TOP 10 Basic NOC Network Engineer Interview Questions & Answers | 2026

Question 1 – What is a NOC?

Ans- 

NOC  - Network Operations Center

It is a centralized location where IT/network team/s are responsible for 24×7 monitoring and troubleshooting of network infrastructure.

This is to ensure maximum uptime, 

Performance and security.

Types of Networks Have NOCs – 

ISPs 

Banks 

Data Center

Cloud Services Providers 

Etc.

Question 2 – What is your understanding about the role of L1 NOC Engineer ?

Ans-

A NOC Engineer- 

Monitors alerts

Handles incidents

Performs basic troubleshooting

Opens tickets

Escalates issues.

Question 3 – What is difference between alert and incident?

Ans-

Question 4 – What is ticket?

Ans- 

A ticket is a record used to track issues, actions taken, and resolution.

Ticketing Tool Examples:

ServiceNow

BMC Remedy

Jira Service Management

Question 5 – What is Escalation?

Ans-

Escalation is the process of passing an issue to a higher support level or specialized team when it cannot be resolved within defined time or capability limits. 

Transferring an issue to a higher technical team (L1 → L2 → L3) because advanced skills are required.

  Example:L1 cannot resolve a routing issue → escalated to L2 Network Engineer

Question 6 – What is SLA?

Ans-

SLA - Service Level Agreement

An SLA is a formal agreement that defines the expected service levels, including response time, resolution time, and availability.

Example 

It will define what will be the time to response or resolution the failure. 

The percentage of time a network or a service should remain operational 

The time to escalate the issue to a higher support level for resolution . 

Etc….

Question 7 – What is MTTR?

Ans-

MTTR (Mean Time to Repair) is the average time taken to restore a service or resolve an incident after it occurs.

In simple terms:It measures how quickly an issue is fixed.

Formula:MTTR = Total downtime ÷ Number of incidents

Example:If 3 link failures took a total of 90 minutes to resolve:MTTR = 90 ÷ 3 = 30 minutes

Why MTTR is important (NOC perspective):

Measures incident response efficiency

Helps meet SLA commitments

Used to evaluate NOC and Network Team performance.

Question 8 – What is difference between packet loss and latency ?

Ans-

Packet Loss - Packets that fail to reach the destination. 

It is measured in % 

Latency - Time taken for a packet to travel from source to destination.

It is measured in ms

Question 9 – What is a maintenance window?

Ans-

A maintenance window is a pre-approved, scheduled time period during which planned work (such as upgrades, patches, or configuration changes) is performed on network or IT systems.

Planned Downtime.

Example

A router upgrade is scheduled from 01:00 AM – 03:00 AM IST.Any link-down alerts during this time fall under the maintenance window.

Question 10 – What tools are used in NOC?

Ans-

NOC teams use different tools to 

Monitor

Detect

Troubleshoot

Document

Communicate network issues.

Ticketing / Incident Management Tools

Used to log, track, and close incidents.

Examples:

ServiceNow

BMC Remedy

Jira Service Management

Purpose:

Incident creation

SLA tracking

Escalation management

Network Diagnostic Tools

Used for basic and advanced troubleshooting.

Examples:

ping

traceroute / tracert

Purpose:

Connectivity testing

Latency & packet loss analysis

Configuration & Device Access Tools 

Used to access and manage network devices.

Examples:

SecureCRT

PuTTY

MobaXterm

Many more tools 

Log & Event Management Tools

Performance & Flow Analysis Tools

Documentation & Knowledge Base Tools

etc.

Thanks for reading 

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