Customer Success Story
ActivePort's Network Approach Accelerates Service and Innovation
Managed service provider ActivePort needed to make flexible, cost-effective last-mile connectivity from the data center to private and public clouds a reality.
ActivePort harnesses software-defined networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) so customers can instantly provision and scale carrier and data center services. In its first year of operations, ActivePort was named a semifinalist in the 2017 Western Australia Innovator of the Year program.
On-demand delivery of network services unlock flexible and agile cloud connectivity
SDN and orchestration automates service delivery and life-cycle management
As an innovator, ActivePort didn’t want to be restricted by the pitfalls and manual configuration of traditional carrier and data center services platforms. Instead, it embraced SDN and NFV to give its customers on-demand delivery of network services, automated life-cycle management, and flexible cloud connectivity.
“We are providing an innovative and disruptive access path to the cloud,” says Pat Cleary, CEO of ActivePort. “We leveraged software-defined networking and created a provisioning portal to provide access to public and private cloud services that can be applied to branch networking.”
To make flexible, cost-effective cloud connectivity a reality, ActivePort needed best- of-breed network and security solutions that met its requirements for performance, scalability, and automation. Juniper’s strong heritage among service providers, coupled with the ActivePort founders’ firsthand experience of customer requirements, made Juniper the right choice.
“I’m a Juniper fanboy,” says Grant Farrow, managing director of ActivePort. “More than 15 years ago, I was at one of the first service providers in Australia to offer customers one-to-one services using Juniper firewalls.”
ActivePort uses Juniper in its network core, edge, and at customer sites. Customers can choose the Juniper’s SRX Series to provide next-generation firewall services. Or, for maximum flexibility, customers can use Juniper Networks NFX250 Network Services Platform.
The NFX250 platform allowed ActivePort to simplify and personalize network services delivery for its customers, while optimizing IT efficiency and driving greater revenue with additional virtualized offerings. ActivePort’s service orchestration enables customers to self-provision network services, such as next-generation firewall, and adjust bandwidth with fluctuating capacity demands.
With Juniper’s network and security, ActivePort built more than a network. “We liberate the last-mile connectivity from the data center to the cloud,” Cleary says. With the NFX250 platform as the foundation of its SDN- powered services, ActivePort has simplified and personalized the delivery of managed services for its customers, while also optimizing IT efficiency in a way that drives profitability.
ActivePort customers are protected with advanced security from Juniper, with very fast firewalling and intrusion protection that’s essential to protect against today’s cyber attacks and maintain business continuity. Centralized management with end-to-end automation ensures that security postures are kept up to date and consistent. ActivePort is bullish on the growth ahead. “With cloud adoption growing rapidly, especially Office 365, we see the market as ready for cloud-based managed services,” says Cleary.
The Products
NFX250
The NFX250 enables the creation of innovative services and automates services activation, with zero truck rolls. It hosts the vSRX Virtual Firewall to provision secure, ultra-fast custom service delivery on demand, including SD-WAN.
The EX Series Ethernet Switches are cloud-ready, high-performance access and aggregation/core layer switches designed for enterprise branch, campus, and data center networks. Wired access networks don’t have to be complex—you can reduce risk and cost without compromising performance, quality, and innovation.
Protect your network edge, data center, and cloud applications with Juniper’s next-generation physical, virtual, and containerized firewalls, all managed via Juniper Security Director Cloud.
vSRX
The vSRX Virtual Firewall provides uncompromised flexibility, security effectiveness, and performance in Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud, and Oracle Cloud environments.
Published September 2017