Business assurance vital for digital transformation

Companies need to have an assurance strategy. If they don't, they don't just risk losing millions of dollars, they lose trust.

That's the opening word of Jim McNeil, global chief marketing officer for NetScout.

McNeil says that while current trends imply taking risks and taking chances is key to surviving digital transformation, IT decision makers need to make sure their risks are backed up.

"If you describe the CIO job description, where does it say take chances? It doesn't," McNeil says.

"You have to make sure the business stays running. You can't innovate if you don't have an assurance strategy," he says.

Paul Barrett, NetScout chief technology officer for Enterprise, says the mission for NetScout is to provide its customers with business assurance.

And that's where nGeniusONE comes in.

nGeniusONE is NetScout's real-time information platform, designed to ensure security, manage risk and drive service performance.

"We estimate we've invested around 400 man years in this product," says Barrett.

The solution is comprised of service triage, proactive monitoring and deployment readiness.

Service triage isolates problems to the network, application or server.

"We identify a problem as quickly as possible - we want to gain sufficient information to resolve that problem," Barrett explains.

"This translates directly to saved dollars, or saved customers, if you get it right.

Proactive monitoring ensures that you always know how your applications and networks are performing.

"It really is about constantly monitoring, because the world changes; you have to scale in and out," says Barrett.

Barrett says digital transformation projects really have the opportunity to disrupt the network and other services.

With NetScout's solution, users are able to closely monitor their trail deployments and ensure trouble-free operation and continuous improvement through monitoring.

"If you build nGeniusONE into the product, you stand a better chance of being successful," Barrett notes.

"We have the ability to ensure that new services meet the expectations of the business," he adds.

Mike Serrano, senior product marketing manager for NetScout, says the company is looking at how they can help service providers navigate their strategic transformations.

NetScout deals with more than 165 service providers in 46 countries.

"Service providers are undergoing a strategic transformation unlike what they've seen in the past," says Serrano.

"It's software driven, it's Internet of Things and it's the cloud. It's millions of devices coming online," he explains.

"Service providers want to remain the platform for innovation for the industries they serve.

They want to maintain a world-class customer experience for their clients," he says.

To address these challenges is quite a task, Serrano states.

"These networks are becoming much more complex. Add to that new competitors, the Googles, the Facebooks - there is a lot of competition and consumers have choice and limited budgets," he adds.