Customer Success Story
Melbourne’s Alamanda College Graduates to AI‑Driven Network Operations
Alamanda College, a government school in Melbourne’s fast-growing southwest corridor, offers top-level education for 3,000 students in years K through 9. All 3,000 students have their own laptops, and the network supports more than 5,000 devices every day. As the demands of digital learning grew, it turned to an AI-driven network from Juniper.
Overview
| Company | Alamanda College |
| Industry | Education |
| Products used | Wireless (Wi-Fi) Assurance, Wired Assurance, Wireless Access Points, EX3400 |
| Region | APAC |
Prioritized
User experiences so students and teachers stay focused on learning
Transitioned
To cohesive wired and wireless network with no formal training
AI-powered
Troubleshooting to detect misconfigured VLANs and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol timeouts
Reduced
An average of 10 Wi-Fi complaints per day to zero
Alamanda College, a government school serving years K through 9, opened in 2013, and it quickly swelled to 3000 students and 250 staff in less than a decade. The campus size has kept pace with the student population, growing exponentially with classrooms added each year.
Alamanda College decided to move all of its infrastructure and data to the cloud. The initial lift transitioned the campus wired network, servers, and voice communications to the cloud. Then the wireless LAN took center stage, and a cloud-managed network had strong appeal.
“Having wireless controllers onsite means that there’s a lot of reconfiguring and downtime when you do a refresh,” says Tony Pace, specialist technician, eduSTAR. TSS in the Information Management and Technology Division at Alamanda College. “We made the decision to move to the cloud and never have to worry about updating controller software again.”
Alamanda College’s ICT team began searching for a cloud-managed network and its partner Unity Computers recommended a Juniper wired and wireless network driven by Mist AI.
“I looked at the documentation, did research, and liked what I found out about Mist AI,” Pace says. Pace wanted to set up a proof of concept to validate his expectations. After a 15-minute conversation with Juniper, Pace had the network up and running. He immediately became a Mist AI fan.
“I was able to get Mist AI and Juniper Access Points going with no formal training,” he says.
A Juniper network driven by Mist AI empowers the ICT team at Alamanda College to build a strong record of success and a reputation for excellent network user experiences. The Juniper Series of High Performance Access Points provides wireless connectivity and the Juniper Networks EX3400 Ethernet Switch provides wired connectivity.
Visibility into the user experience is key for the digital learning experiences of thousands of students. In addition to the 1-to1 learning devices distributed to every student, the school’s network supports students’ and teachers’ personal devices, Google phones, MacBooks, iPads, iPhones, IPTVs, and IP phones. Some 5000 devices connect to the school’s network every day.
Mist AI proactively turns user experience insights into automated actions to identify and resolve issues across the wired and wireless network. Mist AI simplifies operations for the ICT team through unique client-level insight, rapid network troubleshooting, trending analysis, anomaly detection, and proactive problem remediation.
Juniper Mist Wired Assurance delivers better experiences for devices connected to EX3400 switches through AI-powered automation and service levels. Juniper Mist Wired Assurance leverages rich Junos operating system telemetry to enable simpler operations and faster problem resolution. For instance, Pace used Juniper Mist Wired Assurance to identify missing VLANs on switches—a problem that is hard to diagnose but easy to fix. “Juniper Mist Wired Assurance’s best feature is that I can see all devices plugged into switches, interfaces, and IP addresses,” Pace says. “From one pane of glass, I can identify what is wrong. It is really handy.”
Deploying a Juniper network driven by Mist AI was incredibly simple, according to Pace. “The way we can adopt Juniper Access Points from a mobile app is a huge time saver,” Pace says. To deploy the new Wi-Fi on campus, Pace gave a contractor a phone and a map with instructions to walk the campus installing and adopting Juniper Access Points. “It saved us an enormous amount of time,” he says.
Pace deployed EX3400 switches using Juniper Mist Wired Assurance’s zero-touch provisioning (ZTP) capability. “Six months ago, I had never seen Junos OS, but you plug the switch in, and it gets configured. That’s really attractive,” he says. “Other vendors can do ZTP, but you need to be a rocket scientist.”
In the next development phase, Alamanda College is considering adding contact tracing through Juniper Mist User Engagement cloud service. Indoor location services could help the school provide wayfinding services on campus, identify equipment thefts, and prevent the spread of a COVID outbreak if a student or staff member is infected. “Juniper networking and Mist AI give us lots of options for the future,” Pace says. “We have the opportunity to support more students on our campus and keep them and the campus safe while committing to a great education.”
Since moving to a cohesive Juniper wired and wireless network, students, teachers, and administrators enjoy better digital learning experiences with reliable connections to online learning tools, video, and the Internet.
Alamanda College Selects AI-Driven Solutions by Juniper Networks to Power the Future of Learning
The Products
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.
AI-Native automation and insights—coupled with the agility and reliability of a microservices cloud—deliver optimized wireless access experiences and simplified network operations.
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.
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.
Published October 2020