NETSCOUT Case Studies Large Western U.S. Electric Utility Relies on NETSCOUT Solution to Assure Safety, Reliability and Compliance

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	Large Western U.S. Electric Utility Relies on NETSCOUT Solution to Assure Safety, Reliability and Compliance NETSCOUT

Large Western U.S. Electric Utility Relies on NETSCOUT Solution to Assure Safety, Reliability and Compliance

NETSCOUT

Technology Category	Networks & Connectivity - Ethernet Networks & Connectivity - Network Management & Analysis Software
Applicable Industries	Utilities
Applicable Functions	Maintenance Quality Assurance
Use Cases	Energy Management System Infrastructure Inspection Regulatory Compliance Monitoring
Services	System Integration Testing & Certification
Challenge	The large Western U.S. electric utility was facing difficulty in ensuring service performance with GOOSE protocol, used for power switching, between data centers and substations. The IT team was under pressure to meet NERC-CIP compliance for safety and security with audit trails of servers and ports. Failure to assure NERC-CIP compliance could result in fines up to a million dollars per day. The IT team needed to ensure message transmissions remained within the acceptable latency range to maintain safety in power transmission. They also faced the critical challenge of ensuring the performance of its Energy Management System (EMS) on the transmission network, as well the performance of general business applications on its enterprise network. Read More
About Customer	The customer is a large Western U.S. electric utility that provides power to millions of customers. The organization leverages smart grid technology to offer various power rate options, such as smart thermostat discounts and time-of-use rate plans. The utility encourages customer power generation and uses smart meters to ensure proper billing credits as customers put excess power back onto the grid. The company is firmly committed to safety, sustainability, upgrading the grid for the future, and serving the community. Read More
Solution	To address these service performance and monitoring challenges, the utility’s IT team turned to NETSCOUT®. The nGeniusONE Service Assurance platform with Adaptive Service Intelligence™ (ASI) technology, along with InfiniStream appliances and Fiber TAPs were employed to enable IT to identify, isolate and mitigate issues quickly. By installing InfiniStream appliances at the data centers and substations, IT is now able to track packet flows to accurately measure latency, even with the uni-directional GOOSE traffic. The NETSCOUT solution allows these latencies to be closely monitored, which is critical for maintaining safety across the utility’s electric distribution network. nGeniusONE provides dashboard views and reports for services, applications, and GOOSE protocol metrics to proactively find problems and enable troubleshooting and compliance. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Networks & Connectivity - Ethernet

Networks & Connectivity - Network Management & Analysis Software

Applicable Industries

Utilities

Applicable Functions

Maintenance

Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Energy Management System

Infrastructure Inspection

Regulatory Compliance Monitoring

Services

System Integration

Testing & Certification

Challenge

The large Western U.S. electric utility was facing difficulty in ensuring service performance with GOOSE protocol, used for power switching, between data centers and substations. The IT team was under pressure to meet NERC-CIP compliance for safety and security with audit trails of servers and ports. Failure to assure NERC-CIP compliance could result in fines up to a million dollars per day. The IT team needed to ensure message transmissions remained within the acceptable latency range to maintain safety in power transmission. They also faced the critical challenge of ensuring the performance of its Energy Management System (EMS) on the transmission network, as well the performance of general business applications on its enterprise network.

About Customer

The customer is a large Western U.S. electric utility that provides power to millions of customers. The organization leverages smart grid technology to offer various power rate options, such as smart thermostat discounts and time-of-use rate plans. The utility encourages customer power generation and uses smart meters to ensure proper billing credits as customers put excess power back onto the grid. The company is firmly committed to safety, sustainability, upgrading the grid for the future, and serving the community.

Solution

To address these service performance and monitoring challenges, the utility’s IT team turned to NETSCOUT®. The nGeniusONE Service Assurance platform with Adaptive Service Intelligence™ (ASI) technology, along with InfiniStream appliances and Fiber TAPs were employed to enable IT to identify, isolate and mitigate issues quickly. By installing InfiniStream appliances at the data centers and substations, IT is now able to track packet flows to accurately measure latency, even with the uni-directional GOOSE traffic. The NETSCOUT solution allows these latencies to be closely monitored, which is critical for maintaining safety across the utility’s electric distribution network. nGeniusONE provides dashboard views and reports for services, applications, and GOOSE protocol metrics to proactively find problems and enable troubleshooting and compliance.

Impact #1	The NETSCOUT solution has proven to make a real difference for the utility’s IT team. IT is now able to assure the service performance and security of its transmission network and the general business applications on its enterprise network.
Impact #2	NETSCOUT’s end-to-end solution offers critical insights that allow IT to troubleshoot issues before they impact the business or customers.
Impact #3	The utility is able to use these reports to ensure NERC-CIP compliance.

Impact #1

The NETSCOUT solution has proven to make a real difference for the utility’s IT team. IT is now able to assure the service performance and security of its transmission network and the general business applications on its enterprise network.

Impact #2

NETSCOUT’s end-to-end solution offers critical insights that allow IT to troubleshoot issues before they impact the business or customers.

Impact #3

The utility is able to use these reports to ensure NERC-CIP compliance.

Benefit #1	Avoidance of NERC-CIP compliance penalties which can amount to $1 million per day, per violation
Benefit #2	Significant reduction in mean-time-to-repair (MTTR) when issues occur

Benefit #1

Avoidance of NERC-CIP compliance penalties which can amount to $1 million per day, per violation

Benefit #2

Significant reduction in mean-time-to-repair (MTTR) when issues occur

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Overview

Large Western U.S. Electric Utility Relies on NETSCOUT Solution to Assure Safety, Reliability and Compliance

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit