NetScout released the newest version of its infrastructure health monitoring testing platform, nGeniusPulse, on its service assurance platform. The new release and integration extends the platform’s infrastructure monitoring to VMware virtual infrastructures, as well as to WiFi networks.

nGeniusPulse actively monitors the service availability of public cloud, VoIP, and networks with server and network device availability. It uses contextual workflows for the monitoring.

This now integrates and compliments NetScout nGeniusOne, its service assurance platform, and its wire-data approach to managing services based on ASI technology. Wire data provides analysis and metrics into the entire network from user communities to applications.

The new version allows users to identify application performance issues quickly (via nGeniusOne) and if associated with a poorly performing server or piece of network equipment (via nGeniusPulse) it enables it to be triaged to the infrastructure equipment. "Ultimately getting the right information to the right person at the right time to do the right thing,” explained Russ Currie, NetScout’s vice president of enterprise strategy.

The nGeniusPulse workflows allow for companies to combine the nGeniusOne wire data with infrastructure health monitoring and active test in nGeniusPulse to enable proactivity in IT operations.

The integration of nGeniusPulse with nGeniusOne adds “the ability to monitor all of those aspects and correlate any issues with the availability and performance of business services,” said Currie.

The added monitoring capabilities for VMware on the latest version of nGeniusPulse help maintain the health of a VMware infrastructure, particularly of components for vSphere, its server virtualization platform. KPIs and contextual metadata are combined — in a VMware context — to speed the time it takes to identify and resolve issues with a virtual infrastructure.

VMware and NetScout are partners and “the integration with VMware is supportive of our overall technology alliance with VMware,” said Currie.

The second added capability is monitoring for WiFi infrastructure. WiFi service availability and infrastructure health are monitored in user locations using nGeniusPulse. At each site, the product looks at WiFi access points and W-LAN controllers and identifies any performance issues.