Customer Success Story
ThoughtWorks Designs Great Wi-Fi Experiences with Mist AI
ThoughtWorks is a privately owned, global technology company with 40 offices in 14 countries. It provides software design and delivery, and pioneering tools and consulting services.
To achieve continued growth, the ThoughtWorks IT department had to re-assess its existing technologies and operations to meet strategic requirements; grow in a scalable and cost-effective way, support a rapidly changing mobile work environment and provide a better user experience for all global employees.
500+
Juniper Access Points
45,000
Video calls per day
14
Countries have a ThoughtWorks office
5,000+
ThoughtWorks employees
Kevin Fenn, global head of networks based in the United Kingdom, quickly realized that a state-of-the-art wireless network was critical to achieving these business objectives. “We are a Wi-Fi first company,” says Fenn. “Most offices are open seating, with little or no fixed desks, nor wired connectivity. This means the WLAN always must work consistently, reliably, and with the highest performance.”
In addition, the company hosts many partners and clients in its offices who require simple and reliable access to ThoughtWork’s guest Wi-Fi network. “Guest network passwords change regularly, and different groups require different policy rules to govern what they can or cannot access. This was a huge headache to manage across 86 Cisco WLAN controllers, taking 20-man hours each time we had to make a simple change to the guest network. We needed to dramatically simplify this process and add more control over guest access using software automation.”
Shortly after starting at ThoughtWorks, Fenn was tasked with producing a board-level plan for scaling the company’s network, simplifying operations, and reducing operations costs. He looked at various WLAN vendors (Juniper, Aruba, Cisco, and Aerohive) to see who could best meet these objectives and take the ThoughtWorks wireless network to the next level.
Ultimately, he chose the Juniper AI-driven network. “Only Juniper leverages artificial intelligence inside the WLAN platform to automate mundane tasks, improve Wi-Fi reliability, accelerate troubleshooting, and give insight into the wireless user experience,” says Fenn.
The ThoughtWorks solution: AI-driven Radio Resource Management (RRM) immediately picked up and fixed several issues the network teams wouldn’t have seen manually. Service-level expectations (SLE) made it easy for the IT team to set, monitor, and enforce customizable metrics for Wi-Fi performance (e.g., roaming, coverage, and capacity). Open APIs brought new automation to deployment and operations, saving time and money by reducing human errors. RF glasses are used to identify real-time coverage issues. Marvis Virtual Network Assistant (VNA) helps Thoughtworks quickly resolve wireless issues using simple language queries, event correlation, and trending analysis.
“Juniper is a ‘people-first’ organization, which aligns very closely with Thoughtworks’ own corporate philosophy,” says Fenn. “They are great to deal with and don’t hesitate to provide access to key team members. This level of cooperation is very rare in my experience, which makes it all the more refreshing.”
The global rollout of the Mist Learning WLAN completed at the end of 2018, covering all ThoughtWorks offices in EMEA, North America, Latin America, Australia, China, India, and Singapore.
“I was extremely excited to get all employees on the Mist WLAN and benefitting from the next-generation wireless that Mist uniquely delivers,” according to Fenn.
The Products
Mist AI uses a combination of AI, machine learning, and data science techniques to optimize user experiences and simplify operations across wireless access, wired access, and SD-WAN domains.
Wi-Fi Assurance
Driven by Mist AI and machine learning, the Juniper Mist Wi-Fi Assurance cloud service automates troubleshooting and operations. It ensures wireless networks are predictable, reliable, and measurable while providing near-real-time visibility into service levels.
Published June 2021