State IT Teams Improve Service in Managing Increased Network and Application Demands with NETSCOUT

• Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
• Networks & Connectivity - Network Management & Analysis Software

• System Integration
• Testing & Certification

The State’s IT team was experiencing an annual 30% increase in network traffic due to an increase in users and applications. The IT Help Desk required Network Operations Level 2 & 3 forensic triage support for issues that could not be resolved by in-place tools. There was also an expanding need for remote “do-it-yourself” network analysis by local agency technicians. The Network Operations team was increasingly challenged to answer Help Desk calls related to troubleshooting specific network and application performance issues that could not be addressed by in-place third-party solutions. Such requests frequently required leveraging days of wire traffic for packet-level forensic analysis. In addition, with the expanse of the respective agency functions and the geographic locations being served by the IT organization, the Network Operations team saw growing requests for certain network troubleshooting services to be coordinated by local IT resources directly employed by respective agencies.

The customer in this case study is an Information Technology (IT) team that manages a large-scale network and applications environment supporting service delivery for an entire state, including more than 40 state and local agencies. The State’s 200-member IT team incorporates Network Operations, Network Services, Hosted Application, and Voice subject matter experts. Those collective IT resources support the network, application, virtual, and voice performance technology needs for both financial and human services government departments, including the Juvenile Justice System, the State Comptroller, and Health & Human services agency. The State’s network operations backbone is delivered using a primary data center and nearby disaster recovery (DR) configuration, with the Network Operations team based in the data center.

The IT team chose NETSCOUT InfiniStreamNG appliances with 10 Gigabit monitoring support to support their modernized network infrastructure. The next-generation InfiniStreamNG appliances help support the network backbone infrastructure for the state’s IT deployment. The InfiniSteamNG appliances are configured in the IT organization’s primary data center and disaster recovery facilities, supporting enhanced network and application performance analytic capabilities provided by the nGeniusONE Service Assurance platform in production. In addressing the increased requests for network troubleshooting tools for use by the Network Operations staff and remote agency technicians, the IT team also selected the NETSCOUT OptiView XG Network Analysis tablet, which allows users to connect, analyze, and troubleshoot locations across the network to isolate the root cause of infrastructure-related problems.

• NETSCOUT supports enhanced network performance to better serve State and Local agencies’ abilities to conduct business and support citizens.
• NETSCOUT Service Assurance solution offers extended troubleshooting of network and application performance issues not diagnosed by other third-party solutions.
• Organizational synergy increased between Network Operations, Help Desk resources, and local agency technicians.

• 30% annual increase in network traffic managed effectively.
• Enhanced network performance for over 40 state and local agencies.