It's the operational nerve Centre of a technological company. Depending on local setup it may or may not manage servers and applications - but is the place where people and management tools observe and control the functioning of routers, switches, leased lines or other WAN links.
A network operations center (NOC) provides an integral element of any organization that uses networked systems of any type. An organization may use in-house personnel or outsource its network operations center (NOC).