With its responsibility for network monitoring and service assurance, NetScout Systems Inc. works with customers around the world to support data-center transformation, a move from centralized information-technology operations into the new world of multicloud and edge computing.

It’s familiar territory for the company, because NetScout has made this transition as well.

“We’ve transitioned from this centralized network into an edge-based network,” said Thor Wallace (pictured), senior vice president and chief information officer of NetScout. “With that comes a software-based network, and it allows us to move traffic directly to the edge. And once we’re at the edge, we can go very quickly at backbone speeds into whatever cloud service we need. At the end of the day, IT is still responsible for user productivity.”

Wallace spoke with Peter Burris (@plburris), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, in Boston, Massachusetts. They discussed how NetScout addressed the hardware and virtualization challenges for its network and the need for operational visibility when working with multiple vendors. (* Disclosure below.)

Rethinking the network

As NetScout’s CIO, Wallace had to make key decisions around retooling an infrastructure that had significant hardware installed in multiple locations globally. This required virtualizing all data center operations and moving workloads into the cloud, according to Wallace.

“We want to continue to maintain our ability to execute in velocity to be able to add value,” Wallace explained. “Cloud presents some of those opportunities for us, but it also makes things quite complicated. You have to rethink how your network is designed fundamentally from the ground up.”

Rethinking network design also requires an ability to maintain visibility into all operations. This becomes even more important as functions migrate from the four walls of a data center into cloud and edge networks controlled by other vendors.

That often requires use of smart data solutions, such as those offered by NetScout, to maintain visibility throughout internet of things lifecycles and processing at the edge.

“One of the key things that comes with that is making sure we can hold our vendors accountable for performance,” Wallace noted. “We use our own products to gain greater visibility than we ever have before in this multicloud, multi-premises environment. Without this fact-based information, it’s really hard to have those discussions with vendors.”

That visibility and introspection converts into shareable knowledge among NetScout’s ecosystem, as the company runs a webinar series and a host of other educational programs to train and certify.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s CUBE Conversations. (* Disclosure: NetScout Systems Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither NetScout nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE