Tax Agency Capitalizes on Cisco ACI SDN Migration, Improves Service Delivery With NETSCOUT
Company Size
1,000+
Product
- nGeniusONE® Service Assurance platform
- InfiniStreamNG® appliances
- nGenius® 5000 series packet flow switches
- Arbor Edge Defense (AED)
Tech Stack
- Cisco ACI SDN
- 40GB network links
- Data center operations
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Customer Satisfaction
- Digital Expertise
Technology Category
- Cybersecurity & Privacy - Network Security
- Networks & Connectivity - Software-Defined Networking
Applicable Industries
- Finance & Insurance
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
Services
- System Integration
- Testing & Certification
About The Customer
This national government agency has a broad charter that includes providing financial, monetary policy, and border enforcement services. To the residents of this country, however, the agency is best known for its role as the nation’s income tax collector. Operating national-level tax collection and financial processing requires a major service delivery commitment from this agency. As result, 35,000+ employees provide customer service and financial transaction support to help process millions of annual income tax returns from residents, as well as expatriates living and working in the country.
The Challenge
The agency had recently completed a migration to a Cisco® Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) software-defined network (SDN) offering improved 40GB link speeds. While the technical conversion itself had completed, the regional IT team subsequently found themselves trying to work through visibility limitations in this new SDN environment, particularly involving the updated 40GB network links and within data center operations. In addition to wanting to visualize upgraded performance, another IT team involved in this project was focused on protecting the integrity and availability of these SDN links. For the IT team, this effort was critically important, as these high-speed Internet links supported customer-facing tax and financial transactions that had been targeted in frequent cyberattacks.
The Solution
The agency identified a single-vendor solution for this two-phase project, with NETSCOUT® providing: A “Visibility Without Borders” approach that closes network link and data center blind spots with InfiniStreamNG (ISNG) and Packet Flow Switch (PFS) data sources providing views into performance of their new Cisco ACI SDN environment, 40GB network links, and internet services. Performance analysis of the upgraded network and data center operations, with the nGeniusONE Service Assurance platform using smart data generated by ISNG fed by PFS technology for real-time monitoring of this environment. Network link and internet service security protection, with the Arbor Edge Defense (AED) inline security appliance deployed at the network perimeter (i.e., between the internet router and firewall) to safeguard performance and integrity of the Cisco ACI environment, as well as taxpayer application services.
Operational Impact
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