOAR use cases.

AI-powered claims in security I am cautiously optimistic about. They are mostly hype on heuristics. But Fortinet balances practical automation with real-time threat data and allows you to use human judgment where it’s needed.

It’s like having a pit crew in a Formula 1 race, an efficient, fast bunch of workers who can get things done quickly—and there you can see the difference between winning and losing.

Union-enabled Operations and Security from PJ Networks

At PJ Networks, we are not just here to bring in tools—we’ll synthesize strategies that flex to the threats and the way you do business. Our approach:

• Customized assessments to discover where your NOC and SOC do not align
• Design converged workflows while taking your specific operational culture into consideration
• How to use Fortinet’s Security Fabric to build that integrated ecosystem
• You have a focus on Training & Continuous Improvement - it’s not a one time thing for us.

Our clients typically emerge with stronger infrastructure and, shock of shocks, teams who genuinely enjoy working together (a rare occurrence, I realize). We are not just reacting we’re defining.

Preparing for Tomorrow, Today

The speed and drive of digital transformation are relentless. Cloud workloads, IoT deployments, and remote workforces, all introduce new security challenges that don’t end at a network’s boundaries.

Here’s one truth I’ve come to know: you cannot defend what you do not see and you do not operate together. Siloes will cost you. Delay will cost you.

The future requires building a base where your NOC and SOC don’t feel like two separate teams tripping over one another, but a machine that powers the network index. All of it is possible thanks to Fortinet’s ecosystem. It is possible, if you are PJ Networks.

Quick Take

• Homogeneity => Quicker time to threat identification and recovery
• Single source of truth = more context for troubleshooting and security
• Automation (AIOps + SOAR) = proactive instead of a reactive approach
• Fortinet’s Security Fabric = the product that strings it all together
• PJ Networks = your ally to create this future proof model

It is, after all, very high-stakes. Your network’s wellbeing and cybersecurity posture are two sides of the same coin. From that legacy PSTN mux to today’s zero-trust architectures, the message is clear: integration is not just a nice-to-have—it’s your best defense.

So — if you’re still running NOC and SOC like two islands, here’s why it’s time to change. Plus, if you want a partner who understands all aspects of both worlds — who’s witnessed Slammer worms and the most recent hardware hacks — your rallying cry isn’t much more complicated.

Let’s talk.

Sanjay Seth
PJ Networks Pvt Ltd