[January 15, 2013]

NetScout Joins Open Networking Foundation

NetScout® Systems, Inc., today announced the company joined the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) in calendar Q3 of 2012, bringing 28 years of network-based performance management experience to help address the expected opportunities and challenges of managing the delivery of services that may arise from software-defined networking (SDN) architecture. The ONF is a non-profit organization, recognized throughout the networking industry for its dedication to improving SDN standards and solutions worldwide. As a member of ONF, NetScout (News - Alert) will collaborate on approaches to address the new performance management challenges associated with implementing and running SDN-based service delivery environments for both its enterprise and service provider customers.

NetScout believes SDN will help drive the transformation of modern enterprise, service provider and cloud operator data center and service delivery networks, and will bring substantial infrastructure efficiencies as well as enable new services. However, the resulting virtualized network will create an even greater level f interdependency between network traffic, control traffic, applications and enabling technology. Consequently, assuring service levels and providing a superior user experience require complete visibility and understanding of multiple, dynamically changing traffic flows. This can be best accomplished using packet flow technology, NetScout's core competency.

"ONF's mission is to promote the commercialization and use of SDN and its underlying technologies," said Dan Pitt, executive director, Open Networking Foundation. "SDN represents the future of the network for the delivery of services. With this market evolution comes the need to assure that services delivered over an SDN-based infrastructure are delivered without negative impact to performance or the user experience. We are encouraged when member companies step forward to drive the advancement of market segments, such as performance management, that are crucial to the overall success of SDN. Such efforts by members will serve to accelerate SDN adoption by enterprises and service providers."

"Our research shows that both enterprises and service providers have involved interests in SDNs. Nearly one-quarter of enterprises we interviewed for our recent data center and SDN survey have already deployed some level of SDN technology, and one-third plan to do so by the end of 2013. A good majority of service providers we've surveyed are also considering SDN technologies to simplify network provisioning and to create services and virtual networks in ways not previously possible," said Michael Howard, co-founder and principal analyst, carrier networks at Infonetics (News - Alert) Research. "But an SDN network transformation does not come without challenges. The increased complexities of adding SDNs into existing networks have the potential to create performance and service delivery management problems-and, these will require new technologies to achieve visibility into the dual SDN and non-SDN service delivery environment. A packet-flow based approach to performance monitoring has the potential to address these challenges, and we are encouraged by NetScout's participation in the development of the SDN networking."

"Not only is SDN bringing significant change to the very fabric of the network infrastructure and service delivery, it will change the way organizations must handle performance and service delivery management related challenges," said Steven Shalita (News - Alert), vice president, marketing at NetScout. "NetScout has been at the forefront of major transformations in the networking industry for nearly three decades. As the first performance management company to join ONF, we are excited to help drive innovation that addresses the implications SDN architectures will have on service delivery. Our involvement in the evolution of SDN technology will help our customers address new SDN-related performance challenges, and give us greater insight into how NetScout can leverage SDN technology and architectures in our own products."

About NetScout Systems, Inc.
NetScout Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTCT) is the market leader in Unified Service Delivery Management enabling comprehensive end-to-end network and application assurance. For 28 years, NetScout has delivered breakthrough packet-flow technology that provides trusted and comprehensive real-time network and application performance intelligence enabling unified assurance of the network, applications and users. These solutions enable IT staff to predict, preempt and resolve network and service delivery problems while facilitating the optimization and capacity planning of the network infrastructure. NetScout nGenius® and Sniffer® solutions are deployed at more than 20,000 of the world's largest enterprises, government agencies, and more than 148 service providers, on over one million physical and 2,000 virtual network segments to assure the network, applications, and service delivery to their users and customers. For more information about NetScout go to www.netscout.com.

NetScout, nGenius and InfiniStream are registered trademarks of NetScout Systems, Inc.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]