Juniper's AI-Native Network elevates learning for 26,500 learners in Aberdeen

0:00 a really big Advantage here is that with

0:02 Marvis and and Marvis minis is that

0:05 we're monitoring the network yeah and

0:07 and Marvis minis does a great job of

0:09 monitoring core applications like

0:10 Microsoft teams um which is our main

0:13 communication for the council now so it

0:16 can monitor that day and night and then

0:19 we know about issues before we come into

0:27 them hi my name is Naomi ellot from

0:30 Juniper Networks and I'm here today with

0:32 abdine city council to talk about their

0:34 digital transformation Journey using

0:37 Juniper Ian thank you for joining us

0:39 thank you for having me could I ask you

0:41 to introduce yourself and let us know a

0:43 little bit about your role and remit

0:44 within the council sure so my name is

0:47 Ian pilam colfield I am the

0:49 infrastructure architect for abine city

0:51 council um so we look after quite a sort

0:53 of a a wide range State um which goes

0:56 from Educators and and Learners within

0:59 our education side and there's about 26

1:01 half thousand Learners we also have the

1:04 Educators and the corporate side um and

1:07 so there's about 8,000 of those um sort

1:09 of staff and Educators we cover about

1:12 166 sites in total um so it's about

1:14 60-ish uh primary and secondary schools

1:17 and yeah the rest are corporate sites

1:20 and when you were assessing the market

1:22 and looking at who you wanted to work

1:24 with when did you first encounter

1:26 Juniper on your journey we encountered

1:28 Juniper about June 23 um so we were we

1:32 were actually in the process of looking

1:34 at the Gartner magic quadrant um to see

1:36 the you know the leaders and best

1:39 executors of of Technology within uh

1:41 networks but then uh very fortunately

1:43 for me as well um our now Juniper

1:47 account manager who had known previously

1:49 had reached out to me and and said you

1:51 know I'm now working at Juniper and

1:53 would you like to just go ahead and have

1:55 a chat about the the Juniper technology

1:57 and we're we're already ready to go and

2:00 do a proof of concept um what pain

2:02 points in particular were you looking to

2:05 address when you were assessing the

2:06 market we have sort of a very Legacy

2:08 sort of network estate um it's

2:11 multivendor multi access sort of

2:14 different layers and configurations that

2:16 we had to look after um so one of the

2:19 main things for me was uh you know

2:21 identifying how we could manage that

2:24 estate um with less resourcing from our

2:27 side um so a large piece of it was about

2:30 Ai and and how we could do that um with

2:33 managing less of administrative tasks

2:36 and More in terms of the amount of work

2:40 that we could put in elsewhere into

2:42 other projects um and the other piece of

2:45 course was that as we're going through a

2:47 sort of a digital transformation for the

2:49 council since around 2018 we've had a

2:52 much higher Demand on the network side

2:55 so we have lots more um devices trying

2:58 to connect but also different iot

3:00 devices corporate education public um

3:04 and our our current Wi-Fi and switching

3:06 setup just didn't attain that so um we

3:09 had sort of a fairly hard limit of about

3:11 14 devices per access point um so when

3:16 we were looking at that we needed much

3:17 higher density but we also realized we

3:20 need to improve the coverage here um so

3:23 that was that was our other biggest

3:24 challenge there at what point of your

3:26 analysis did you start thinking okay Jun

3:29 is the right Pawn of choice here and

3:31 what was the Tipping Point I suppose

3:33 when we were when we were going through

3:36 this this piece we were looking at

3:37 multiple Network vendors so it was just

3:39 very open you know we're looking at

3:41 everyone that was sort of in that sort

3:43 of top TI of the magic quadrant from

3:45 from Gartner and and I suppose when we

3:49 got to the proof of concept I think

3:51 that's when it really shined for us yeah

3:53 um I think Juniper came out to us and

3:55 and one of the things he said was give

3:57 us your worst sight um so we we gave you

4:00 know a school that was um you know very

4:03 difficult to to work with because they

4:04 had lots and lots of new technology in

4:06 the school in terms of end user devices

4:09 but they didn't have the back end and

4:10 the connectivity to connect to it so if

4:12 you had to summarize three main outcomes

4:15 you were looking to achieve what would

4:17 that be so we're looking to increase our

4:19 density like I just said so in terms of

4:22 um a sort of a national goal that we

4:23 have is a on to one device ratio um so

4:26 getting everyone every student every

4:29 learner every educator every corporate

4:31 staff member able to connect in and and

4:34 use our Wi-Fi and Network all at the

4:36 same time and definitely a Wi-Fi first

4:39 strategy and Cloud first as well so

4:41 we're we're trying to have everything in

4:43 the cloud so junifer Mist obviously fits

4:46 nicely into that because um you know

4:48 it's all cloud-based it's you know it's

4:50 very autonomous it helps with the admin

4:52 side we've also been uh looking for

4:55 obviously a A system that can get

4:58 through some of the admin sort of side

5:00 of things and take a lot of that sort of

5:03 piece of work away from the teams yeah

5:05 um and and the other thing that's a

5:07 really big Advantage here is that with

5:08 Marvis and and Marvis minis is that

5:11 we're monitoring the network yeah and

5:13 and Marvis minis does a great job of

5:15 monitoring core applications like

5:17 Microsoft teams um which is our main

5:20 communication for the council now so it

5:22 can monitor that day and night yeah and

5:25 then we know about issues before we come

5:27 into them and and and other pieces about

5:30 that are like you know um previously if

5:32 you ever have a like an in-depth problem

5:35 that you need to figure out on the

5:36 network you need to be there and you

5:37 need to capture packets and you know you

5:40 have huge packet captures that don't

5:41 necessarily mean anything because

5:42 they're jumbled up with lots of info

5:44 yeah um whereas Marv sort of takes care

5:46 of that and it it's you know it's got an

5:48 automatic packet capturing um so that

5:52 that's another major benefit for us so

5:54 if you looked at a material benefit

5:56 there from a stakeholder perspective you

5:59 you're touching the operating team

6:01 you're touching the students and the

6:02 teachers could you quantify what that

6:06 benefit might look like when it comes to

6:09 let's say troubleshoot tickets or um the

6:12 ease of connections for students so with

6:15 with the Juniper Miss product we're

6:17 using The Knack solution from you as

6:19 well yeah um and the the great Advantage

6:22 with that is that we're able to

6:24 automatically sort of uh dynamically

6:26 profile devices before they connect onto

6:28 our Network so we have like a profile

6:30 for a particular type of laptop or

6:32 anything like that so we know what

6:34 network it needs to go on before it gets

6:36 there so that's wirelessly but it's also

6:38 wired so that's quite a new thing for us

6:40 because previously we had to manually go

6:42 and yeah and and put those in so over

6:44 the last year what have you been most

6:47 pleased about from juniper and what

6:49 Innovations have you seen yeah so in the

6:51 past year we've we've really kind of

6:53 made a lot of changes to how we do

6:56 connect connecting our devices and a

6:58 huge part of that is the Jun per Knack

7:00 solution um so it means that we can

7:02 dynamically assign the port profiles and

7:04 connect people in but it also connects

7:07 in with our Cloud infrastructure from

7:09 Microsoft the Azure piece um where we

7:12 have the new Cloud pki product so as we

7:15 go through a digital transformation

7:16 especially on the the Educators and

7:18 Learners you know the learning side

7:20 we're able to go ahead and see more um

7:24 connectivity and with those third

7:25 parties that allows us to simplify how

7:28 we get connections done

7:30 um so that that's really important to us

7:32 and the other piece that we're we're

7:34 really excited about doing next is

7:36 actually integrating it fully with

7:37 service now so we've seen a lot of the

7:40 Innovative things that you can do and a

7:42 huge amount of the automation like you

7:44 know like with um upgrading switch and

7:47 Wi-Fi firmware but through service now

7:49 which just takes it from the start of

7:50 our cab approval process and because

7:52 it's linked into the the Juniper Miss

7:55 system we can say okay we're going to

7:56 update these sites um this is the

7:58 devices on the site and it just puts it

8:00 through that cab approval process and

8:02 then goes off and does it at the end so

8:04 rather than having that sort of like

8:06 engineer sitting there till 1: a.m. in

8:08 the morning and and and you know doing

8:10 it out of hours um you know we can go

8:12 ahead and do that piece and because of

8:15 the automated roll back as well with the

8:17 Juniper switches um you know we can

8:20 confidently say that okay if the upgrade

8:22 fails for any reason power out anything

8:24 like that it will go ahead and it'll

8:26 revert back after 40 minutes you

8:29 previously told me that trouble tickets

8:31 were key focus of yours have you seen

8:33 any Improvement there could you walk me

8:35 through that yeah so um currently we

8:38 we're sitting with 100% less tickets um

8:40 within our service now system uh raised

8:43 for for the network side um appreciate

8:46 we're only sort of like six months into

8:47 this this full roll out but um we again

8:50 we didn't really have any with the proof

8:52 of concept either once we'd got it in um

8:54 and all configured up it was all fine so

8:57 we've had the 100% less sort of trouble

9:00 tickets being being raised to our

9:02 service desk for for our networks

9:04 amazing so you may have seen our

9:06 headline of Juniper's AI native now

9:09 could I ask what that means to you so AI

9:13 for us um in terms of the networking

9:16 space is definitely about knowing about

9:21 problems um without having to go through

9:23 like command line and and figuring out

9:25 problems yourself so what Marvis gives

9:27 us in particular is is it gives us the

9:32 solution in terms of it'll say right

9:34 well this is you've got a problem here

9:36 but I think what's really good about it

9:37 is that in terms of the graphical user

9:39 interface for for for mist is that we

9:42 can actually go back and backtrack and

9:44 see how it's figured that out yeah so if

9:46 you don't trust you know AI initially

9:49 then it's like that's okay you know it

9:50 can give you what it thinks is right and

9:52 then you can go back and see oh actually

9:54 it came to that conclusion for all the

9:55 right reasons and yeah move on from

9:57 there so if you were to go back in time

10:00 and talk to yourself again at the start

10:02 of your journey what advice would you

10:04 give to others that are in the same

10:06 position as you are I think it's it's

10:09 really important to actually go in proof

10:10 of concept and look around the market

10:13 and not just granular say you know okay

10:16 we've used this brand for a particular

10:17 number of years we're really used to it

10:20 I think that one of the major benefits

10:22 for us was that although we hadn't

10:24 worked with juniper directly ourselves

10:26 before is that like there's lots of

10:28 great training programs there there and

10:29 you can change certificates over from

10:32 existing ones um you know with other

10:33 brands um and they help guide you

10:35 through that so actually the training

10:37 programs really quite good for that yeah

10:38 so I think it's less about being fearful

10:40 of change and it's more about just

10:42 looking at the technology what it can

10:44 provide for you and the Innovation level

10:47 with juniper you know going into like

10:50 service now and being open API just

10:53 really helped um to do that so you need

10:55 to look at from from a whole holistic

10:58 perspective like the network is one

11:00 piece of equipment infrastructure but I

11:03 think looking at um more of how you

11:08 connecting with your existing platforms

11:10 to get that user experience down is is

11:13 what's really important Ian thank you so

11:16 much for your time and thank you for

11:17 your partnership yes and and thank you

11:19 for yours and and Juniper's partnership