Customer Success Story
Derby College preps UK students for work with Experience-First Network
Students who want to pursue an apprenticeship, study for their A Levels, or develop specialized skills to meet new T-Level qualifications can further their ambitions at Derby College. The college, with 28,000 learners, is among the largest in England.
To support its educational, social, and cultural roles in the Derbyshire County community, Derby College relies on an Experience-First Network from Juniper.
Overview
| Company | Derby College Group |
| Industry | Education |
| Products used | Wireless (Wi-Fi) Assurance, Wired Assurance, AP43, EX3400, EX2300 |
| Region | EMEA |
11
11 days for 1 person to deploy all-new wired network on 4 campuses
28,000
28,000 students rely on the campus network
£13m
£13m plan to help create a highly advanced workforce schooled in Industry 4.0 manufacturing technologies and principles
Building a connected campus for further education
“Our biggest pain point with our campus switching environment was the manageability,” says Talan Westby, Senior Infrastructure Engineer at Derby College. “I do most of the network troubleshooting, and I needed something I could dive in and out of to analyze what’s happening.”
Derby College already used Juniper wireless LANs on campus, having been an early adopter of Mist solutions. The institution had firsthand experience that Juniper wireless, driven by Mist AI, delivered optimized user experiences and streamlined network operations.
But the infrastructure team had no experience with Juniper switching.
“The thing that sold us on Juniper was the integration of the wired and wireless networks with the ability to have a single pane of glass for troubleshooting and management,” says Matt Peacock, IT infrastructure manager at Derby College. “We can take one look at the Mist dashboard and see if both the wired and wireless networks are good.”
One person, 11 working days, four campuses
“I did the deployment alone,” says Talan. “I was apprehensive at first, but I got through it all in less than two weeks.”
Progress was swift. “I spent a day and a half configurating the system/devices within the Mist platform and two days pre-deployment to get the switches up and running,” he says.
Then Talan ran around Derby’s four main campuses installing access switches. “Carrying 15 kilo boxes to one of our campuses two miles away was the biggest challenge,” says Talan.
The Juniper wired network was deployed in 11 working days. “With a different vendor, we would have been working for six weeks over the summer,” he says.
In addition to Juniper Access Points and Juniper EX Series switches, Derby College relies on Juniper Mist Wi-Fi Assurance and Juniper Mist Wired Assurance for automated network operations, including event correlation, root-cause identification, and proactive anomaly detection. The college reports that these tools have improved user experiences and streamlined IT operations.
AI-driven networking keeps the focus on learning
The AI-driven network from Juniper delivers a better campus experience for students, faculty, and visitors. Whether interests lie in brickwork or baking, animal care or access to an advanced degree, Derby College offers students a path to a bright, prosperous future.
“The network upgrade enables better hybrid learning,” says Matt. “Most people are back in the classrooms, but some are still online, and teachers can address both scenarios.”
With Mist AI, the IT team has the visibility and data to resolve issues quickly. “Juniper has massively increased our ability to troubleshoot,” says Matt. “With Mist AI, we can see what’s happening and get recommendations for automating fixes/problem mitigation to cut way down on time to resolution.”
The Products
Juniper is leading the convergence of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth® LE, and IoT with our enterprise-grade Access Points. The Juniper Access Points work in conjunction with the Juniper Mist Cloud Architecture and Mist AI to collect and analyze metadata in near real-time from all wireless clients.
Juniper enables your business to scale elastically while minimizing capital investment through our modern cloud services that span the network and security domains.
Improve the economics of networking with cloud-grade, high-density ethernet switching across your data center, campus, and branch.
Mist AI uses a combination of Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, and data science techniques to optimize user experiences and simplify operations across the wireless access, wired access, SD-WAN, Enterprise WAN Edge, data center, and security domains.
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.
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.
Published January 2022