Customer Success Story
AI-driven network helps London Borough of Brent better serve citizens
Brent, a vibrant multicultural community in northwest London, is most famous for being the home of Wembley Stadium. It’s also home to 337,000 people and 149 different languages. London Borough of Brent Council, the local government authority, refreshed its Civic Centre offices with a Juniper AI-driven enterprise network to support its work making the community better, safer, and stronger.
Overview
| Company | London Borough of Brent Council |
| Industry | Government and Non-Profit |
| Products used | Wireless Access Points, EX Series, SRX Series, Wireless (Wi-Fi) Assurance, Wired Assurance, AP33, AP63, EX3400, EX4600, SRX320 |
| Region | EMEA |
Faster Wi-Fi at Civic Centre
Support better digital experiences for council staff and visitors
Digital Strategy
Increased staff productivity, producing an equivalent of £400k savings per annum in staff time by 2023/24.
337,000
People living in London Borough of Brent
Vibrant, diverse community
Brent named “Council of the Year” in 2020 by the Local Government Chronicle Awards
Fostering culture, empathy, and shared prosperity
Brent’s civic, public, and administrative offices are in the iconic Civic Centre near Wembley Stadium. Some 2000 staff oversee local government functions like education, council housing, social services, libraries, parks, waste collection and disposal, traffic, roads, and environmental health.
The Civic Centre also serves as a community hub, with an amphitheater, cafés, wedding facilities, meeting spaces, and a garden. The building has earned sustainability and design accolades, including for cooling, heating, and power systems that run on waste fish oil.
But technology has advanced considerably since the Civic Centre opened 2013, and the wireless network lacked the capacity and coverage to support staff and visitors’ mobile devices. It was time for a network that was faster, more secure, and easier to manage. The center wanted to future proof its network and ready to scale and update the network in an agile way.
A full-stack Juniper network simplifies IT operations
“Juniper met our requirements for a next-generation network,” says Tim Butler, network manager for Brent London Borough Council.
An AI-driven Juniper network supports a flexible workplace and community events at the Civic Centre. Juniper access points and switches deliver simple, unified connectivity at scale. Juniper firewalls protect against advanced attacks.
Juniper cloud services, driven by Mist AI, automate tasks and proactively address network issues. For example, Wi-Fi Assurance, Wired Assurance, and Marvis Virtual Network Assistant services help Brent deliver a better user experience while streamlining network operations.
The value of AI-driven operations became evident long before the deployment. During the proof-of-concept test, Marvis pinpointed several long-standing network problems, which IT could then resolve.
“Marvis and Mist AI identified the source of performance issues with our core firewall and DHCP server as well as faulty cabling for a new AP,” says Butler. “I thought Mist AI would tell us about Wi-Fi issues only, but it went above and beyond.”
Working toward the greater good
Fast, reliable Wi-Fi allows council staff at Civic Centre to work freely from their desks or in collaborative spaces as they strive to make life better for residents. There’s plenty of Wi-Fi capacity for guests, whether visiting a café or attending an event, to use their mobile devices.
An AI-driven network enables smoother network operations for the IT team as well. Since deploying Juniper, IT has seen a reduction in network-related trouble tickets. When issues do arise, AI tools give IT clear visibility into the user experience and recommend fixes. With that insight, fewer issues escalate to network engineering.
Juniper networking is now Brent’s standard for future refreshes. Looking ahead, the Council can turn on Juniper cloud services as needed, such as real-time indoor location services that allow the borough to optimize the use of office space.
The Products
Juniper is leading the convergence of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth® LE, and IoT with our enterprise-grade Access Points. The Juniper Access Points work in conjunction with the Juniper Mist Cloud Architecture and Mist AI to collect and analyze metadata in near real-time from all wireless clients.
The EX Series Ethernet Switches are cloud-ready, high-performance access and aggregation/core layer switches designed for enterprise branch, campus, and data center networks. Wired access networks don’t have to be complex—you can reduce risk and cost without compromising performance, quality, and innovation.
Protect your network edge, data center, and cloud-based applications with Juniper next-generation physical, virtual, and containerized firewalls, all managed via Juniper Security Director Cloud.
Wireless (Wi-Fi) Assurance
Driven by Mist AI and machine learning, the Juniper Mist Wireless Assurance cloud service automates troubleshooting and operations, making wireless networks predictable, reliable, and measurable while providing near-real-time visibility into user service levels.
Wired Assurance
The Juniper Mist Wired Assurance service brings Mist AI to access-layer switching. It sets a new network management standard with AI-native operations and automation, improving the experiences of devices connected to resources through Juniper EX Series Switches.
Marvis VNA
Marvis, the first AI-Native virtual network assistant, optimizes user and operator experiences with proactive actions and self-driving network operations. A natural language conversational interface provides simple and seamless interactions, making Marvis an integrated member of any IT team.
AP33
The Juniper AP33 access point integrates Mist AI for AX capabilities and a dynamic virtual Bluetooth® LE (vBLE) antenna array to automate network operation and boost Wi-Fi performance.
AP63
The Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) AP63 access point offers high-performance Wi-Fi to ensure business continuity and operation efficiency in outdoor environments.
EX3400
The EX3400 line of Ethernet switches are a cost-effective solution for today’s most demanding converged data, voice, and video enterprise access networks.
EX4600
The EX4600 Ethernet Switch offers a compact, highly scalable, high-performance 10GbE solution for enterprise campus distribution deployments as well as low-density data center top-of-rack environments.
SRX320
SRX320 next-generation firewall connects and secures small branch or retail offices and consolidates security, routing, switching, and WAN connectivity in a small desktop device.
Published November 2022