In a world where technology is in constant advancement, connectivity and network reliability matter more than ever. Our increasingly connected world is influencing many aspects of users’ daily lives.
Customers connect to purchase, consume or engage with brands and services online. Employees exponentially rely on remote connections to accomplish their tasks and remain productive wherever they may be working.
The network is central to providing the personal, consistently superior experiences demanded by customers, employees, businesses and organisations, as distributed workforces continue to be the trend.
Organisations must be confident that their networks will adapt to changing IT environments to become more agile, streamlining their operations with simpler, less time-consuming, more resource-efficient networks, be operationally efficient and deliver a superior user experience.
Due to the uncertainty imposed by the global pandemic and the reality of adapting to the ‘new normal’, more and more organisations are charting the course for their journeys toward cloud computing and digital transformation – becoming ever more focused on modernising their IT network environments by leveraging software-defined and intent-based network solutions.
It is essential to embrace agile, flexible networks focused on user experiences and self-driving automation over rigid networks riddled with complexity and manual management of the network elements themselves.
Digital transformation begins and ends with the network
Evolved from being merely a long-term aspiration for many businesses, digital transformation is now considered an essential component of every business’ strategy in this day and age.
The pandemic represented an overwhelming disruption, accelerating the adoption and reliance on digital technologies in our daily lives. A reliable network is the backbone that enables effective digital transformation.
Network flexibility, performance and availability are some of the most significant barriers to cloud adoption.
The pressures placed on network infrastructure are higher than ever as new IoT and cloud-based applications are adopted for business operations.
Creating a clear hybrid cloud approach (on-premises, cloud and multicloud), will ensure businesses can tie together current applications with the latest technologies and network updates.
The network must move at the speed of the user’s demands and only a cloud-native network enables that.
AI-powered strategy is fundamental to coping with growing demands on IT departments
The traditional network-centric way of operating networks simply can’t keep pace with the soaring number of applications, users and devices within an organisation.
It is no surprise that artificial intelligence (AI) is now powering experience-first networking for both users and operators – and in the process helping to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and boost end-user satisfaction.
The delivery of experience extends beyond what is going on for the user. Better automation, insights and AI in operational toolsets helps operation teams to deliver new apps and services, assure the user experience and security, and make repairs and changes when needed more quickly and efficiently.
AIOps makes maintenance and monitoring more reliable and seamless through automation, provides better, constantly visible insight into user experiences and enables greater ability to take proactive action.
The hallmarks of an experience-first network
The end-user experience isn’t only about employees using the network, it’s also about those servicing it.
Network operational models built on manual processes and outmoded tools, can barely keep up with the rapid growth and variety of end user services.
It is critical to have a laser-focused operational approach that is consistently delivering excellent customer experiences.
Mundane, repetitive tasks should be automated or eliminated, upgrades and maintenance should be made easier and more consistent, and the IT teams should be able to lessen the time it takes them to identify and solve problems.
Those are the hallmarks of an experience-first network – improving how both end-users and the network managers interact with the network at all levels.
In fact, there is a saying that; the application isn’t functioning correctly, so it ‘must’ be the network.
The ability to quickly diagnose where the problem lies is key to getting the network fixed, as it’s a headache to sort through all the possible areas of failure to find the root of the problem.
Having a single source of truth for the network allows network operators to specify exactly how they expect their network to operate and ensure that the network’s function is continuously validated against that intent – if there is deviation, the system generates an anomaly. That’s putting experience for the operations team first.
At Juniper Networks, our experience-first networking foundation plays a critical role in how we help our customers to deliver enhanced user experiences, with innovative, simplified and automated IT operations and insights from client-to-cloud.
By harnessing the power of AIOps, driven by Mist AI™, the network has capability that extends far beyond connecting people, data and devices.
Yarob Sakhnini, Vice President, Emerging Markets, EMEA, Juniper Networks
Follow us on
