Fifteen minute tour of your major telcos NOC (Network Operations Center).
It's a quarter to four in the morning, and you are staring mirthlessly at five fifty-inch
monitors glowing with safe greens, worrisome ambers, and troubling reds.
The screens represent network segments and are broken up into Government,
Public, Private.

Whoops, circuit down.  Nortel IBAM alarm view shows a FRUNI with LMI down.
The process begins.

1. Identify the customer.
2. Determine how much we care that this customer is down.
3. It's Goverment...damn...guaranteed uptime and penalties involved.
4. Cut a ticket.
5. Pull up network topology for the trouble from the database.
6. Trace circuit, determine test access points.

It's a 1.544 Mb/s PVC that feeds a core router. Verify status on HP OpenView.
It's tracked through a port on the DT1 card in the "A" shelf of a Newbridge 3600 MUX.
It passes through two carrier offices with test access on 2 DSX bays.
Two options for testing...take the easy one.

7. Circuit is down, so begin intrusive testing.
8. Run an end to end BERT test using the DNIC card one side of the MUX.
9. Test from point to point and prove DS1 integrity. Pick QRSS pattern and let run for 10 minutes.
10. Circuit is clean, no CRC errors, no slips.
11. Call customer POC. Try to verify power and equipment.
12. Pend ticket while waiting for response.

Finish off last of your now cold coffee, rub eyes, pray for death.