Customer Success Story
With Mist AI, the City of Parkland doesn’t stress about its network
The City of Parkland, Florida, is growing as families seek its highly rated schools, expansive parks, semi-rural living, and convenience to nearby Miami. Some 36,000 people live in Parkland, and city administrators are planning for the influx of another 10,000 - 15,000 residents.
To provide a fast, reliable, and secure communications foundation to support its growth, Parkland rebuilt its network with a Juniper Mist AI-driven wired, wireless, and SD-WAN solution.
Overview
| Company | City of Parkland, Florida |
| Industry | Government and Non-Profit |
| Products used | Wireless Access Points, EX Series, QFX Series, Session Smart Router, Wireless (Wi-Fi) Assurance, Wired Assurance, WAN Assurance |
| Region | Americas |
100%
Network availability
100%
Rebuild of campus networks, data center fabric, and SD-WAN
95%
Reduction in network-related trouble tickets
Free
Wi-Fi at parks and recreation facilities
A network tear-down
“Parkland was my biggest infrastructure challenge in 25 years,” says Scott Marrone, the city’s IT director. “The IT systems were built when Parkland was small, but we have grown into a midsize city.”
Marrone wasn’t daunted by the 20-year-old MPLS network, its end-of-life switches, Wi-Fi that was practically unusable, or even the duct tape. Frequent network outages due to thunderstorms didn’t dishearten him. Neither did the near-daily user complaints.
Instead, Marrone set out to reimagine the city’s IT infrastructure from the ground up. “It doesn’t matter if the front porch is comfortable if the foundation of your house is corrupt,” he says. “When you move applications to the cloud, network availability is even more critical.”
He adds: “We are a small IT shop, and we needed to be nimble. We needed a network that can tell us when there are problems and guide us through day-to-day operations. The network needed to be intuitive enough that any engineer can make the necessary changes.”
A full-stack, AI-driven network
Marrone teamed up with his trusted technology advisor, MORSECOM, which recommended Juniper Mist.
Juniper wireless access points and switches work in conjunction with the Juniper Mist cloud, driven by Mist AI, to continuously optimize the network experience for Parkland staff at its city hall, municipal complex, fire stations, and public works locations. The city makes free Wi-Fi available to the community at parks and recreation facilities.
Parkland refreshed its data centers to support the growing need for city services like planning and development, finance, fire and police, and public works. Juniper EX Series Switches deliver a scalable, simple, and efficient network fabric for the city’s applications and citizen services.
The SD-WAN, powered by the Juniper Session Smart Router, delivers fast, secure connectivity among the city’s locations. Advanced, zero-trust security is built in. Juniper SSR Series Routers at each site have redundant connections to deliver resilient connectivity – even during thunderstorms and other unforeseen events.
A worry-free network
“With Juniper Mist, we have a network that’s elastic and self-healing to handle the future growth of Parkland,” says Marrone. “We don’t worry about the network anymore.”
The network just works, he says, and delivering new IT services to support the community is simpler. Juniper Mist cloud services automate and streamline wireless, wired, and SD-WAN operations. The Marvis Virtual Network Assistant empowers the IT team to proactively solve issues before they are problems. Marrone notes, for example, that Marvis quickly identified bad cabling during installation of new security cameras, allowing for an immediate fix.
“Transforming the network wasn’t easy, but we did it with minimal impact to the business,” says Marrone. Working with MORSECOM, Parkland did a complete rip-and-replace, installing a brand-new Juniper Mist network in its offices and data centers over a single weekend.
“We couldn’t have gotten the network to where we are today without MORSECOM and Juniper Mist,” says Marrone. “We can deliver a better digital experience to our city workers and our community.”
The Products
AP45
The Juniper AP45 brings the performance and patented virtual Bluetooth® LE (vBLE) technology of the Juniper AP43 to the 6GHz band for enterprises needing increased channel widths and capacity. Juniper AI solutions for Wi-Fi 6E optimize operator and user experiences with secure, near-real-time client-to-cloud automation, insight, and actions.
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.
EX4100
The EX4100 Ethernet Switch is an AI-driven, cloud-ready access switching platform with flow-based telemetry and advanced security built-in, crafted for high-performance campus deployments.
EX4300
The EX4300 line of Ethernet switches are compact, fixed-configuration platforms that satisfy a variety of high-performance campus and data center access needs.
QFX5100
The QFX5100 line of top-of-rack 10/40GbE switches for the data center offers low latency, deployment versatility, and rich automation features. These switches provide universal building blocks for industry-standard architectures such as spine-and-leaf fabrics.
Session Smart Router
Our software-defined router provides a flexible, application-aware network fabric that meets stringent enterprise performance, security, and availability requirements. Session optimization, intelligent features, and granular service controls enable the highest-quality routing for diverse applications and services.
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.
WAN Assurance
The Juniper Mist WAN Assurance service simplifies operations, improves visibility into end-user experiences, and shortens SD-WAN mean time to repair.
Marvis VNA
Marvis, the first AI-driven 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.
Published November 2023