John Wood Community College embraces hybrid learning with AI-driven networking

“Our school was in a transitional period as we moved toward hybrid learning,” says Brueck. “In addition to face-to-face lectures, we also stream classes, so students have an option to learn from home.”

In addition to the difficulties of educating students during the pandemic, the nature of IT service delivery has changed. “There’s a natural shift to the cloud, and that makes network reliability even more important,” he says.

As Wi-Fi became a necessity, the college’s IT leadership wanted a network that would serve as a long-lasting foundation with the agility to address the unanticipated ways education might evolve.

The campus and data center networks stand strong under the heavy demands of hybrid learning, with in-person lectures and video streaming across campus and in student homes. Students’ network experiences are transformed as they find their path forward to lifelong success.

“The visibility and proactive capabilities of Juniper networking and Mist AI give us the confidence to run more business services onto the wireless,” says Brueck. “IT moved computer labs to Wi-Fi for the first time. The specific needs of our eSports team are easily accommodated.”

AI-driven troubleshooting enables rapid problem resolution. Marvis pinpointed knotty problems like bad cables on switch ports, missing VLANs, and DHCP pool exhaustion. “Marvis saved us massive amounts of time troubleshooting,” says Brueck.

Mist AI enables continuous improvement. “Mist’s service-level expectations are incredible,” says Brueck. “We can maintain our service levels without constantly monitoring the network. We’ve never had that before.”

The college is exploring Juniper Mist User Engagement location-based services for campus health and safety. “With Juniper, we can use network insights to proactively improve the campus experience,” says Brueck.