Customer Success Story
Hosted Network Simplifies Service Delivery for MSPs and their Customers
Demand for managed services is surging in Australia as more businesses want fuel growth with innovative technology while lifting the often heavy burden of managing technology. When managed service providers (MSPs) need to deliver a broad variety of cloud and telco services to their customers, they can turn to Hosted Network.
Overview
| Company | Hosted Network |
| Industry | Cloud Provider |
| Products used | MX204, MX Series, SRX300, SRX Series |
| Region | APAC |
Improved
Network reliability and performance for MSPs
Created
Multiple, revenuegenerating cloud-based products that MSPs can offer directly to customers
Streamlined
Product and services installation and configuration with automation
Helped
Customers grow their businesses with streamlined provisioning
In the early 2000s, Hosted Network counted itself as an MSP, and it was a leading provider of services to fast-growing SMBs. Hosted Network was so good, in fact, that other MSPs were asking the company to provide wholesale services. Hosted Networks has been exclusively serving MSPs since 2013, and as it steadily added customers, it needed to expand and streamline its network to support escalating growth.
“We were constantly increasing our network capacity,” says Ben Town, managing director and founder of Hosted Network. “We reached a tipping point that required a more automated, high-performance network.”
On top of capacity needs, Hosted Network wanted to improve service reliability. The wholesaler began investigating customer premises equipment (CPE) as a way to improve its network. While attending an SD-WAN workshop, the tech team learned about the potential and power of Juniper.
“Our entry point to Juniper was around providing a standardized CPE solution that could be automated to simplify network processes for our MSP customers,” Town says. “When we learned more about Juniper, it made sense to refresh the core network so we could have a common base for automation and use our Ansible functionality.”
Hosted Network relies on the Juniper’s MX204 Universal Routing Platform for the core network that connects its data centers.The MX204 automation capabilities were as important as the performance and routing, switching, and security capabilities of MX Series 5G Universal Routing Platforms.
Juniper Networks SRX300 line of Services Gateways is deployed at customer sites. The SRX Series firewalls both protect the network perimeter and act as a pathway for the MSPs to automate the provisioning of new customers and introduce services and products.
“We chose the SRX320 for its modular cards,” Town says. “It fit our customers’ needs and gave us a standard CPE that makes it much easier for our customers and us. Instead of having to support and manage a range of different CPEs, we’ve standardised on a single platform that serves all our different requirements.”
With SRX320 firewalls at customer sites, its MSP customers can roll out new services and applications across multiple locations and connect to the cloud. Whatever connectivity demands Hosted Network’s MSP customers throw at it, the SRX Series firewalls can handle it.
For security, the Juniper firewalls provide unified threat management to detect and proactively mitigate threats. Hosted Network is keen on the firewalls’ automation features that work seamlessly with the MX Series platform. The SRX Series features on- and off-box automation that simplifies deployment across Hosted Network’s numerous customer sites.
Even during the early stages of its automation journey, Hosted Network is realizing operational efficiencies. Customers are set up days faster than previously, and configuration errors from manual entries are dropping fast.
Automation is at the root of these improvements. New peering requests and security changes are easily added through Web forms, which is a major change from having a skilled engineer process the requests manually.
The desire for more business-grade broadband services and cloud services will push our capacity up,” Town says. “With Juniper powering our core network, we can scale without worrying about performance or reliability and have a clean upgrade path as required.”
“Our partners are getting a better experience so they can provide a better level of services to their customers,” Town says. “The whole experience from service delivery through to support has improved. And ultimately when our partner and their end customer have a good experience, we gain repeat business from our MSPs. We’re all able to build, grow, and succeed together.”
The Products
MX204
The SDN-enabled MX204 Universal Routing Platform provides a modular, automated, carrier-grade solution for service providers and enterprises. The compact platform brings 400 Gbps capacity and a full feature set to space and power constrained environments.
SRX300
SRX300 next-generation firewall connects and secures small branch or retail offices and consolidates security, SD-WAN, routing, and switching in a small desktop device.
Published September 2020