'NG provides a technology that allows you to uniquely look at the usage of bandwidth'

As a leading provider of IT management solutions, what does
Network General have to offer to the telecom companies?

The core platform of our technology is based on the ability to capture large
amount on a very large transmission circuit. For the telecom vertical, we have a
product family called Infinistream, which has the capability to capture 100% of
packets, and cache them and store for the analysis the operator may choose to
do. The operator can use it to do any kind of analysis to see why there was a
blip in the network, or how to cope with the network pattern changed. We have
developed ancillary solutions around Infinistream that allow service providers,
cable companies and mobile service providers to manage large traffic.

As
networks are getting more and more complex, what are the challenges that your
solutions address?

Networks are converging at hyper speeds and the network manager has to deal
with various data packets from cell phones, PDAs, full motion videos received
from monitoring cameras as well as wireless data. So, it's much more complex.
NG provides a technology that allows you to uniquely look at the usage of
bandwidth. So, one can segment their network efficiently for voice activity,
video activity etc. This allows the user to control the network better.

How critical is business forensic for enterprises today?

Traditionally, companies have been reactive. As of now there are tools
available that allows the manager to view the network as a simple graph or
assess the performance through color codes. Now one has to be proactive. This is
where NG is unique. Our solution allows business forensic that does data mining
based strictly on packets. In case of a BPO company, one can mine down to the
exact data packet and playback the specific telephone call. The network manager
gets an instant view of the call managers, how many simultaneous calls at a
particular time, and how much wastage of bandwidth. Business forensics helps a
BPO to take well-informed decisions like how many more handsets to be added. It
helps you take control of prediction as business forensics can predict the
impact of the choices you make.

Your operations in India are merely two-years-old; what kind of
progress have you made here?

To mark our second anniversary in India, NG has officially launched a host
of new products in India. These products include the Network Intelligence Suite
and the networkDNA Architecture. We are extremely proud of the quality of the
work from India. Products such as Sniffer Administrator, Visualizer and Portable
are completely owned and developed by the India team based in Bangalore. We
shall be increasing the headcount of its development team by 15% and double the
sales and marketing team in India over the next year.

Malovika Rao

malovikar@cybermedia.co.in