UT Arlington Sustains Student Success with Smart, Agile Juniper Network

“With our industry in a state of rapid transition, our goal is to future-proof our technology services to continue to provide a stable platform for education and enable innovation that allows our students, faculty, and administrators to excel,” says Jeff Neyland, CIO of UTA. “When COVID hit, we were able to rapidly adapt to the changing demands that it brought. It took us less than two weeks to move to e-learning and work from home so that we could continue to provide access to education and perform business tasks.

“Before the pandemic, almost 80% of our classes were face to face, and now 85% are online,” Neyland explains. “In this time of great uncertainty, we have the strategic relationships, technology, and capabilities to support our constituents remotely or in person, depending on their needs.”

UTA’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) has been on a multiyear journey to align business and IT, enhancing student interactions with UTA’s applications and digital services and streamlining administrative decision making through data. OIT has been consolidating its IT portfolio, moving to cloud, and reducing IT complexity. “Teaching, learning, and doing research digitally was a big shift for us as an institution,” says Jason Hardy, director of infrastructure and operations at UTA. “We were well-prepared because of the choices we’ve made.”

“Standardizing our network deployments with Juniper has allowed us to consolidate our portfolio and reduce management complexity while simultaneously providing integration with critical systems,” Hardy says.

UTA has been on a five-year journey to an all-Juniper network with outcomes proven year after year. The engineering and operational simplicity of a Juniper network empowers OIT to deliver IT service excellence in support of the university’s academic, research, and community goals.

“As the reliance on IT has increased, having Juniper as a partner has helped us get things done,” Hardy says.

The pandemic has forced universities around the world to rethink research and education, but at UTA, students, researchers, and faculty can continue to learn and lead, whether in synchronous, asynchronous, or hybrid modes. And with a flexible Juniper network, UTA is ready for whatever the future holds.

“Learning today is person-focused,” Neyland says. “The classroom is anywhere. Higher education is in a dramatic state of transition. We were very fortunate to have been prepared for this shift and are excited at the new opportunities it brings to improve access to education. Our world is changing.”