Juniper & Mist: Taking Customer Experience to New Heights

There’s an increasingly strong correlation between high-capacity, high-reliability wireless networks and a customer experience that inspires long-term loyalty. However, building durable and scalable networks often proves challenging due to the number of devices, applications and sensors relying on it to function anytime, anywhere. Mist, a Juniper company, offers a creative new way of approaching some of these challenges that goes beyond just keeping access points online.

The value of an AI-Driven Network

Mist access point network infrastructure platform is designed to automate monitoring, reporting and troubleshooting of the network with minimal input from the business. Built on a cloud-based microservices architecture and powered by machine learning, Mist adapts and optimises wireless networks for performance in real time, ensuring businesses can deliver strong connectivity to customers and employees even when usage patterns shift rapidly.

To help keep networks optimised, Mist can:

• Automatically track and switch users to clear wireless bands, based on performance thresholds that the business can “set and forget”
• Answer IT’s questions and provide swift recommendations thanks to Marvis, the platform’s inbuilt AI engine that comes with Natural Language Processing (NLP) and data analytics
• Rapidly capture and analyses over a hundred user states at any given time, giving network admins critical metadata to solve more complex problems from a single dashboard
• Adapt to constantly evolving business and end-user needs with microservice-based cloud architecture and open APIs

The Archdiocese of Brisbane, for example, used Mist’s API to automatically configure its network in more than 300 buildings within an hour, cutting the time taken to resolve wireless issues by around 60%. That, in turn, makes it much easier for staff to give residents in the Archdiocese’s homes – some of Queensland’s most vulnerable citizens – access to fast, reliable Wi-Fi for watching videos, calling their family and friends, and other staples of daily life.

I was glad to be part of this inspiring project as it made such a significant impact to not just the IT team, but also the residents. To me, what stands out about Mist is that adaptability which is helping the Archdiocese do good, better – not only accommodating rapid changes in user behaviour, but also using features like Marvis to empower IT teams as they strive to solve issues in a fast and agile fashion. Marvis proactively surfaces potential issues to net admins’ consoles – like picking up missing VLANs on specific access points – before user complaints highlight an issue, which could prove a potential game-changer for how many businesses govern their infrastructure. This goes a step beyond automation or uptime capabilities that many other solutions provide, acknowledging that what defines a best-in-class user experience can shift as quickly and often unpredictably as the weather.

Supporting wireless networks from within

Our customers using Mist tend to also comment on the solution’s ability to deliver a consistent experience, especially in BYOD-centric environments like campuses, office buildings and co-working spaces. For such customers, the constant inflows of new devices and applications means users are often assigned to sub-optimal wireless network frequencies, ultimately resulting in slow connectivity. Mist tackles this issue by using machine learning to guide its Radio Resource Management (RRM) algorithms, which results in less coverage and capacity shortfalls.

We’re also starting to use Mist to tackle IoT and application-heavy ecosystems to great effect. It can be nearly impossible to manually track the sheer volume of data through these networks, particularly at a rate required for operations to remain stable and efficient. By tapping into Mist’s machine learning algorithms, we’re seeing enterprises significantly reduce how long it takes for them to pinpoint and resolve issues.

User experience is no longer determined by uptime alone

If you’re considering Mist as a solution for your customers’ network infrastructure, remember that user experience is no longer determined by uptime alone. Rather, it’s the network’s ability to generate solid business outcomes – like an innovative and reliable customer experience, keeping productivity levels high or resilient yet low-maintenance cyber risk mitigation – that matters most. Mist’s responsiveness and adaptability directly contribute to those outcomes, and we’re particularly impressed by how Marvis bolsters IT’s problem-solving abilities while employing Mist’s substantial machine-learning smarts to deal with less visible issues automatically.

Mist “brings the rain” for businesses that want to rapidly ramp up their customer experience game and elevate IT from everyday maintenance to generating business ROI with data-driven insights. Large retailers and banks in Australia have taken the leap forward with Mist’s self-driving network.

If you’d like to learn more about how Mist can help your customers grow and optimise their network infrastructure, get in touch with us today.