VIAVI Solutions, Inc. reported a 37% increase in the proportion of organizations that have fully converged their network and security operations (NetSecOps) over the past year, according to its 2027 State of the Network Study.

Now in its 18th edition, the annual study examines trends, priorities and practices related to network performance and security. Conducted by Omdia, the research surveyed 750 networking and security professionals across seven countries: Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States. Respondents represented a range of IT roles, from leadership to management, and organizations of varying sizes and industries.

The survey found that the proportion of organizations completing the transition to converged NetSecOps increased by 10 percentage points, from 27% in 2025 to 37% in 2026. A further 45% of respondents said their organizations were in the process of converging these functions. In total, 82% of surveyed organizations had completed or were undertaking the transition to NetSecOps.

Among organizations that had completed the transition, 44% identified improved security as a key benefit. 30% reported a reduction in the time required to detect issues, while 22% cited fewer reported incidents and 22% reported shorter investigation times. Organizations that had implemented a NetSecOps strategy were also 2.7 times more likely to report a significant improvement in mean-time-to-detect (MTTD), at 35% compared with 13% of other respondents.

"The increase in completed conversion and the benefits being cited in the State of the Network Study are consistent with the experience of our customers," said Chris Labac, VP and GM, Network Performance and Threat Solutions, VIAVI. "Aligning a converged NetSecOps organizational model with integrated network monitoring and security platforms is a critical success factor for enterprises today."

"As an organization's attack surface expands, driven by increasingly sophisticated and AI-enabled threats, NetOps and SecOps teams need shared visibility to strengthen their security posture," said Jim Frey, Principal Analyst, Networking, Enterprise Strategy Group from Informa Tech Target. "With around a fifth of enterprises still without a defined strategy, the challenge is to reach these organizations and demonstrate the benefits of a converged NetSecOps approach."

The study also examined the use of structured testing to support network performance and security. More than half of respondents identified pre-deployment validation of new technologies as a common testing practice. Technologies being evaluated included post-quantum cryptography (PQC), AI security, secure access service edge (SASE) and cloud networking.

Among respondents conducting testing, 52% reported fewer outages and service disruptions, 44% reported a reduction in the number or severity of security incidents, and 42% reported improvements in application performance or latency.

The findings also showed that organizations use multiple approaches to limit the impact of security measures on network performance. 65% of respondents reported using artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to optimize security and performance, while the same proportion conduct capacity planning to help prevent security measures from straining network resources. In addition, 58% reported using pre-deployment testing of network and security controls, and 58% conduct ongoing testing and tuning of security controls to minimize performance impacts.

Source: VIAVI Solutions

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