Sudheer Matta, GVP, AI-Driven Enterprise, Juniper Networks

Juniper Mist AI Makes Wifi Support Sustainable at Waste Management

Global Summit 2022 AI & ML
Sudheer Matta Headshot
Split screen with Sudheer Matta on the left side and Stan Ringoringo and on the right side.   Sudheer is wearing a black shirt with Juniper on it.  Stan is learning a blue shirt.

First-person perspective: Stan Ringoringo on Waste Management’s network transformation and adoption of Mist AI

The journey to AI is different for every customer, and every customer has different considerations and expectations. At the Juniper Summit 2022, Juniper's Sudheer Matta talked to Stan Ringoringo to learn about Waste Management’s (WM) journey to Juniper and Mist AI. 

When Ringoingo became Manager of Enterprise Networking at WM, the company kicked off many important projects, including building a new corporate campus, refreshing its fleet, and migrating its data center. Each project had two main goals: streamline efficiency and improve the user experience. 

Ringoingo’s team was tasked with finding the best solution for a secure, stable wireless platform and the ability to move away from a legacy system. They turned to Mist AI’s cloud-delivered platform and self-driving network to help meet all of their business transformation goals and bring WM’s business into the cloud era. 

“Somebody asked me recently if I would do it all over again with this new platform, and I said ‘absolutely,’” says Ringoingo. “The level of success and the minimal issues are huge for someone trying to support an enterprise network.” 

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You’ll learn

  • Challenges and drivers, including reducing tickets queues and complexity, that led WM to investigate new vendors

  • The qualities that made Mist AI stand out from competitors and how it checked all WM’s boxes  

  • How WM’s team tackled having two systems in the transition and how they explained it to their leadership 

Who is this for?

Network Professionals Business Leaders

Host

Sudheer Matta Headshot
Sudheer Matta
GVP, AI-Driven Enterprise, Juniper Networks 

Guest speakers

Stan Ringoringo Headshot
Stan Ringoringo
Manager, Enterprise Networking, Waste Management

Transcript

0:01 [Music]

0:08 hello everyone and welcome my name is

0:10 sadir mata i'm the vp of products here

0:12 at juniper's ai driven enterprise it is

0:15 my absolute pleasure to introduce and

0:18 bring on to this conversation stan ringo

0:21 ringo manager of the enterprise

0:23 networking

0:24 team at waste management

0:27 stan

0:28 great to have you on the call today

0:29 we're excited uh absolutely amazing

0:32 partnership we've had we've had with you

0:35 and so let's dive into this this is this

0:38 is going to be of significant interest

0:40 for a lot of customers who are sort of

0:42 watching and you know seeing juniper as

0:45 a leader in this marketplace but really

0:47 wondering hey i got this investment in

0:49 in my existing vendor whether it says

0:51 cisco or ruba or whomever and and really

0:54 you know they're thinking okay what was

0:56 your journey like what were the things

0:58 that were your considerations and and

1:01 you know how did it all evolve and how

1:02 did it come to fruition so before we

1:05 answer all of that stan maybe a quick

1:07 intro for you and a quick intro to waste

1:09 management

1:11 yes siddhir thanks for having me uh my

1:13 name is stan ringer ringo i am the

1:14 network manager at waste management uh

1:17 we i my team that is under me we own

1:20 everything as it relates to the entire

1:22 network so

1:23 again thank you for having me

1:25 awesome thank you very much you have an

1:27 exciting story to share and we have a

1:29 lot of customers very interested and

1:31 eager to understand uh you know other

1:33 customers journeys right so maybe let me

1:36 start with you know stan what's your

1:39 vision you know where was the network at

1:41 waste management um you know what did

1:43 you think of and start this journey with

1:46 what was this mobile strategy at waste

1:49 management before you met the juniper

1:52 and missed sure yeah so when i took over

1:56 the reins of this team

1:58 we started off with many projects one

2:01 was refreshing our fleet

2:03 we had a data center migration as well

2:06 as a

2:07 building our corporate campus building

2:09 our headquarters if you will

2:12 and each one of those the the goal was

2:14 to streamline efficiency as well as

2:17 improve the user experience

2:20 right and so so so what what's the usage

2:23 of wi-fi at waste management you know

2:25 tell us sort of how much of your user

2:27 base is mobile what does wi-fi mean uh

2:30 you know how much of the is it is

2:32 mandatory how much of it is business

2:35 critical is it casual what's uh what's

2:37 the base of wi-fi at waste management

2:40 yeah so we have a digital transformation

2:42 initiative along with that initiative is

2:44 you know the mobility piece which is is

2:47 huge for us whether it's a byod with an

2:50 ipad or an iphone or a corporate asset

2:53 like a laptop

2:55 so you know we are pretty much

2:56 untethered from here on out uh nobody

2:59 really likes having to plug in using the

3:01 wire

3:02 so wi-fi is uh important to us going

3:05 forward uh especially given the fact

3:08 that you know it affects you know

3:09 whether it's the corporate users in a in

3:11 a branch location or in a landfill where

3:14 it's a truck docking things like that so

3:17 the the wide array of applications that

3:19 the wi-fi affects i mean it's it's it's

3:22 really important to us

3:24 it's if i may say so you're you're

3:26 practically sort of an all wireless

3:28 office right you know people are coming

3:30 in expecting it's just going to be like

3:32 at home you open up a laptop and off you

3:35 go and you're working so is that is that

3:37 a fairly accurate statement other than

3:39 of course you have your wired devices

3:41 your video cameras and iot devices

3:43 absolutely 100 correct yes uh it's only

3:46 getting more and more and it's growing

3:48 every every day it seems like

3:51 so that being the base um you know you

3:53 had an existing vendor that you were

3:55 working with what were some of the

3:57 challenges what were some of the drivers

3:58 that made you look at hey you know let's

4:01 go look at what may be out there what

4:04 prompted an investigation to go beyond

4:08 what was your existing vendor

4:10 yeah so it all started with our

4:12 corporate headquarters we were migrating

4:14 out of two existing buildings with uh

4:16 one of your competitors

4:18 uh as our wi-fi

4:21 incumbent if you will

4:23 but really what we wanted was a better

4:25 user experience that was kind of

4:27 mandated from the top

4:29 of user experience we you know network

4:32 is always the first thing to be blamed

4:34 so you know reducing ticket cues was was

4:36 huge for us um you know getting

4:39 our minds wrapped around how we can

4:41 accomplish that with the old archaic

4:43 systems it just wasn't scalable so we

4:46 started looking towards a cloud

4:47 delivered type of platform such as mist

4:50 right and and so so

4:52 tell us about the journey how did you

4:54 hear about juniper mist you know how was

4:57 the first meeting in first interaction

4:58 like what caught your attention to say

5:01 hmm this is something that we should

5:03 actually look at

5:04 walk us through that discovery process

5:07 because you know a lot of customers are

5:09 intrigued but are still like yeah you

5:12 know i have so much sunk investment in

5:13 my existing vendor and so so walk us

5:16 through your sort of discovery process

5:18 here

5:19 yeah so we we had an initial engineering

5:22 task of trying to figure out you know

5:24 what is current what is new what's

5:26 coming across you know wi-fi six was at

5:28 the time definitely coming our way

5:31 um but we're looking for you know kind

5:33 of as it pertains to our flagship

5:35 building uh

5:36 a wireless platform that would be solid

5:39 you know secure and stable and the

5:41 ability to you know not have to have the

5:43 same challenges as a legacy system such

5:45 as you know upgrading access points and

5:47 things like that

5:48 but we're really you know kind of

5:50 separated um missed from everyone else

5:53 was the the self-healing the the the ai

5:57 um you know at the time it was you know

5:59 fairly new

6:00 but once we started putting it through

6:02 the paces you know we were able to see

6:04 that you know there's real performance

6:06 gained out of this and it doesn't take

6:08 much to to realize that you know with

6:11 that the ticket cues will drop so

6:14 all in all the experience like

6:17 going back to the original you know

6:18 mandate was to improve user experience

6:21 it ticked all the boxes

6:23 right you know one of the things that we

6:25 say stan and and you know it's it's so

6:27 grateful to watch this happen right

6:30 because uh we are bold enough or maybe

6:32 stupid enough to make bold assertions

6:34 right we make bold claims we did that

6:36 with you and your team and i think you

6:38 know the first reaction for a lot of our

6:40 customers is whoa whoa whoa hold the

6:42 horses man you know this is a lot of you

6:44 know a lot of promise i mean a lot of

6:47 very interesting stuff if it lands and

6:49 is useful and it's good that's great but

6:52 you know you're you're telling me my

6:54 ticket cues will go down it's a

6:56 self-driving network it'll sort of

6:58 self-operate itself or self-orchestrate

7:01 the the channels and you know power

7:03 consumption configuration for you know a

7:06 great user experience we say you know

7:09 deploy the aps and sort of step back and

7:11 watch the network happen what was your

7:13 experience how much of the promises did

7:15 we keep how did your team feel did we

7:18 over promise under delivered we did the

7:20 product meet the expectations and the

7:23 commitment that was sort of the in the

7:24 initial power point in the euphoria

7:27 yeah sure so with the old legacy setup

7:30 that we had it was always problems

7:33 always issues

7:34 when we deployed we played in our campus

7:37 building in

7:39 early 2020

7:41 with a very small user set due to the

7:43 kova 19

7:44 uh endeavor that we're going through but

7:46 once the user started coming back at the

7:48 beginning of this year um you know there

7:50 were the people were calling in saying

7:51 hey there was issues we were able to use

7:54 that ai in the platform to determine

7:56 whether it was indeed a wi-fi issue or

7:59 coverage or something with the laptop

8:01 uh a majority of the time closer to the

8:03 98

8:04 percentile was usually just a laptop

8:07 issue or something along those lines and

8:09 we were able to prove it

8:10 and you know as as an owner of a network

8:13 that's huge because you know it reduces

8:15 the engineering efforts of

8:17 troubleshooting

8:18 you know kind of demystifying a lot of

8:21 uh you know

8:22 the technicals on the back end that you

8:24 know maybe some engineers won't know so

8:26 i mean it was huge to have all of that

8:28 pre-baked if you will to kind of

8:31 get faster resolution and then the

8:33 performance

8:34 so yeah good yeah and i think you know

8:37 today i mean you have some really

8:40 talented people on your team they were

8:42 hard to please but i think you know when

8:45 we talk to them

8:47 when we talk to them now uh you know

8:49 truly it feels like uh you know we've

8:51 turned the lights on in sort of a dark

8:53 room uh from a network experience

8:55 perspective would you say so

8:58 yeah the the big thing to me is somebody

9:00 asked me uh recently you know would you

9:02 do that all over again with the miss

9:04 platform absolutely rinse and repeat all

9:07 day

9:08 because again the the level of success

9:10 and

9:11 the the minimal issues i mean that's

9:13 huge for someone trying to to support an

9:16 enterprise network

9:18 one of the hurdles stan and and you are

9:21 our living embodiment of this

9:23 for most of our customers new customers

9:26 the challenge they the hurdle they can't

9:28 get over is oh my god i got two systems

9:31 right you know i'll have two systems for

9:33 quite some time you know

9:35 how do i even dip my toes into this

9:37 you're living this right now i mean you

9:39 still have a mega you know incumbent

9:43 legacy you know wireless network still

9:45 running how is your team

9:48 tackling two systems you know what has

9:50 missed brought to you know either make

9:52 their life easier and liberate a little

9:54 bit of time how are how is your team

9:56 tackling two systems and how did you

9:58 think of this transition how did you

10:00 explain to your leadership hey we can

10:02 manage this you know you obviously the

10:04 brand smacking new headquarters you got

10:07 new wi-fi but that's not all you operate

10:09 you operate a global network

10:11 yes correct so the incumbent wi-fi

10:13 system um you know it is not perfect

10:16 it's hard to say anything's perfect but

10:18 uh really what we wanted to get out of

10:20 the platform was just the better user

10:23 experience

10:24 you know so

10:25 in some locations a commodity type wi-fi

10:28 is okay

10:29 but you know our flagship building where

10:31 you know a lot of the

10:33 the higher brass sit you know we want to

10:36 make that experience for all users not

10:37 just them the best that possibly can so

10:40 when we did that evaluation we looked at

10:42 it and you know we we saw that the

10:44 writing was on the wall uh based

10:46 compared to the incumbent

10:48 that you know we would get you know

10:50 better experience for them by employing

10:52 this type of system

10:54 right great okay now let's tackle

10:57 something every it leader in your shoes

11:00 is dealing with right return to work how

11:02 are you thinking about it how are you

11:04 preparing for it how much of your

11:06 workforce has returned and or is

11:08 returning and what was sort of the

11:10 thought process and preparation that

11:11 went into it

11:13 yeah so the return to work we knew it

11:15 was coming at some point uh with

11:17 everyone else dealing with the same

11:20 endeavor but

11:21 um you know we knew that there was going

11:23 to be an influx of devices coming in um

11:25 you know whether it was wired or

11:27 wireless but uh what we've seen

11:29 is that you know the wireless the

11:31 mobility is becoming more prevalent um

11:34 so

11:35 you know we've been very fortunate that

11:38 we had the opportunity to go down this

11:39 route and you know again now that

11:42 everybody is i would say we're probably

11:44 about forty to fifty percent back uh not

11:46 a hundred percent every day but

11:49 um we get some of these calls around the

11:51 wi-fi issues and things like that and

11:54 luckily with the the miss platform and

11:57 the ai you know the engineers don't take

12:00 very long to identify and isolate the

12:01 issues and ultimately get resolution so

12:04 it's been

12:05 we've been very fortunate uh to be able

12:06 to kind of drive our path and you know

12:09 we've been successful

12:11 yeah i think you know for a lot of folks

12:13 that are returning to work right now and

12:15 bringing employees back to work you know

12:18 one of the things that they don't

12:19 account for is just the number of

12:21 devices people are carrying is has grown

12:24 through the pandemic right everybody's

12:26 bought a an apple watch or a an ipad or

12:28 something else right device explosion

12:31 and then the other thing is the device

12:34 behavior itself has changed right

12:36 iphones use random macs now androids use

12:38 random macs now and and so

12:41 just the the burden on the network is

12:43 significantly different we've seen this

12:46 in the fall of 2021 for the higher

12:48 education university space networks

12:51 exploded right so

12:53 in a lot of our competitive environments

12:55 they're really struggled with that and

12:57 and so you know something that we've

12:59 really accounted for and really uh you

13:02 know uh planned for is is the the

13:05 evolution of more devices and more types

13:07 of devices and more problems so um yeah

13:10 no absolutely i'm glad to hear that uh

13:12 you're almost 50 uh back to work now so

13:15 that's great and then last but not least

13:18 uh probably one of the most important

13:19 considerations right

13:21 is you know when when someone makes a

13:24 decision to choose a networking partner

13:27 right um it's a long commitment

13:30 sometimes it's a career decision right

13:33 and so it matters

13:35 it matters and and we at juniper say

13:38 we're not a vendor to you we're a

13:39 partner to you we're an extension of

13:40 your t

13:41 of your team and we say this to every

13:43 one of our customers is is that's just

13:46 culturally how we're built is we're not

13:48 a vendor we're not throwing it over the

13:50 wall and good luck and have fun kind of

13:52 people talk about sort of the

13:54 partnership you've had with the juniper

13:57 missed account teams and just juniper as

13:59 a company in general

14:01 yeah that's a great question you know

14:03 i feel like some of our success would

14:05 not have been reached without the our

14:07 account team um you know whether it's

14:09 rses the account manager they've been

14:12 very stellar and you know whether it's

14:14 answering questions you know

14:15 demystifying some of the the licensing

14:18 things like that

14:19 um you know and and we move very fast so

14:23 you know be able to have a partnership

14:25 of partners that can keep up with us is

14:28 huge for us and the juniper team has

14:30 been very excellent in that regard

14:32 yeah now thank you stan you've been a

14:34 great partner a lot of times

14:37 we we rely

14:39 on

14:40 on sort of you know

14:42 innovation leaders like you leaning in a

14:44 little right otherwise it's always hey

14:46 i'm comfortable comfortable with the

14:48 incumbent yes it's not as rosy as it

14:52 could be but you know what i'll just

14:54 live through it right but we do lean in

14:56 on innovation leaders such as you

14:58 so we sincerely appreciate just the

15:01 partnership the trust

15:03 and and the commitment you and your team

15:05 have made to us so thank you very much

15:07 on behalf of all of juniper uh for being

15:10 a valued customer and especially getting

15:13 on this call and sharing sort of your

15:15 success uh with uh with our customers so

15:18 any last words uh before we wrap this

15:21 down

15:22 no thank you hat for having me i

15:23 appreciate it

15:25 [Applause]

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