Case Study

Large North American Power Company Turns to NETSCOUT for Network and Application Service Assurance

Large North American Power Company Turns to NETSCOUT for Network and Application Service Assurance

Highlights

Business Challenge
  • Need for technology refresh to monitor WAN/LAN links critical to power generation/ distribution and business applications
  • Issues with remote links were impacting billing and other services
  • Inability to assure performance of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and web-based services for customers to access their data
  • Need to provide cost-effective visibility into hundreds of remote sites
NETSCOUT Solution
  • nGeniusONE® consolidates information from all data sources and correlates packet data with NetFlow data for full visibility
  • nGeniusONE provides centralized management for critical services in remote and central sites
  • NetFlow is used for performance monitoring and OptiView is used for troubleshooting and security incidents in remote sites where InfiniStream® appliances are not installed, primarily in distribution facilities
Business Value
  • Reduced risk of power outages or safety issues with quick problem identification and root cause analysis
  • Provide ability to test and validate performance between key sites and the core data center for early problem detection and quicker MTTR
  • NetFlow at remote sites helps achieve comprehensive analysis across the enterprise
  • Delivers ability to provide reports to various levels of senior leadership keeping them abreast of situations

Customer Profile

This natural gas and electrical power company serves customers across nearly half of the U.S. states and parts of Canada. In addition to electricity and gas, they also provide many other integrated energy solutions to customers. They are committed to finding better ways to deliver safe, reliable energy to homes and businesses, along with creating a diverse infrastructure, including clean renewable energy. The company is taking advantage of digital transformation to improve the end-user experience, enhance network performance, cut costs, and provide continuous improvement across the business.

Business Challenge

In the energy distribution business, there is no off. For this large North American power company, existing monitoring and analysis equipment was outdated and did not meet the current needs presented by the large, distributed, complex environment. This left the IT support team blind to bandwidth constraints and unable to triage key services within the data center and between hundreds of remote sites.

The company was in dire need of a technology refresh in order to effectively monitor WAN/ LAN links that were critical to power generation, distribution, and business applications, such as billing and other services. When remote links would go down or suffer performance degradations, payments could not be collected, which adversely impacted critically important revenue cycle management. In addition, IT was under pressure to assure the performance of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and Web-based services that provide customers access to their smart meter usage data. Ensuring a good customer experience required quick response times for the network.

NETSCOUT Solution

To solve its network and application performance problems, the power company turned to NETSCOUT®. The nGeniusONE Service Assurance platform was selected to process data from both InfiniStream appliances and NetFlow Collectors to provide comprehensive analysis across the enterprise environment. In addition, OptiView® was employed at remote sites for troubleshooting and gathering additional data to investigate security incidents.

NETSCOUT Solution in Action

The nGeniusONE solution consolidates information from all data sources and correlates packet data with NetFlow data providing full visibility into the performance of the infrastructure. nGeniusONE offers centralized management for critical services in remote and central sites. InfiniStream appliances were deployed in the larger, more critical locations while NetFlow Collectors were used as a cost-effective alternative for performance monitoring at the company’s smaller remote locations.

The OptiView XG solution was selected for use at generation and distribution facilities to conduct quick plugins for triage of network and wireless components specifically within those facilities. This solution was deemed more effective at remote sites where InfiniStreams were not installed.

Business Value

The NETSCOUT solution has been an overwhelming success for this power company. The nGeniusONE platform, InfiniStream appliances, NetFlow Collectors and OptiView XG system have collectively enabled IT to reduce the risk of power outages or safety issues with quick problem identification and root cause analysis. IT is now able to test and validate performance between key sites and the core data center, enabling early problem detection and, as a result, faster mean-time-to-repair (MTTR).

IT has taken advantage of NetFlow at remote sites for comprehensive analysis across the enterprise, delivering a level of visibility that was not previously available. Armed with critical insights into network and application performance, IT is able to provide in-depth reports to various levels of senior leadership, keeping them abreast of problems and the efforts necessary to resolve them. NETSCOUT has proven to be the ultimate network and application service assurance solution.