ITNews: How Aston Martin is Harnessing High Performance Networking With Juniper

0:02 [Music]

0:04 hello i'm brad howath for it news the

0:07 name aston martin conjures ideas of high

0:09 performance and precision engineering so

0:11 it should be no surprise that these same

0:13 ideas carry through technology this

0:15 iconic british sports car company uses

0:18 to support its manufacturing and sales

0:20 operations global car makers have been

0:22 at the pioneers of digitally connected

0:24 systems with modern motor vehicles

0:26 resembling supercomputers on wheels

0:29 so when aston martin came to upgrade its

0:31 network switching it chose a supplier at

0:33 you could meet its demands for today and

0:35 into the future to talk about aston

0:37 martin and its evolution as a digital

0:39 business i'd like to welcome network

0:41 architect daryl older daryl thank you so

0:43 much for joining us hi brad absolute

0:45 pleasure thank you for inviting me

0:47 so darryl tell me why is it the

0:49 technology is so important to us martin

0:52 you said in your introduction there that

0:53 uh aston martin has this uh

0:56 high performance uh precision uh brand

0:59 uh another way that we're perceived is

1:02 that uh luxury rich heritage uh you

1:06 often hear about uh the james bond the

1:08 db5 and uh and all the classic vehicles

1:12 from there however that doesn't mean

1:15 that we don't have to compete in a

1:17 modern market so the digital

1:20 technology absolutely helps us with with

1:23 the modern technologies the modern uh

1:26 competition in

1:28 in the automotive industry

1:30 so how mature would you say that aston

1:32 martin's digital capabilities were today

1:35 i think we've come an awfully long way

1:37 from some of the legacy systems that

1:39 we've got and some of the uh the on-prem

1:43 solutions that we've been managing for a

1:45 number of years now um the technologies

1:48 come along in terms of its uh cloud

1:51 strategy for example

1:53 we're really uh keen on some of the

1:56 newer technologies that are coming along

1:58 on the horizon um one of our guiding

2:01 principles is to automate network where

2:04 possible and uh and we can talk about

2:06 that at length of of how we're going to

2:09 uh to do that but um i think um we've

2:12 come a long way we've got a long way to

2:13 go as well um but it's um it's really

2:16 exciting time so i'm really looking

2:17 forward to to the future there is a data

2:20 user what kind of demands does s martin

2:22 place on its network that's a great

2:24 question um so historically i'm from a

2:28 service provider background and service

2:30 provider is very much a bandwidth

2:33 orientated

2:35 network aston martin is different we

2:37 need to have

2:39 highly available networks with very low

2:41 latency um to give you a bit of an

2:44 example our production team have

2:46 something known as tac time

2:49 and that basically means that a vehicle

2:53 throughout its production journey um

2:55 stays at a particular station and has a

2:58 particular task carried out on on that

3:00 vehicle

3:02 the technicians have a certain amount of

3:03 time to do that um it's a lot longer

3:06 than a lot of automotive but it's still

3:07 a limited time um and they need to be

3:10 able to hit their targets so one

3:13 particular task that they might do is

3:16 take a a wheel nut for example and it

3:19 needs to be

3:20 tightened to a very specific torque

3:22 setting um that torque setting needs to

3:25 be recorded against the technician

3:28 against the station that it carry was

3:30 carried out on the tool that was used

3:32 the date and time and so on so all those

3:34 little pieces of information that that

3:36 comprised the entire vehicle need to go

3:39 back onto the network quickly in order

3:42 to move that production line along

3:44 that's probably the main um

3:46 requirement of our networks so the low

3:49 latency and the high response uh times

3:53 that's great now i understand that

3:55 juniper is playing a key role in the

3:56 network can you give me an understanding

3:57 that of how you first brought that

3:59 company into the business juniper um

4:01 were selected a few years ago now

4:04 they've been they've been with us a

4:05 while and um we select brands to work

4:08 with that

4:10 align well to our vision okay so we've

4:14 got a lot of partnerships not just in it

4:17 but in the whole business really you

4:18 know different manufacturing um

4:20 suppliers and vendors and so on but

4:23 every single one of those vendors we

4:25 select

4:27 from a vision point of view they must

4:29 share our

4:30 vision um and we felt that juniper

4:33 really did that

4:34 for us they they have an example of

4:37 reducing complexity well that's

4:39 absolutely key for us we're a very small

4:41 team we can't really be bogged down with

4:43 too much complexity in our network um so

4:47 we

4:48 we we enjoy that uh that vision as well

4:51 with with juniper and it's the same for

4:53 a lot of our vendors as well so uh yeah

4:56 i think that um

4:59 juniper aligned well to that

5:01 um i think the other good thing about

5:03 juniper is that um it lends itself to

5:08 automation and network programmability

5:11 um really like the idea that

5:13 juniper is a api

5:16 driven company we can then develop some

5:19 of our own

5:20 dashboards and uh monitoring systems and

5:23 scripts that suit our needs juniper

5:26 really sort of uh

5:28 played well to that vision so how has

5:30 juniper supported the growth and

5:31 transformation of the business over time

5:33 we feel that juniper really kept up with

5:36 industry trends um it's allowed us to

5:39 maintain our network and it's kept us

5:41 aligned together we haven't really

5:43 deviated from from one another's sort of

5:45 paths and visions i think an example of

5:48 that would be something like uh in

5:51 our two main production facilities

5:53 gaiden and some athen we have our own

5:57 on-prem data center so

6:00 not to contradict what i said about

6:01 cloud first but

6:02 there's always going to be some internal

6:05 systems that that

6:07 cannot migrate to the cloud and so for

6:09 that reason we do have a an on-prem uh

6:12 presence without with our own internally

6:15 managed data centers um one thing we

6:18 really like is the fact that those two

6:20 data centers can play disaster recovery

6:23 to one another um with the juniper-based

6:26 networking we can do things like uh

6:29 not getting too technical but vxlan

6:31 between the two so those two data

6:33 centers sort of almost appear as one it

6:35 means then that disaster recovery is

6:38 in theory not quite there yet but in

6:40 theory is quite seamless in in

6:43 how we operate that so uh i think that's

6:46 uh that's one of the main benefits uh

6:48 another one that we often talk about is

6:51 scalability then juniper really offers

6:54 um some good scalability we've always

6:57 talked about our main sort of core

7:00 switching we base it on the ex4300

7:04 they're really good for scaling virtual

7:06 chassis up and down

7:08 the reason we like scalability in our

7:10 network is because

7:11 getting back to the automotive industry

7:13 it's quite a fluid industry we often

7:16 have projects that uh come and go quite

7:18 quickly nothing to do with

7:21 bad management or anything it just means

7:23 that a project was only there for six

7:25 months say whilst the particular aspect

7:27 of a vehicle was was developed and then

7:30 that project then uh closes down another

7:33 one comes along so at one point i might

7:36 have 10 users in an office now i need a

7:38 hundred now i need 200 and now i'm back

7:41 down to 20. so a scalable platform

7:43 really helps with that and it's uh it's

7:45 been really useful now i understand

7:47 you've just selected juniper as a supply

7:49 for wireless connectivity what was

7:50 behind that decision

7:52 ah that's a great question while this is

7:54 really my

7:55 uh my pet project at the moment we were

7:58 overdue a wireless refresh in in the

8:00 entire uh estate um we selected um

8:05 um

8:06 the the missed platform uh with juniper

8:09 because uh it played well to our cloud

8:12 first strategy and we also appreciated

8:14 that um the missed platform isn't just

8:17 about juniper's answer to violets the

8:20 missed ai is a lot more to it than that

8:23 the ai

8:24 um helps us with a lot of the wireless

8:26 radio resource management but it also

8:29 helps us with something called wired

8:31 assurance so

8:33 as i said before we've got quite an

8:35 established wired connectivity estate so

8:38 the missed platform can do wide

8:41 assurance so we've got that single pane

8:43 of glass there um we went with that that

8:46 wireless because we've already got the

8:48 wired

8:49 infrastructure in place um so it made

8:52 sense really to have those as converged

8:55 infrastructures one of my

8:57 visions for

8:59 the users really and and the network is

9:02 that the

9:03 the end users shouldn't really care

9:04 about the difference between wired and

9:07 wireless

9:08 they should just be able to to work

9:10 looking forward then what role do you

9:12 see technology playing in supporting the

9:14 business

9:15 oh i think um just on the same theme as

9:19 cloud first

9:21 just on the same

9:22 vein as the as the mist we're um

9:25 hopefully looking towards a fully

9:27 software defined network where not just

9:30 the wired and the wireless but another

9:32 major project that i've got

9:34 on the horizon is the one refresh we

9:38 currently have a a a classic mpls

9:41 network with a

9:42 single internet breakout with the new

9:45 erp the software as a service and all

9:48 those nice things really puts a strain

9:50 on the wand connectivity of the network

9:53 and just the other day i was talking to

9:55 juniper about um

9:57 their one

9:58 assurance going into to mist so that

10:02 that really plays well to our uh our

10:04 strategy there um really like the idea

10:07 that we can make better use of uh apis

10:11 they're an api driven company um and it

10:14 means that we can take some of the

10:15 systems such as

10:18 the mist the wireless the wired the one

10:21 and connect it into some of the

10:22 connected security that we've got as

10:24 well so it hopefully all converges into

10:27 one sort of single um unified

10:31 defined network really so that's uh

10:33 that's my vision um hopefully we'll get

10:35 there but uh it's it's a journey so uh

10:38 uh hopefully we'll we'll do well there

10:40 brilliant right daryl order thank you so

10:42 much for your time

10:43 thanks very much brad it's been a

10:45 pleasure