Customer Success Story
AI-driven networking is the Rx for Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
Established in 1784, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) is a world-leading international health sciences university and research institution that offers education and training at the undergraduate, post-graduate, and professional levels.
RCSI uses AI-driven wired and wireless solutions from Juniper not only to deliver better network experiences, but also to lay the digital foundation for smart building services as part of a €95 million campus expansion.
Overview
| Company | Royal College of Surgeons Ireland |
| Industry | Education |
| Products used | AP43, EX3400, EX4400, Wireless (Wi-Fi) Assurance, Wired Assurance, User Engagement |
| Region | EMEA |
Very few network-related trouble tickets in areas running Juniper Wi-Fi
4000 students studying undergraduate medicine, pharmacy, and physiotherapy at the Dublin campus
Quickly deploy new access points and switches with zero-touch provisioning
Use Marvis to resolve hard-to-pinpoint issues like old cabling
Diagnosis: Full network replacement needed
Health sciences education has changed dramatically since RCSI last refreshed its campus network.
“RCSI needed an innovative networking platform that would allow for greater performance, scale, fault tolerance, and service. At the same time, we wanted a network platform that would be self-correcting, learn from user interactions, and accurately locate faults,” says Kevin Brew, senior network engineer at RCSI. “Juniper with Mist AI and Marvis ticked all those boxes for us.”
Longer term, RCSI is expanding its presence in Dublin City Centre. Planned for a 2025 opening, 118 St Stephen’s Green will be home to research labs, classrooms, recreational facilities, and space for local community engagement. The network needed to support smart building services, including connectivity for numerous Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
Mist AI is the cure for common network ills
The proof of concept for the Juniper Wireless Access solution, driven by Mist AI, went so well that RCSI ended the trial early and put the Wi-Fi straight into production.
Confident that the network user experience would be predictable, reliable, and measurable, the infrastructure team took it one step farther. “We decided to replace both wired and wireless at the edge with Juniper,” says Brew.
The campus refresh was quick work. “With Juniper, it’s not a big deal to install 100 new switches in one month,” says Brew.
Juniper Mist Cloud services, including Wi-Fi Assurance, Wired Assurance, and Marvis Virtual Network Assistant, give Brew clear visibility into the user experience and can speed troubleshooting when issues arise, often before users are even aware of them.
Insights from Mist AI helped Brew uncovered a long-standing issue with sustaining 1-Gbps performance. It turns out antiquated campus cabling was to blame. “When Marvis informed me of the problem, we simply ran new copper cabling,” he says.
Marvis also allowed Brew to improve the user logon experience. “With Mist, we could quickly see where two-factor authentication was failing, so we could fix it quickly,” he says.
A network that delivers strategic business value
User complaints about the network are virtually nil in the areas of campus running Juniper Wi-Fi.
“Post-COVID, the Wi-Fi needs to operate at a higher standard,” says Brew. “Life has changed. There’s no more cable when people come into the office. It’s all wireless.”
Students, faculty, staff, and visitors have fast, reliable connectivity across the Dublin campus, while streamlined network operations free up the infrastructure team for strategic work.
For RCSI, Juniper is more than a network: Juniper Mist User Engagement Services provide the foundation for wayfinding. The extensibility of a Juniper network will deliver greater value across the university, including smart building services. RCSI plans to integrate its building environmental control systems with the Juniper network to support its green initiatives.
The Products
AP43
The Juniper AP43 high-performance Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) access point integrates patented virtual Bluetooth® LE (vBLE) and Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities to deliver an unprecedented user experiences.
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.
EX4400
The EX4400 Ethernet Switch is a cloud-ready, AI-powered access switching platform with advanced security for high-performance campus deployments.
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.
User Engagement
User Engagement uses virtual Bluetooth LE (vBLE) array technology and cloud-based machine learning to drive down deployment costs and improve the accuracy of real-time indoor location services, from wayfinding to location-based proximity notifications.
Published June 2022