Customer Success Story
ServiceNow network transformation starts with Mist AI
The most successful businesses work smarter—not harder. ServiceNow, the leading digital workflow company, is an engine behind this transformation, with its streamlined and configurable workflows that help companies work more productively. Founded in 2004, ServiceNow is at the top of the digital workflows marketplace and admired for its fiscal, social, and corporate leadership.
With 75 locations and more than 22,000 employees, ServiceNow examined its own workflows and realized network automation was a necessity to accelerate its own business transformation. ServiceNow has teamed up with Juniper to migrate its network to a next-generation, full-stack wired, wireless, and SD-WAN solution.
Overview
| Company | ServiceNow |
| Industry | SaaS Services |
| Products used | AP43, AP45, EX4400 Multigigabit, EX4650, Session Smart Router, Wireless (Wi-Fi) Assurance, Wired Assurance, WAN Assurance |
| Region | Americas |
60%
Cost avoidance in network CapEx/OpEx spending
90%
Reduction in wireless-related issues reported by employees
50%
Faster network deployment of full-stack wired, wireless, and SD-WAN
Keep employees connected, productive, and secure
ServiceNow has an aggressive set of goals, all marked by zeroes: zero outages, zero incidents, and to achieve net zero by 2030. To reach these goals, the company is automating its network to deliver 100% availability and outstanding user experiences with cloud-based software, infrastructure, and services.
“We wanted to find our North Star for a customer-centric experience,” says Venkat Lakshminarayanan, vice president, infrastructure and operations at ServiceNow. “While elements in our tech stack might fail, we didn’t want our users to experience any disruptions.”
Lakshminarayanan expects that automation will solve many of ServiceNow’s current network challenges, including complexity in design and Day 2 operations, lack of visibility, limited configuration management, expensive hardware and support costs, and an overprovisioned network.
ServiceNow expects to realize massive benefits. Once the LAN and WAN are transformed, the data center footprint will decrease significantly, switch ports will sit unused, and OpEx, CapEx, and deployment times will start to shrink.
Reaching its goals called for a strategic plan to shut down data centers, remove underutilized wired networks, and move to a cloud-managed network.
Client-to-cloud automation
“Juniper and Mist AI are helping us build the network of the future,” says Lakshminarayanan. “We accomplished our hardware transformation with zero-touch provisioning. Now we are connecting platforms and realizing client-to-cloud visibility that helps us deliver amazing user experiences.”
ServiceNow’s new network design places Juniper Session Smart™ Routers at the edge, connecting the company’s global operations to the internet, cloud services, and business applications. The tunnel-free architecture of a Juniper SD-WAN powered by the Session Smart Router delivers the necessary application performance to keep employees productive and reduces costs by optimizing bandwidth usage.
Juniper access points and switches at ServiceNow offices work in conjunction with the Juniper Mist™ cloud architecture, driven by Mist AI, to optimize network experiences. Juniper Mist Wi-Fi Assurance, Wired Assurance, and WAN Assurance automate network operations. Juniper Marvis Virtual Network Assistant, a conversational assistant with Self-Driving Network™ actions, streamlines operations and optimizes experiences across wireless, wired, and SD-WAN domains.
ServiceNow also leverages Juniper Mist APIs to automate infrastructure operations. Its service request catalog, incident management, and change management workflows are integrated with the Juniper Mist cloud architecture.
Smarter, simpler, AI-driven network serves up big results
Moving to a full-stack Juniper wired, wireless, and SD-WAN network was a 13-month journey that is delivering amazing results for ServiceNow. Thirty sites moved from the legacy network to a modern AI-driven network.
Included in those savings was eliminating the cost associated with overprovisioned switches in today’s mobile-first world. Rightsizing the wired network with Juniper reduced the port density by 60%.
AIOps has reduced the support workload. “When we first implemented Juniper, we saw a 90% drop in issues related to wireless,” Lakshminarayanan says.
ServiceNow has continued to see OpEx savings as it has advanced its Juniper deployment to include wireless, wired, and SD-WAN. In fact, deployment times have decreased by 50%.
Altogether, ServiceNow is forecasting a cost avoidance of 60% of network CapEx/OpEx over a three-year period. A Juniper network is supporting the company’s sustainability goals, and has significantly reduced its carbon footprint.
Lakshminarayanan is most proud of the improved employee experience.
“We have visibility from laptop to application, streamlined self-service, and excellent performance,” he says. “Our employees can deliver the services and support that our customers need to work smarter, faster, and better.”
Network transformation starts with Mist AI
Watch as the ServiceNow team discusses how they realized network automation was a necessity to accelerate their own business transformation. ServiceNow has teamed up with Juniper to migrate its network to a next-generation, full-stack wired, wireless and SD-WAN solution.
The Products
AP43
The Juniper AP43 high-performance Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) access point integrates patented virtual Bluetooth® LE (vBLE) and Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities to deliver an unprecedented user experiences.
AP45
The Juniper AP45 brings the performance and patented virtual Bluetooth® LE (vBLE) technology of the Juniper AP43 to the 6GHz band for enterprises needing increased channel widths and capacity. Juniper AI solutions for Wi-Fi 6E optimize operator and user experiences with secure, near-real-time client-to-cloud automation, insight, and actions.
EX4400 Multigigabit
The EX4400 Multigigabit Ethernet Switch is an AI-powered, cloud-ready access switching platform with flow-based telemetry and advanced security for high-performance campus deployments.
EX4650
The EX4650 Ethernet Switch offers a compact, highly scalable, high-performance 10/25/100GbE solution for midsized to large enterprise campus distribution deployments.
Session Smart Router
Our software-defined router provides a flexible, application-aware network fabric that meets stringent enterprise performance, security, and availability requirements. Its Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDP) policy and URL filtering allow it to selectively enforce various attack detection and prevention techniques on network traffic.
Wireless (Wi-Fi) Assurance
Driven by Mist AI and machine learning, the Juniper Mist Wireless Assurance cloud service automates troubleshooting and operations, making wireless networks predictable, reliable, and measurable while providing near-real-time visibility into user service levels.
Wired Assurance
The Juniper Mist Wired Assurance service brings Mist AI to access-layer switching. It sets a new network management standard with AI-native operations and automation, improving the experiences of devices connected to resources through Juniper EX Series Switches.
WAN Assurance
The Juniper Mist WAN Assurance service simplifies operations, improves visibility into end user experiences, and shortens SD-WAN MTTR.
Marvis VNA
Marvis, the first AI-Native virtual network assistant, optimizes user and operator experiences with proactive actions and self-driving network operations. A natural language conversational interface provides simple and seamless interactions, making Marvis an integrated member of any IT team.
Published October 2023