Centralizing and Modernizing State Government Data Center Operations with NETSCOUT

The U.S. State’s information technology (IT) team was facing increasing network performance demands and instances of dropped packets that were causing data retransmissions, application delays, and network latency. They decided to centralize their data center operations down to two facilities and simultaneously transition to 40G network speeds. These strategic changes promised to result in better service delivery for agencies, employees, and constituents, as well as faster network responsiveness and reduced operating expenses (OpEx) via improved IT efficiencies. However, the transition required consolidating data center servers and collapsing the existing distributed network. The 40GB network would also require next-generation data sources and packet broker technology to support increased speeds. As part of the technology modernization component, IT was rolling out a VMware virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environment and implementing a new Avaya Voice over IP (VoIP) environment.

The customer in this case study is a U.S. State’s information technology (IT) team that functions as a service provider to numerous government organizations, including in-state agencies and universities. The IT team’s strategic plan focuses on providing secure, shared services to government agencies and state workers, using scalable, state-of-the-art technology. For years, the IT team has measured network edge responsiveness and bandwidth utilization in their distributed data center using NETSCOUT’s nGeniusONE Service Assurance platform and InfiniStream appliances hosting Adaptive Service Intelligence smart data technology.