nGenius To Solve Data and Tool Clutter Through New CDM Technology
WESTFORD, Mass., July 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --
NetScout Systems (Nasdaq: NTCT) today announced a comprehensive strategy for
expanding its nGenius(TM) Performance Management System to allow enterprises
to consolidate their point performance management tools into a single
architecture and solution. Despite the industry's best efforts to date, IT
organizations are forced to use a multitude of different performance
management tools for different traffic types (e.g., data, voice, Web content),
for different data sources (e.g., routers, switches, probes), and for
different management functions such as reporting, troubleshooting, monitoring,
protocol analysis and service level management. Based on NetScout's patent-
pending Common Data Model(TM) (CDM) architecture and technology, the strategy
aims to reduce the data and tool clutter, leading to dramatically lowered
total cost of ownership for network management.
Enterprises remain challenged by point performance management tools:
Enterprises today are under pressure to improve overall IT efficiency, as well
as to directly link IT decisions to business priorities. Current performance
management solutions compromise these goals because they are not linked to the
broader context of the network. Network managers have been limited to using
separate tools from different vendors or application suites that consist of
separate, loosely coupled applications that do not provide end-through-end
visibility of the services being delivered. All of these shortcomings, in the
face of mounting network size and complexity, lead to unsatisfactory service
levels, inefficient resource utilization and lower productivity -- a poor ROI.
NetScout builds on its innovative technology to cut the clutter:
NetScout's innovative, flow-based approach for integrating performance data
across the networked infrastructure has long been used for simplifying user
tasks by integrating traffic flow data from disparate network technologies
such as Gigabit Ethernet, ATM, Frame Relay, and from Cisco devices as part of
a partnership, into consistent analyses, views and reports. This approach was
also central to the recently announced nGenius Performance Manager version
1.4, which, for the first time in the industry, combined the tasks of
real-time monitoring, troubleshooting, protocol analysis and historical
reporting into a single product. The strategy announced today uses NetScout's
innovative technology, called Common Data Model (CDM), to significantly expand
the scope of the nGenius architecture to include all key network data sources
(e.g., active and passive response time agents, routers, intelligent switches,
load balancers). Simultaneously, it integrates all key performance management
tasks and links them to the context of the entire network and the business
services being delivered. This approach enables capacity utilization, response
time, availability, fault and other vital information to be analyzed,
displayed, and reported in a consistent format and context-cutting down on the
human effort necessary to interpret and act upon the information.
Customers welcome NetScout's direction: Wachovia Corporation, with more
than $320 billion in assets, is the fourth largest bank in the country and is
one of NetScout's largest customers. "Within Wachovia, we leverage
technologies that allow us maximum control over our infrastructure. We need to
make immediate decisions in our line of business, and the nGenius Performance
Management System enhances the quality of information available for those
decisions," said Peter Makohon, vice president, Network Services for Wachovia.
"NetScout's strategy is on-target and helps us reach our goal of being a
precise, yet responsive organization."
CDM direction is built on solid foundations: "The direction we have
unveiled today takes a completely different approach to resolving data and
tool clutter. Unlike other vendors, we are starting with the foundation of a
common data model, one based on the application flow paradigm we have
championed for many years." said Anil Singhal, president and CEO of NetScout
Systems. "This technology gives us network-wide performance information
necessary to consolidate all performance management functions across the
infrastructure. With nGenius in place, our customers will realize enormous
savings through reducing the human effort required for planning, monitoring,
and troubleshooting their networks and through increasing network performance
by optimizing the use of their existing infrastructure."
"NetScout's rich experience in monitoring application flows across the
network for infrastructure optimization and performance troubleshooting
provides a natural foundation for the larger concept of CDM," says Dennis
Drogseth, vice president, Enterprise Management Associates. "CDM reflects one
of the most critical requirements for next-generation management solutions --
the need to provide a more integrated and intelligent approach to
infrastructure management. CDM is a bold stroke that will help to reshape the
industry towards a more efficient, less cluttered environment for managing the
delivery of business services across the network."
Implementation plans: NetScout intends to implement the CDM strategy over
multiple releases of the nGenius system, consisting of both a performance
management software application and probes. The first of these releases,
comprising nGenius Performance Manager version 1.4 and NetScout's Probe
Firmware version 5.2, is already shipping and is offering integrated real-time
monitoring, historical reporting, capacity planning, troubleshooting and
protocol analysis based on traffic information collected from probes, and LAN
switches for voice, Web, and data traffic.
Over the next nine months traffic coverage will be extended to embrace
storage area networks via new NetScout Probes, and data source support will
expand to routers, flow-based switches, and load balancers through
partnerships with infrastructure vendors. nGenius Performance Manager will be
further extended by integrating NetScout's Capacity Planner and Application
Service Level Manager functionality, by introducing new, intelligent
performance alarms and by implementing a complete self-management capability.
Subsequent releases will add more third party data sources, and will enhance
user productivity through automating performance management tasks.
nGenius Alliance Program to complement new strategy: Complementing its
product strategy announcement, NetScout simultaneously announced its nGenius
Alliance Program to extend the scope and reach of nGenius by expanding the
range of devices from which nGenius collects data to more third party devices,
and by providing nGenius information to new application partners. The first
component of the nGenius Alliance Program, called Technology Integration
Partners (TIP), will help infrastructure partners to develop software to feed
their performance information to nGenius using the CDM technology and to test
the resulting integration.
"We are pleased to have NetScout as a solution partner and to join
NetScout's nGenius Alliance Program," said Duncan Potter, vice president of
Marketing for Extreme Networks. "By including support for our Ethernet
switches in the nGenius Common Data Model architecture, our customers have
access to real-time monitoring, base lining, reporting, and troubleshooting
capabilities. This streamlines and simplifies the management of large networks
for our common customers, and complements Extreme Networks' Large
Enterprise/Service Provider OSS partner solution set."
About NetScout Systems, Inc.
NetScout Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTCT) is a market leader and pioneer of
integrated network performance management solutions for leading companies and
service providers worldwide. NetScout serves the Global 5000 and counts among
its customers Arvin Meritor, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts,
Cable and Wireless, Cisco Systems, China Telecom, Fidelity Investments,
Getronics, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Nextel Communications, Samsung SDS, Siemens
Health Services Corporation, StarBand Communications, Travelocity.com, Visa
International, and Wachovia Bank. NetScout's solutions are offered through
its nGenius(TM) Performance Management System, an integrated suite of advanced
monitoring and reporting applications that draw on the rich performance data
generated by NetScout's real-time, application-aware probes, advanced
intelligent software agents and network devices. The nGenius System helps
organizations increase their return on infrastructure investments by
optimizing the performance of their network, applications and content.
NetScout is headquartered in Westford, Massachusetts and has approximately 360
employees, with offices in North America, Europe and Asia. Further information
on the company is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.netscout.com.
NetScout is a registered trademark, and the NetScout logo, nGenius,
nGenius Performance Manager, nGenius Capacity Planner, nGenius Application
Service Level Manager, nGenius Real-Time Monitor and nGenius Probe are
trademarks of NetScout Systems, Inc.
For Further Information:
Peggy Flynn Dawn Sullivan or John Moran
NetScout Systems Schwartz Communications, Inc.
(978) 614-4162 (781) 684-0770
flynnp@netscout.com netscout@schwartz-pr.com
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SOURCE NetScout Systems
Web site: http: //www.netscout.com
CONTACT: Peggy Flynn of NetScout Systems, +1-978-614-4162, flynnp@netscout.com; or Dawn Sullivan, or John Moran, both of Schwartz Communications, Inc. +1-781-684-0770, netscout@schwartz-pr.com