Does your network infrastructure work for or against you!? We recently attended Juniper’s AI in Action conference to learn more about Mist and the Marvis Virtual Network Assistant (VNA) technologies.
Vendors have long been talking about the power of AI and how it will help to enhance our businesses. For many organisations, this seems like a pipe dream. However, it is safe to say that the AI technology built into Juniper Mist is a prime example of how AI can be of practical assistance.
During the AI in Action conference, we first heard about the history of Juniper Mist. Next, we heard how customers have leveraged Mist to improve the employee and customer experience. Finally, we saw demonstrations of the technology in action.
Your network infrastructure is arguably one of the essential components of your IT set-up, connecting your users and customers with their workloads and data. However, it is safe to say that networks have remained largely the same, aside from speed and capacity improvements, and are as complicated to manage as ever.
This is where Juniper’s experience-first networking tackles things differently. Whilst Juniper remains a leader in terms of performance and capability, the Mist AI-powered technology improves both user experience and manageability for the admins.
During the conference, we heard how Service Now was able to reduce its service tickets by 90% by using the AI.
Mist AI proactively monitors more than 150 states on the network before analysing what they mean with the Mist AI technology. As a result, Mist can highlight issues and critically report the root cause of problems, even when it isn’t a network-related issue. The customers on the panel said that this functionality had saved substantial time and helped resolve long-term problems.
One example given was that when a network issue is detected with an endpoint, an automatic packet capture could be started and stored in order to dramatically cut resolution time. This allows the problem to be resolved upon the initial report, rather than needing to wait for another instance before it can be diagnosed.
The presentations demonstrated how the Marvis Virtual Network Assistant can diagnose an issue with a Teams call from a text-based conversation. Once the admin had used Marvis to pinpoint the problem, Marvis Actions allowed the admin to explore and resolve the issues. In some cases, Marvis Actions can auto-resolve the issues by undertaking actions such as adding mission VLAN takes, fixing port configuration and more.
However, the power of the Juniper Mist platform doesn’t end with the AI. Customers also spoke about how easy it was to set up. For example, one customer migrating from Cisco shared how the Juniper devices can reutilise the Cisco base plates. In some cases, this allowed the task of installing the APs to be passed to end users. The customers found that installing a new AP could take as little as 22 seconds from start to finish.
The final demonstration - and the icing on the cake - was showing how to set up a complete branch office. The demo included setting up an edge router with the relevant security and SD-WAN configuration, a switch with VLANs and PoE, and a new AP. From start to finish, thanks to the cloud management and pre-defined intelligent templates, it took just 6 minutes and 47 seconds.
With many users and organisations demanding greater flexibility and an improved experience, the network needs to change to support these demands. At the same time, we see a skills shortage and increased demands on IT. With the intelligent technologies demonstrated at the conference, it is clear why Juniper is leading the way with its Mist AI technology.
