AI Driven Large Scale Deployments ft Granite Telecom

Introduction & Background on Granite Telecom

0:00 [Music]

0:00 there

0:02 [Music]

0:12 been here I'm going to spend a lot of

0:13 time talking about how we became a

0:15 customer first and foremost of juniper

0:17 before I talk about how he became a

0:19 partner

0:20 quick what we are we are uh Grand

0:25 telecommunications we serve 85 of the

0:27 Fortune 100 companies in the United

0:29 States

0:31 we are on the Eis Enterprise Information

0:34 Systems contract for the federal

0:35 government so we're one of eight

0:37 providers that can sell into the federal

0:38 government

0:39 we operate in many verticals

0:43 and the way we started doing business

0:44 with juniper many many years ago was not

0:47 through managed Services it wasn't

0:49 through buying equipment it was working

0:52 with customers like you to deploy the

0:54 gear so we have a nationwide managed

0:57 field service assistant team that goes

1:01 out racks Stacks wires cables everything

1:04 for our customers and that's the way we

1:06 started doing business

1:09 and we've been doing that with juniper

1:11 for about half a decade however granted

1:14 prior to

1:15 we it's been not even three years today

1:17 never spent the dime with juniper

1:21 so it was a huge decision to move from

1:24 other Technologies into this our nation

1:27 our focus is Nationwide

1:30 multi-location customers

1:33 so what's the path

1:37 like our friends from service now said

1:39 earlier we wanted more control over our

1:42 own destiny right going out and buying a

1:45 box and putting it to a location just to

1:47 serve as a customer to give them our

1:48 services and then all of a sudden they

1:51 become tied in with that vendor and they

1:53 can just move away from us and they have

1:54 that router there and away they go we

1:57 didn't like that so we went on a

2:00 multi-month painstaking search for the

2:03 right partner and we found that partner

2:05 one week before covid hit they literally

2:08 were on location at our business

2:11 three days before everything shut down

2:13 it was a Wednesday and the whole world

2:15 shut down on the Monday or something

2:17 like that

2:19 what we loved about that technology was

2:23 it was tunnel free and Sadir mentioned

2:25 it earlier which was almost three hours

2:28 into the presentation before it was

2:30 mentioned so I was sitting there I was

2:31 like I hope we're going to talk with us

2:32 they went a little bit before I get on

2:33 stage was tunnel free technology

2:37 we at Granite had customers with Lots

2:42 locations tens of thousands of locations

2:45 that are bandwidth challenged so they

2:48 really need to get the best out of what

2:50 they had from the circuits that they

2:53 were available to them not everyone can

2:55 call up and say I want two one gig

2:57 diverse Dia circuits into my location

3:00 because I want to run gaming conventions

3:02 I want to do digital signage I want to

3:06 bring in video to the location not

Granite Telecom’s Path to Partnership with Juniper

3:08 everyone has that luxury so providing a

3:11 solution to folks and getting the best

3:13 out of the bandwidth available was

3:15 extremely important to us

3:18 so we found a company called 128

3:21 Technologies

3:23 a local company to Boston

3:26 obviously since been acquired by Juniper

3:29 over the past three years so we

3:32 partnered with them because first and

3:33 foremost they were a software only

3:35 company they didn't care about the

3:38 hardware stack

3:40 at the time

3:41 so we could go out find our own Hardware

3:45 vendors

3:47 manufacture those devices exactly how we

3:50 want it for our customers and then

3:52 deliver it the way we wanted to deliver

3:55 it

3:58 that partnership is now three years old

4:01 and we met that customer through a

4:02 mutual

4:03 um of that company through a Mutual

4:05 customer of ours who we now have done a

4:09 full stack deployment they purchased 128

4:12 prior to and then they moved into mist

4:15 in Juniper stack so it's a full stack

4:16 solution and that's how we met 128.

4:21 we chose 128 technology and eventually

4:24 Juniper because we recognized they were

4:27 the architecture and the right product

4:28 for the future that's from one of our

4:30 technology leaders within the company

4:32 and we really stand by that today

4:35 and

4:37 you go hey we're going to buy this box

4:40 and we're gonna put this software on it

4:41 and it's going to work great and again

4:44 our company only works with Enterprise

4:46 customers so it's home you're a lot of

4:49 you are here

4:51 um home home names everybody knows them

4:53 and our leadership was worried okay

4:56 we're gonna put this box out there it

4:58 doesn't we don't have that branding we

5:00 don't have physical Hardware branding of

5:01 course

5:02 what are customers going to think

5:05 three months into the deployment our CEO

5:08 stopped Us in the parking lot the other

5:10 gentleman and I that um went out on this

5:12 Venture and said hey I haven't gotten

5:15 one complaint from any customer about

5:19 this change

5:21 I'm shocked that that happened

5:25 so since launch we deployed over 20 000

5:28 Flex edges we we do about 500 a week the

5:32 flex edges that's our in in-house name

5:34 for the product

5:36 uh significant savings we actually saved

5:40 about 50 percent off of our basic

5:43 network interface devices that we're

5:45 deploying moving towards a custom

5:47 Juniper solution with our own physical

5:50 Hardware

5:51 and when Juniper came to look at 128

5:54 Technologies we actually participated in

5:57 the acquisition process as a reference

5:59 so we were happy to say this the tunnel

6:02 free technology all API driven uh zero

6:07 trust all of those reasons were real we

6:10 were using it and we were happy with it

6:13 so we became a full stack partner for

6:15 mist after the acquisition prior to that

6:18 all we were doing were these edges at

6:21 the time

6:24 so this is what we call it we call it

6:26 the granite flex edge platform so on top

6:28 of deploying just Juniper software we

6:31 also deploy what's called a hypervisor

6:34 which allows us to stack multiple

6:36 software Solutions so if you want to

Results Since the Launch

6:39 utilize that single physical appliance

6:41 that you have deployed

6:43 and say hey I had this I'm going to run

6:45 Juniper that's great but I also want to

6:47 run this other monitoring software I

6:50 want to run this other virtual server

6:52 because at my remote locations I'm sick

6:56 and tired of deploying a router and then

6:58 I'm deploying a server behind that you

7:00 can condense that all into one box with

7:03 this ucpe approach to delivering

7:06 services

7:07 every circuit that we deploy today that

7:10 touches our Network typically an

7:11 Ethernet circuit has one of these

7:13 devices deployed obviously integrated 4G

7:16 5G Wireless backup and you can run your

7:19 own SBC on it as well if that's

7:20 something that you're interested in

7:21 doing

7:24 we deliver this as a service

7:27 so there's no oh sorry I'm going to skip

7:30 that there

7:31 I'm going to move to a case study

7:34 very different than what we've talked

7:36 about here today this is a customer that

7:39 went full stack missed because they

Their Approach to Delivering Services

7:42 happen to buy the commodity internet

7:45 circuits from granite

7:47 so they were 60 location customer

7:49 they were just moving into the U.S

7:51 european-based

7:53 the challenge was their European

7:56 counterparts were actually decoupling

7:57 the network so they needed to stand up a

7:59 whole network in 90 days in the middle

8:03 of a supply chain crisis

8:06 so what we did

8:08 is one we said well we're going to go

8:10 Juniper because we have all the other

8:12 locations already up and running on a

8:15 juniper Edge that we already have out

8:17 there so by the way if we already have

8:20 it out there you don't have to pay for

8:22 the physical Appliance twice so there's

8:24 cost savings there

8:27 wework obviously there was a supply

8:29 chain crisis so we worked very closely

8:31 with the Juniper account management team

8:33 to find switches and APS that would fit

8:36 the timeline it wasn't about the

8:38 technology there it was about the

8:40 timeline to getting it deployed

8:43 and on this customer was a new team of

8:46 folks and they were actually unfamiliar

8:47 that there was a supply chain crisis at

Full Stack Case Study

8:49 the time and the switching in AP

8:51 industry obviously mostly in the

8:53 switches so we helped them and that

8:55 became our first full stack deployment

8:57 of Miss solutions that we've deployed

9:01 we've developed a whole run book so when

9:03 our technicians got on site they'd get

9:05 this big piece of paper and tell them

9:06 everything to do and that's terrible so

9:08 I'll talk about that in the next slide

9:12 so just real quick before I go here I

9:16 want to mention one thing day zero day

9:18 one day two I'm glad that we've seen it

9:20 on a bunch of slides today so I'm not

9:21 crazy but

9:24 if you buy ethernet circuits from

9:27 Granite today

9:28 you have this technology deployed which

9:32 means Sadir mentioned earlier you can do

9:34 a click button solution to test this out

9:36 I guarantee

9:39 if you are an Enterprise retailer you

9:43 most likely do service with granite nine

9:45 out of 10 of the top retailers in the

9:47 country do service with us so they buy

9:49 ethernet Circle for us that means you

9:51 have a granite flex edge deployed that's

9:53 capable of running Juniper so if you

9:55 have switches and APS today like most of

9:57 you do

9:58 you can click the button the edge is

10:00 already there and you can try out the

10:02 sd-wan

10:04 some of you might have hundreds of

10:05 locations deployed with us I know a lot

10:07 of you are network folks just check with

10:09 your telecon team and they'll tell you

10:12 yeah yes we do business with granite

10:14 they can get you in contact we'll work

10:16 with your local account management team

10:18 to enable the trials and actually figure

10:21 out if it's a good fit for you

10:24 so Day Zero to us is design of course

10:28 but we do a few different things we work

Day 0 Services

10:31 with at T T-Mobile Sprint Rogers uh et

10:35 cetera Bell up in Canada and we do Sim

10:37 stuffing so when the devices come into

10:39 us we're already stuffed with the Sims

10:42 that we want to deploy for our customers

10:43 that reduces time in the factory here in

10:46 the U.S before we can deploy it out to

10:48 the customer

10:49 we use a co-developed blaster solution

10:51 that we worked with the Juniper team to

10:53 make it allows our Logistics folks to

10:56 just plug in the appliance and it pulls

10:58 down all the configuration information

10:59 because again we are plugging into the

11:01 mid I'm plugging into the ethernet

11:03 circuit I apologize and that is a static

11:06 IP so that's something that we do have

11:08 to do locally before it goes out but we

11:10 don't want Engineers having to do that

11:12 so we're blasting these we're shipping

11:14 500 a week out to our customers

11:18 we utilize pre-qualification tools and

11:21 this is where we first start talking

11:22 about apis everything that we do as a

11:25 company is API or AI driven we are done

11:29 having people do manual tasks

11:31 we want to support our customers so you

11:34 who you're supporting your customers as

11:36 in the business we also want to support

11:39 our internal employees

11:41 we want to make it easy for them to

11:44 support their customers

11:48 so writing the site for us is often more

11:50 than just buying boxes switches and APS

11:53 it's procuring circuits

11:55 ethernet circuits Broadband circuits and

11:58 making sure that one we know it's going

12:01 to be available two we manage the

12:04 installation so they get on site at the

12:06 right time so we don't get into double

12:08 billing issues

12:10 most importantly is our day one so we've

12:13 developed an in-house solution

12:16 that allows us to manage three to five

12:18 thousand installs a week for our

12:19 customers

12:21 we call it our automation orchestration

12:24 platform it's a low code platform that

12:27 allows our users to say hey as long as

12:31 you know if something happens I want

12:34 this to happen you can utilize this

12:37 application you don't have to know how

12:38 to code and you can actually go in and

12:41 develop the whole on-site workflow for

12:43 the technician so when they get there

12:45 they don't need a piece of paper to tell

12:47 them what to do they're going to

12:48 interface with that application

12:51 give that application feedback and get

12:54 instructions on what to do next

12:57 so we developed that because we had a

12:59 problem statement of we need to turn

13:02 150 sites up a day full stack sd-wan for

13:06 a particular Customer because we

13:08 committed to doing 3 000 in three months

13:12 how are we going to do that without

13:13 having the technicians call into

13:16 engineers and work with our Engineers to

13:19 actually turn the sites up and run their

13:21 test plan which was very intense right

13:24 they wanted to talk to not only a speed

13:26 test but they want to talk to end

Day 1 Services

13:28 applications and interface with those

13:30 applications to say is this working is

13:33 it the right latency how do we do that

13:35 but make it easy for the technician

13:37 because they're right if you're you have

13:39 your end users technicians on site

13:42 they want them out of there as quickly

13:43 as possible it's interrupting their

13:45 business so we want to minimize time on

13:47 site

13:48 our goal

13:50 is to make sure a technician never has

13:53 to open their laptop when they get on

13:55 site

13:56 everything should be clickable through

13:58 an application and should work walk them

14:01 through the installation

14:04 so everything is API driven when you

14:07 plug in the edge Appliance runs a speed

14:09 test

14:10 it checks the sd-wan overlay it checks

14:14 its ability to talk to and transact with

14:16 end applications whether they're on the

14:19 Internet or within the network

14:23 and doing this with this particular

14:25 customer is this real data our first

14:28 deployments were two hours and 37

14:30 minutes on site

14:31 and we got it down to 39 minutes on site

14:34 once we got in past the thousand plus

14:37 locations

14:39 in a 93 success rate every time we

14:42 dispatched that includes installing a

14:45 wire line circuit a wireless circuit an

14:48 sd-wan appliance a switch and an AP and

14:51 then running through that test flow

14:54 so the technician literally just clicks

14:55 button on their phone they get green or

14:58 red if it's red it'll give them the next

15:00 steps on what they need to do up to

15:02 including getting an automated call into

15:05 them saying I understand you're having

15:07 trouble how can I help

15:10 day two services

15:12 we call it our Granite managed service

15:14 engine

15:15 when we see an event we talked to a 90

15:18 percent of resolved by the Juniper Miss

15:21 solution the other 10 percent needs

15:24 manual intervention to resolve how do we

15:27 want that to happen well if we identify

15:30 that a cable has an issue

15:33 and we want to dispatch a technician why

15:35 should you have to call us to do that

15:38 why should we have to give that ticket

15:39 to anybody internally to initiate that

15:42 so you have that ticket in servicenow

15:46 that's event generated we interface with

15:49 servicenow on an API level with almost

15:51 all of our big customers so the incident

15:54 gets opened

15:55 automatically comes to us we have apis

15:59 with our Tech deployment system that

16:03 basically say okay it's a cable issue

16:05 it's located in this location they're

16:08 open from these hours we're going to

16:10 dispatch a technician that's odd all

16:12 automatic oh and by the way it's not a

16:15 cable issue it's a switch issue I need a

16:18 different kind of technician Ascent so

16:21 we have profiles that are set up to say

16:23 hey this I don't need a cable guy with a

16:26 ladder to come out I need somebody with

Day 2 Services

16:29 technical experience to come out all of

16:32 that's automated we can submit a ticket

16:35 automatically and get acceptance from a

16:37 local technician in under 60 seconds for

16:40 that job that empowers our day two

16:43 support team to not have to manually

16:45 interface to do that

16:49 and then with servicenow we match the

16:51 customer's definition of scenarios to

16:54 ours so what's a P1 what's a P2 someone

16:56 mentioned today we've talked about the

16:58 CEO the CEO is having an issue it's

17:01 static on the line well if you're in

17:03 here that's a priority one issue to you

17:06 so you can identify that as such but

17:09 it's a MAC address of the the CEO's

17:11 laptop therefore it's a trouble ticket

17:13 affecting that automatically within our

17:16 system we will deploy a P1 event versus

17:19 a typical P3 event for a static on the

17:22 line

17:23 and we support this all via a technical

17:25 support account management team that

17:27 comes in every day and manages the

17:29 health of your account

17:31 the last couple things couple Awards I

17:33 would Elevate partner of the Year 2022

17:36 and the American MSP partner of the Year

17:38 2022 I am out of time so thank you very

17:41 much sit here thank you everybody

17:44 [Applause]

17:45 [Music]