Assuring Successful Data Center, Co‑Lo, and Application Migrations With NETSCOUT

Customer Profile

With a portfolio of real estate, residential re-entry, and detention facility management solutions, this company relies on the collective expertise of more than 15,000 employees assigned to 70+ customer-dedicated sites. 

For decades, this company has distinguished itself in the privatized government services marketplace by reliably delivering high-quality solutions for easing overcrowding and reducing instances of recidivism or relapse. 

The Challenge

While the solutions provided by this company are highly specialized, the service delivery challenges facing their information technology (IT) team were not uncommon, as evidenced below. 

Managing Data Center Transformation and Migrated Applications 

The company operated an on-premises data center at its headquarters and was migrating their secondary data center operations and some business applications to a cloud-based Nutanix TierPoint co-located (Co-lo) facility. With the on-premises data center and Co-lo running in an active/active configuration, each facility served as a primary location for hosting certain business services and a secondary for others. As the IT team began migrating applications to the Co-lo, they experienced visibility limitations that made it difficult to determine whether those apps were performing reliably for employees who depended on them for customer-facing service delivery 

Improving Visibility into Oracle and Cisco UCS Business Service Performance 

Visibility limitations into the company’s Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) and Oracle services meant IT was challenged to assure performance of applications used by guards and personnel to manage on-site operations at correctional and residential facilities. 

Providing Evidentiary Compliance With Industry Standards 

The company had been provided with several months to comply with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) measurements. As interpreted for this company’s business, NIST compliance meant the IT team had to provide evidence of organizational conformity with safeguards relating to: 

• Assuring network monitoring for performance and availability 
• Preventing cybersecurity breaches 
• Protecting client and employee healthcare and financial data, such as Payment Card Industry (PCI) and Personally Identifiable Information (PII) 

With HIPAA data also being maintained by the company, the IT team needed a solution for helping to streamline evidence collection of the organization’s compliance in these areas. 

Operationalizing Real-Time Service Monitoring Practices Across the Business 

While IT used various vendor tools to help monitor service performance, the visibility issues in their data center and application environments continued. For any new technology purchased by the company to address these emerging challenges, IT wanted to benefit from assistance with deployment, customization, and user training. These goals were aligned with those of the economic buyer, who was interested in reducing the company’s mean time to value from any new technology procurement.

Solution in Action

The company selected NETSCOUT as its partner to advance these collective projects, citing: 

• The “Visibility Without Borders” approach, which removed blind spots to improve real-time monitoring of Oracle, Cisco UCS, and other business-critical application services in both the private data center and third-party Co-lo environments 
• Quicker operationalization of real-time monitoring across business operations, using nGenius Visibility as a Service (nVaaS) subject matter experts as invaluable deployment, customization, and operations support resources 
• A streamlined evidentiary compliance process, using NETSCOUT smart data (generated from the company’s own network traffic) and nGeniusONE performance analytics that provided forensic data relevant to the NIST, PCI, or PII consideration at hand (i.e., use of network monitoring, cybersecurity safeguards, and personal and financial data safeguards). 

The nVaaS resources assisted IT to deploy software-based NETSCOUT InfiniStreamNG (ISNG) and nGenius packet flow switch (PFS) smart visibility sources to support the company’s data center and Co-lo environments and generate smart data to drive nGeniusONE application analytics. 

The Results

This company’s success depends on their ability to operate facilities and support housed clients with integrity and precision. If the visibility and monitoring issues they were experiencing had led to compromised service delivery, that could bring unwanted scrutiny to the company, government agencies which contract with them, and local communities where correctional and residential facilities operate. 

NETSCOUT’s ability to provide real-world subject matter expertise on how to maximize the nGeniusONE platform and smart data sources helped the IT team realize the quick time to value the finance department had identified for new vendor solutions. The NETSCOUT solution also enabled IT to close enterprise visibility and vendor tool functionality gaps across their data center and application operations environment, making mission success easier to attain for this company.