Juniper Mist AI Makes Wifi Support Sustainable at Waste Management

0:01 [Music]

0:08 hello everyone and welcome my name is

0:10 sadir mata i'm the vp of products here

0:12 at juniper's ai driven enterprise it is

0:15 my absolute pleasure to introduce and

0:18 bring on to this conversation stan ringo

0:21 ringo manager of the enterprise

0:23 networking

0:24 team at waste management

0:27 stan

0:28 great to have you on the call today

0:29 we're excited uh absolutely amazing

0:32 partnership we've had we've had with you

0:35 and so let's dive into this this is this

0:38 is going to be of significant interest

0:40 for a lot of customers who are sort of

0:42 watching and you know seeing juniper as

0:45 a leader in this marketplace but really

0:47 wondering hey i got this investment in

0:49 in my existing vendor whether it says

0:51 cisco or ruba or whomever and and really

0:54 you know they're thinking okay what was

0:56 your journey like what were the things

0:58 that were your considerations and and

1:01 you know how did it all evolve and how

1:02 did it come to fruition so before we

1:05 answer all of that stan maybe a quick

1:07 intro for you and a quick intro to waste

1:09 management

1:11 yes siddhir thanks for having me uh my

1:13 name is stan ringer ringo i am the

1:14 network manager at waste management uh

1:17 we i my team that is under me we own

1:20 everything as it relates to the entire

1:22 network so

1:23 again thank you for having me

1:25 awesome thank you very much you have an

1:27 exciting story to share and we have a

1:29 lot of customers very interested and

1:31 eager to understand uh you know other

1:33 customers journeys right so maybe let me

1:36 start with you know stan what's your

1:39 vision you know where was the network at

1:41 waste management um you know what did

1:43 you think of and start this journey with

1:46 what was this mobile strategy at waste

1:49 management before you met the juniper

1:52 and missed sure yeah so when i took over

1:56 the reins of this team

1:58 we started off with many projects one

2:01 was refreshing our fleet

2:03 we had a data center migration as well

2:06 as a

2:07 building our corporate campus building

2:09 our headquarters if you will

2:12 and each one of those the the goal was

2:14 to streamline efficiency as well as

2:17 improve the user experience

2:20 right and so so so what what's the usage

2:23 of wi-fi at waste management you know

2:25 tell us sort of how much of your user

2:27 base is mobile what does wi-fi mean uh

2:30 you know how much of the is it is

2:32 mandatory how much of it is business

2:35 critical is it casual what's uh what's

2:37 the base of wi-fi at waste management

2:40 yeah so we have a digital transformation

2:42 initiative along with that initiative is

2:44 you know the mobility piece which is is

2:47 huge for us whether it's a byod with an

2:50 ipad or an iphone or a corporate asset

2:53 like a laptop

2:55 so you know we are pretty much

2:56 untethered from here on out uh nobody

2:59 really likes having to plug in using the

3:01 wire

3:02 so wi-fi is uh important to us going

3:05 forward uh especially given the fact

3:08 that you know it affects you know

3:09 whether it's the corporate users in a in

3:11 a branch location or in a landfill where

3:14 it's a truck docking things like that so

3:17 the the wide array of applications that

3:19 the wi-fi affects i mean it's it's it's

3:22 really important to us

3:24 it's if i may say so you're you're

3:26 practically sort of an all wireless

3:28 office right you know people are coming

3:30 in expecting it's just going to be like

3:32 at home you open up a laptop and off you

3:35 go and you're working so is that is that

3:37 a fairly accurate statement other than

3:39 of course you have your wired devices

3:41 your video cameras and iot devices

3:43 absolutely 100 correct yes uh it's only

3:46 getting more and more and it's growing

3:48 every every day it seems like

3:51 so that being the base um you know you

3:53 had an existing vendor that you were

3:55 working with what were some of the

3:57 challenges what were some of the drivers

3:58 that made you look at hey you know let's

4:01 go look at what may be out there what

4:04 prompted an investigation to go beyond

4:08 what was your existing vendor

4:10 yeah so it all started with our

4:12 corporate headquarters we were migrating

4:14 out of two existing buildings with uh

4:16 one of your competitors

4:18 uh as our wi-fi

4:21 incumbent if you will

4:23 but really what we wanted was a better

4:25 user experience that was kind of

4:27 mandated from the top

4:29 of user experience we you know network

4:32 is always the first thing to be blamed

4:34 so you know reducing ticket cues was was

4:36 huge for us um you know getting

4:39 our minds wrapped around how we can

4:41 accomplish that with the old archaic

4:43 systems it just wasn't scalable so we

4:46 started looking towards a cloud

4:47 delivered type of platform such as mist

4:50 right and and so so

4:52 tell us about the journey how did you

4:54 hear about juniper mist you know how was

4:57 the first meeting in first interaction

4:58 like what caught your attention to say

5:01 hmm this is something that we should

5:03 actually look at

5:04 walk us through that discovery process

5:07 because you know a lot of customers are

5:09 intrigued but are still like yeah you

5:12 know i have so much sunk investment in

5:13 my existing vendor and so so walk us

5:16 through your sort of discovery process

5:18 here

5:19 yeah so we we had an initial engineering

5:22 task of trying to figure out you know

5:24 what is current what is new what's

5:26 coming across you know wi-fi six was at

5:28 the time definitely coming our way

5:31 um but we're looking for you know kind

5:33 of as it pertains to our flagship

5:35 building uh

5:36 a wireless platform that would be solid

5:39 you know secure and stable and the

5:41 ability to you know not have to have the

5:43 same challenges as a legacy system such

5:45 as you know upgrading access points and

5:47 things like that

5:48 but we're really you know kind of

5:50 separated um missed from everyone else

5:53 was the the self-healing the the the ai

5:57 um you know at the time it was you know

5:59 fairly new

6:00 but once we started putting it through

6:02 the paces you know we were able to see

6:04 that you know there's real performance

6:06 gained out of this and it doesn't take

6:08 much to to realize that you know with

6:11 that the ticket cues will drop so

6:14 all in all the experience like

6:17 going back to the original you know

6:18 mandate was to improve user experience

6:21 it ticked all the boxes

6:23 right you know one of the things that we

6:25 say stan and and you know it's it's so

6:27 grateful to watch this happen right

6:30 because uh we are bold enough or maybe

6:32 stupid enough to make bold assertions

6:34 right we make bold claims we did that

6:36 with you and your team and i think you

6:38 know the first reaction for a lot of our

6:40 customers is whoa whoa whoa hold the

6:42 horses man you know this is a lot of you

6:44 know a lot of promise i mean a lot of

6:47 very interesting stuff if it lands and

6:49 is useful and it's good that's great but

6:52 you know you're you're telling me my

6:54 ticket cues will go down it's a

6:56 self-driving network it'll sort of

6:58 self-operate itself or self-orchestrate

7:01 the the channels and you know power

7:03 consumption configuration for you know a

7:06 great user experience we say you know

7:09 deploy the aps and sort of step back and

7:11 watch the network happen what was your

7:13 experience how much of the promises did

7:15 we keep how did your team feel did we

7:18 over promise under delivered we did the

7:20 product meet the expectations and the

7:23 commitment that was sort of the in the

7:24 initial power point in the euphoria

7:27 yeah sure so with the old legacy setup

7:30 that we had it was always problems

7:33 always issues

7:34 when we deployed we played in our campus

7:37 building in

7:39 early 2020

7:41 with a very small user set due to the

7:43 kova 19

7:44 uh endeavor that we're going through but

7:46 once the user started coming back at the

7:48 beginning of this year um you know there

7:50 were the people were calling in saying

7:51 hey there was issues we were able to use

7:54 that ai in the platform to determine

7:56 whether it was indeed a wi-fi issue or

7:59 coverage or something with the laptop

8:01 uh a majority of the time closer to the

8:03 98

8:04 percentile was usually just a laptop

8:07 issue or something along those lines and

8:09 we were able to prove it

8:10 and you know as as an owner of a network

8:13 that's huge because you know it reduces

8:15 the engineering efforts of

8:17 troubleshooting

8:18 you know kind of demystifying a lot of

8:21 uh you know

8:22 the technicals on the back end that you

8:24 know maybe some engineers won't know so

8:26 i mean it was huge to have all of that

8:28 pre-baked if you will to kind of

8:31 get faster resolution and then the

8:33 performance

8:34 so yeah good yeah and i think you know

8:37 today i mean you have some really

8:40 talented people on your team they were

8:42 hard to please but i think you know when

8:45 we talk to them

8:47 when we talk to them now uh you know

8:49 truly it feels like uh you know we've

8:51 turned the lights on in sort of a dark

8:53 room uh from a network experience

8:55 perspective would you say so

8:58 yeah the the big thing to me is somebody

9:00 asked me uh recently you know would you

9:02 do that all over again with the miss

9:04 platform absolutely rinse and repeat all

9:07 day

9:08 because again the the level of success

9:10 and

9:11 the the minimal issues i mean that's

9:13 huge for someone trying to to support an

9:16 enterprise network

9:18 one of the hurdles stan and and you are

9:21 our living embodiment of this

9:23 for most of our customers new customers

9:26 the challenge they the hurdle they can't

9:28 get over is oh my god i got two systems

9:31 right you know i'll have two systems for

9:33 quite some time you know

9:35 how do i even dip my toes into this

9:37 you're living this right now i mean you

9:39 still have a mega you know incumbent

9:43 legacy you know wireless network still

9:45 running how is your team

9:48 tackling two systems you know what has

9:50 missed brought to you know either make

9:52 their life easier and liberate a little

9:54 bit of time how are how is your team

9:56 tackling two systems and how did you

9:58 think of this transition how did you

10:00 explain to your leadership hey we can

10:02 manage this you know you obviously the

10:04 brand smacking new headquarters you got

10:07 new wi-fi but that's not all you operate

10:09 you operate a global network

10:11 yes correct so the incumbent wi-fi

10:13 system um you know it is not perfect

10:16 it's hard to say anything's perfect but

10:18 uh really what we wanted to get out of

10:20 the platform was just the better user

10:23 experience

10:24 you know so

10:25 in some locations a commodity type wi-fi

10:28 is okay

10:29 but you know our flagship building where

10:31 you know a lot of the

10:33 the higher brass sit you know we want to

10:36 make that experience for all users not

10:37 just them the best that possibly can so

10:40 when we did that evaluation we looked at

10:42 it and you know we we saw that the

10:44 writing was on the wall uh based

10:46 compared to the incumbent

10:48 that you know we would get you know

10:50 better experience for them by employing

10:52 this type of system

10:54 right great okay now let's tackle

10:57 something every it leader in your shoes

11:00 is dealing with right return to work how

11:02 are you thinking about it how are you

11:04 preparing for it how much of your

11:06 workforce has returned and or is

11:08 returning and what was sort of the

11:10 thought process and preparation that

11:11 went into it

11:13 yeah so the return to work we knew it

11:15 was coming at some point uh with

11:17 everyone else dealing with the same

11:20 endeavor but

11:21 um you know we knew that there was going

11:23 to be an influx of devices coming in um

11:25 you know whether it was wired or

11:27 wireless but uh what we've seen

11:29 is that you know the wireless the

11:31 mobility is becoming more prevalent um

11:34 so

11:35 you know we've been very fortunate that

11:38 we had the opportunity to go down this

11:39 route and you know again now that

11:42 everybody is i would say we're probably

11:44 about forty to fifty percent back uh not

11:46 a hundred percent every day but

11:49 um we get some of these calls around the

11:51 wi-fi issues and things like that and

11:54 luckily with the the miss platform and

11:57 the ai you know the engineers don't take

12:00 very long to identify and isolate the

12:01 issues and ultimately get resolution so

12:04 it's been

12:05 we've been very fortunate uh to be able

12:06 to kind of drive our path and you know

12:09 we've been successful

12:11 yeah i think you know for a lot of folks

12:13 that are returning to work right now and

12:15 bringing employees back to work you know

12:18 one of the things that they don't

12:19 account for is just the number of

12:21 devices people are carrying is has grown

12:24 through the pandemic right everybody's

12:26 bought a an apple watch or a an ipad or

12:28 something else right device explosion

12:31 and then the other thing is the device

12:34 behavior itself has changed right

12:36 iphones use random macs now androids use

12:38 random macs now and and so

12:41 just the the burden on the network is

12:43 significantly different we've seen this

12:46 in the fall of 2021 for the higher

12:48 education university space networks

12:51 exploded right so

12:53 in a lot of our competitive environments

12:55 they're really struggled with that and

12:57 and so you know something that we've

12:59 really accounted for and really uh you

13:02 know uh planned for is is the the

13:05 evolution of more devices and more types

13:07 of devices and more problems so um yeah

13:10 no absolutely i'm glad to hear that uh

13:12 you're almost 50 uh back to work now so

13:15 that's great and then last but not least

13:18 uh probably one of the most important

13:19 considerations right

13:21 is you know when when someone makes a

13:24 decision to choose a networking partner

13:27 right um it's a long commitment

13:30 sometimes it's a career decision right

13:33 and so it matters

13:35 it matters and and we at juniper say

13:38 we're not a vendor to you we're a

13:39 partner to you we're an extension of

13:40 your t

13:41 of your team and we say this to every

13:43 one of our customers is is that's just

13:46 culturally how we're built is we're not

13:48 a vendor we're not throwing it over the

13:50 wall and good luck and have fun kind of

13:52 people talk about sort of the

13:54 partnership you've had with the juniper

13:57 missed account teams and just juniper as

13:59 a company in general

14:01 yeah that's a great question you know

14:03 i feel like some of our success would

14:05 not have been reached without the our

14:07 account team um you know whether it's

14:09 rses the account manager they've been

14:12 very stellar and you know whether it's

14:14 answering questions you know

14:15 demystifying some of the the licensing

14:18 things like that

14:19 um you know and and we move very fast so

14:23 you know be able to have a partnership

14:25 of partners that can keep up with us is

14:28 huge for us and the juniper team has

14:30 been very excellent in that regard

14:32 yeah now thank you stan you've been a

14:34 great partner a lot of times

14:37 we we rely

14:39 on

14:40 on sort of you know

14:42 innovation leaders like you leaning in a

14:44 little right otherwise it's always hey

14:46 i'm comfortable comfortable with the

14:48 incumbent yes it's not as rosy as it

14:52 could be but you know what i'll just

14:54 live through it right but we do lean in

14:56 on innovation leaders such as you

14:58 so we sincerely appreciate just the

15:01 partnership the trust

15:03 and and the commitment you and your team

15:05 have made to us so thank you very much

15:07 on behalf of all of juniper uh for being

15:10 a valued customer and especially getting

15:13 on this call and sharing sort of your

15:15 success uh with uh with our customers so

15:18 any last words uh before we wrap this

15:21 down

15:22 no thank you hat for having me i

15:23 appreciate it

15:25 [Applause]