Customer Success Story
Prairie View A&M University puts AI into action
Prairie View A&M University, the second oldest public university in Texas, serves 9,500 students and offers more than 70 degree programs, including nursing, engineering, and architecture. The historically black university is known for its diversity, outstanding academics, and a vibrant student life.
The fast-growing university migrated to a next-gen network from Juniper. Students installed a Juniper network in the first building as a class project, then based on the user experience and management simplicity, the university expanded the refresh across all three campuses.
Overview
| Company | Prairie View A&M University |
| Industry | Education |
| Products used | AP45, AP63, EX4400, Wired Assurance, Wireless (Wi-Fi) Assurance |
9,500
Students studying engineering, sciences, business, the arts, nursing, and criminal and juvenile justice
3
Campuses in northwest Houston
30%
Decrease in Wi-Fi-related trouble tickets and declining
20-point
Increase in student satisfaction scores
A slow network with no visibility
When Tony Moore joined Prairie View A&M as CIO, he knew the network was a fixer-upper. “I view myself as a change-maker and a problem-solver,” he says.
An aging campus network was hindering the university from reaching its IT and user experience goals. Wi-Fi connectivity was poor, the wired network was slow, and an unnecessarily complicated design made the network hard to manage and restricted visibility.
Moore strategized a total network transformation. Instead of relying on a managed service provider to oversee the network, he brought network management back in-house. “I wanted a manageable network with no major learning curve,” Moore says. “I needed a network that the team could learn quickly and would be simple to manage.”
Next-gen network for a first-in-class university
Prairie View A&M mapped out a Juniper wired and wireless network to support its academic, research, administrative, and public safety applications on its three campuses. Juniper AP45 and AP63 wireless access points and Juniper EX4400 Switches work in conjunction with the Juniper Mist cloud architecture, driven by Mist AI, to deliver optimized network experiences to wireless, wired, and IoT devices both indoors and outdoors.
“Having visibility into student and staff experiences at the device and application levels helps us deliver high-quality experiences to our end users,” says Moore. “Mist AI lets us know where our problems originate so we can prevent issues for our staff and students.”
For network visibility and management, the university added Juniper Mist Wired Assurance, Wi-Fi Assurance, and Marvis Virtual Network Assistant cloud services. The network team gained the desired visibility across both its wired and wireless networks through a single management window. Marvis added in-depth support help with its AI-driven, problem-resolution skills.
Student-tested network success
A Juniper network moved Prairie View A&M into a future-ready mindset. The university can fulfill its plans to outfit its three campuses, football stadium, and farm with a next-gen network.
From the start, the minimal learning curve and ease of deployment were impressive. “The biggest proof that we made the right decision was seeing our students build out the wired and wireless network as a class project,” says Moore. “The students won an innovation award and several earned internships based on their new skills.”
Everyone on campus has noticed the improved network performance. Daily Wi-Fi complaints have vanished, and the Net Promoter Score for the network jumped to 86. “Using Marvis and Mist AI has improved customer satisfaction and increased IT productivity,” says Moore.
Cloud-based, Mist AI-driven network management was everything the team had hoped for. The IT staff has gained end-to-end visibility at the device and application levels so they fully understand user experiences. Remote management saves the network team hours of time driving to other campuses to troubleshoot.
The Juniper network is ready for future projects, from advancing agricultural technology to discoveries in physics as the university make big strides toward becoming a nationally recognized research institution.
Prairie View A&M University put AI into Action
Watch as Prairie View A&M University's CIO, Tony Moore, discuss why he chose Juniper for their next-gen network and the outcome they are experiencing across their three campuses.
The Products
AP45
The Juniper AP45 brings the performance and patented virtual Bluetooth® LE (vBLE) technology of the Juniper AP43 to the 6GHz band for enterprises needing increased channel widths and capacity. Juniper AI solutions for Wi-Fi 6E optimize operator and user experiences with secure, near-real-time client-to-cloud automation, insight, and actions.
AP63
The Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) AP63 access point offers high-performance Wi-Fi to ensure business continuity and operation efficiency in outdoor environments.
EX4400
The EX4400 Ethernet Switch is a cloud-ready, AI-powered access switching platform with advanced security for high-performance campus deployments.
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.
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.
Marvis VNA
Marvis, the first AI-Native virtual network assistant, optimizes user and operator experiences with proactive actions and self-driving network operations. A natural language conversational interface provides simple and seamless interactions, making Marvis an integrated member of any IT team.
Mist AI uses a combination of Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, and data science techniques to optimize user experiences and simplify operations across the wireless access, wired access, SD-WAN, Enterprise WAN Edge, data center, and security domains.
Published September 2023