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Juniper Mist Ties Together AI, Big Data To Proactively Fix Wireless Networks

'We believe that AI can be expanded to help IT across the network, and that's why being part of Juniper was so important,' says Tom Wilburn, vice president of Mist sales at Juniper, who joined the company with the acqusition.

Juniper Networks is now bringing artificial intelligence technology to bear across its full portfolio as a result of its $405 million acquisition of Mist earlier this year, said Tom Wilburn, vice president of Mist sales at Juniper.

The AI capabilities Mist brought to Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Juniper will help bring proactive network management capabilities to solution providers and their customers, he said.

"What [Mist is] able to do is identify users that are having problems before they complain and, in some cases, fix it without intervention. So as exciting as that was for Wi-Fi—and believe me, we needed it for Wi-Fi—we believe that AI can be expanded to help IT across the network," said Wilburn, who joined Juniper via the acquisition. "That's why being part of Juniper was so important. Now there's a full portfolio of end-to-end networking solutions."

Mist's aim is to use its AI capabilities in conjunction with big data to provide top-notch customer experience, Wilburn said, speaking with CRNtv at this month's Juniper NXTWORK 2019 conference in Las Vegas.

"Any standard Wi-Fi chipset goes through about 150 states before you get connected to the internet. Any one of those things can derail your experience," said Wilburn. "We're tracking all 150 states in real time for every user connected to the network, so we know when somebody comes in here and can't get to the internet. And then we provide IT with the root cause analysis as to why. And that is totally unique in the industry. Nobody does that."

As a result, some large customers have switched to Mist wireless networking gear, he said.

"[Some of] the largest companies in the world have moved away from their incumbent vendor to go with Mist when we were this small startup, before we were part of this larger Juniper company," he said. "So I think the proof is in the pudding."

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