NetScout Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTCT), the industry pace-setter for advanced network and service assurance solutions, has announced that Grange Insurance, a $1-billion insurance and financial services provider across the South and Midwest, has standardized on the nGenius® Performance Management Solution for both its corporate LAN and its secure, external network for independent agents.

Grange’s network is a critical element of the company’s overall business. Independent agents rely on Grange’s Web-based services to carry out a broad range of activities, including sending quotes, signing up new customers and managing billing information. Grange is using the nGenius System to proactively monitor and diagnose problems with the network and agent-supporting applications. Grange is also leveraging nGenius Performance Manager’s trend analysis capabilities to monitor the network’s bandwidth utilization during peak business hours. This has allowed Grange to achieve cost efficiencies by making bandwidth adjustments at just the right time and with no interruption of customer service.

“Our network housing independent agent applications is the ‘bread and butter’ of our business. If it slows down or is disrupted, agents will simply take their customers elsewhere, so it’s a top priority to ensure that it runs at 100 percent efficiency,” said Cam Salloum, network manager at Grange Insurance. “We chose NetScout’s nGenius Solution for its ability to deliver real-time, proactive network and application performance monitoring with unmatched data granularity, which allows us to identify and rectify potential problems before our business is negatively impacted.”

Across its 1500-node corporate network, Grange is using nGenius Probes for monitoring activity in their core LAN as well as to analyze NetFlow statistics from places in the infrastructure where they’re not able to deploy probes. Grange relies on the nGenius Solution’s reporting capabilities to provide both high-level summaries and detailed analysis of network and application performance, to inform and promote collaboration between the network group and IT management and other IT groups, including security.

“Like so many financial companies, Grange Insurance’s networking team plays an essential role in keeping the business running by providing highly available networks and Web applications for its sales and support channels to grow revenue,” said Jim Frey, vice president of marketing at NetScout. “The powerful visibility of the nGenius Solution ensures that companies like Grange stay ahead of performance threats to the complex fabric of interconnected applications that support business services.”

About Grange Insurance
Grange Mutual Casualty Group, based in Columbus , Ohio , is a $1 billion insurance provider. Through its network of independent agents, Grange offers auto, home, life, business and farm insurance protection through Grange Insurance, Trustgard Insurance and Integrity Insurance. The company serves policyholders in Georgia , Illinois , Indiana , Iowa , Kentucky , Michigan , Minnesota , Ohio , South Carolina , Tennessee , Virginia and Wisconsin . For more information, visit www.grangeinsurance.com.

About NetScout Systems
NetScout Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTCT) has been the industry pace-setter for advanced network and service assurance solutions for over a decade, and counts the world’s largest enterprises, government agencies, and service providers among its customers. Enterprise and government IT organizations deploy NetScout’s nGenius® Performance Management System to increase service levels to their users by reducing or preventing service disruptions. Service providers depend on NetScout’s proven IP performance management technology and expertise to protect the quality of their customers’ experience with IP-based services. NetScout is headquartered in Westford , Massachusetts and has offices worldwide. Further information is available at http://www.netscout.com.

NetScout and the NetScout logo, nGenius, and Quantiva are registered trademarks of NetScout Systems, Inc. The CDM logo, MasterCare, Progressive Analytics and the MasterCare logo, are trademarks of NetScout Systems, Inc. Other brands, product names and trademarks are property of their respective owners. NetScout reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to make changes at any time in its technical information and specifications, and service and support programs.