NETSCOUT brings MCP connectivity to Omnis AI Insights for trusted AI-ready network intelligence

NEW DELHI: Netscout Systems (NASDAQ: NTCT) has announced Model Context Protocol (MCP) connectivity for its Omnis AI Insights solution, enabling AI assistants and agents to access the company’s AI-ready Smart Data and real-time operational network evidence on demand.

NetScout provides network observability, cybersecurity and Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection solutions for enterprises, service providers and public-sector organisations.

The capability is designed to provide AI systems with contextual network intelligence that can support more accurate and informed operational decisions, the company said in a statement. NETSCOUT said its AI-ready Smart Data is built on its Adaptive Service Intelligence (ASI) technology, with semantic extraction and context optimisation performed at the source before the data enters downstream systems.

Omnis Sensor and Omnis Streamer form key components of the solution. Omnis Sensor performs semantic extraction at network vantage points, capturing application, service, transaction and behavioural context in real time. It generates metadata while preserving operational meaning at the point of observation, producing compact evidence intended to provide AI models with operational context for more accurate and explainable decisions.

Omnis Streamer collects and curates the AI-ready Smart Data for downstream applications. Customisable playbooks allow the data to be shaped for different domains and operational requirements, with templates available for healthcare, financial services and telecommunications service providers.

The curated datasets can be delivered through platform integrations or made available on demand to AI assistants and agents through the new built-in MCP server.

Moving contextual intelligence closer to AI

NETSCOUT said enriching network data before it reaches an AI model can reduce the volume, cost and complexity associated with processing raw telemetry, while giving AIOps, observability, security and analytics systems more meaningful evidence for operational decisions.

The company highlighted three capabilities within the expanded NETSCOUT Data Platform:

• On-demand AI access: MCP connectivity enables AI assistants, models and agents to access relevant AI-ready Smart Data at runtime, with NETSCOUT-provided tools helping identify and interpret the relevant evidence.
• Direct platform integration: Smart Data can be ingested through integrations with platforms including Splunk, ELK Stack, Datadog, ServiceNow and Dynatrace.
• Investment protection: Omnis Sensor Adaptors allow customers to extend the new capabilities to existing NETSCOUT infrastructure.

From network signals to evidence

Phil Gray, AVP, Product Management, NETSCOUT, said the addition of MCP tools alongside existing Kafka streaming capabilities gives IT professionals flexibility to feed AI-ready Smart Data into analytics and AI platforms while also making context-rich network intelligence directly accessible to models and agents.

He said the approach is intended to provide AI with a compact and curated source of network truth rather than fragmented operational signals that can contribute to unreliable conclusions and higher token consumption.

NETSCOUT cited a live deployment in which conventional application monitoring tools showed no application errors requiring investigation, even though underlying network conditions were affecting user experience.

According to the company, NETSCOUT Smart Data captured specific network events, including minimum window size, total retransmit count and zero-window event count. The data enabled AI systems to verify the underlying network facts rather than infer them from incomplete signals.

NETSCOUT said the AI-ready Smart Data capabilities are intended to help customers reach answers faster, reduce token and infrastructure costs and move towards governed autonomous operations. The company also said the capabilities can extend existing NETSCOUT investments across AI, analytics, observability, service assurance, security and data-lake environments without requiring customers to re-platform or build new data pipelines.

About NETSCOUT

NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC. (NASDAQ: NTCT) provides network observability, AIOps, carrier service assurance, cybersecurity and Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack protection solutions. The company serves enterprises, service providers and public-sector organisations through its visibility platform and deep packet inspection technology.