Automating Network Service Assurance — Experience-First Networking Enables Creativity
Running a network is like being a musician.
What can a successful musician tell you about running modern networks? Juniper’s Kevin Landry talks with singer-songwriter Matty McKechnie, better known as Graven, to find out.
You’ll learn
How changes in the telecom industry are allowing creativity to happen at a more rapid pace
How network automation is continually evolving to assure a better end-user experience
What Juniper Paragon Active Assurance can do to make a network operator’s life easier
Who is this for?
Host
Guest speakers
Transcript
0:01 maddie mckechnie known by his musical
0:03 artist name is graven is one of canada's
0:06 rising singer songwriters and with his
0:08 new album slated for release soon he is
0:11 busy in the recording studio so what are
0:13 the similarities between being a
0:15 successful performer and running modern
0:17 networks let's find out
0:22 [Music]
0:28 [Applause]
0:31 you know sometimes you get the
0:32 opportunity to mix business and pleasure
0:35 and today i'm delighted to be talking
0:37 with singer-songwriter maddie mckechnie
0:39 known as graven in my opinion he's got
0:41 the best job in the world although i
0:44 love my job
0:45 who wouldn't want to be networking it
0:47 was still a surprise to realize that we
0:49 had a lot in common a lot more than i
0:51 could have imagined so thanks for
0:53 joining us hey kevin after you told me
0:55 about juniper networks and their way of
0:57 being authentic
0:58 and making a meaningful difference i
0:59 felt there was a really great alignment
1:02 in what we represent because it's
1:04 exactly what my music is about too
1:07 and i love touring and playing live
1:08 obviously the best but during the
1:10 pandemic it's been really difficult to
1:13 do that so i've had to adapt and pivot
1:16 and find other creative ways to reach
1:18 people with my music on the internet
1:20 through social media and through
1:22 instagram live streams
1:24 i get it i get it so social media and
1:27 live streaming are just one part of what
1:29 our audience here and telecom networking
1:32 operations enables because they're the
1:34 ones who build out the internet and
1:37 connect our applications through their
1:39 networks they're actually the ones who
1:41 safeguard or should safeguard our end
1:43 user experience across these networks so
1:46 that things like live streaming just
1:48 work without lags and interruption do
1:50 you get that oh all the time it's
1:53 actually pretty irritating sometimes
1:55 when the live streams lock up
1:57 many times i've had to restart the
1:59 session and then i lose the recording
2:01 completely and then people start
2:02 complaining through the comments
2:05 you never know what will happen
2:07 yeah yeah in general it's a difficult
2:09 problem for our audience to solve
2:11 because more and more of their networks
2:13 are becoming outside of the scope of
2:14 their control ban and that's because
2:17 they have to connect their services
2:18 through third-party partners and to
2:20 cloud providers right i sure wish they
2:22 could do their job better i mean i don't
2:24 know anything about the work that your
2:26 audience does
2:28 but i do know when the internet doesn't
2:30 work for me it means i can't play my
2:32 music and reach my fans and the thursday
2:34 night graventown shows are literally the
2:36 way i support my family so it's
2:38 extremely important to me that it works
2:40 the way i need it to when i want it to
2:43 well the good news is that things are
2:45 going to be getting better on that front
2:47 our industry is faced with a lot of
2:49 evolution in the way that our network
2:51 expert audience here works and that's
2:53 what's going to allow them to be more
2:55 creative so that's actually why i wanted
2:57 to speak with you today this is where we
2:59 connect you see processes in our telecom
3:03 industry are becoming more agile and
3:05 iterative so that creativity is actually
3:07 now happening at a more rapid pace
3:10 network automation systems are
3:11 continuously being developed and this
3:13 allows for more innovation and creative
3:16 engineering initiatives that are going
3:18 to help assure that the end outcome is
3:20 those incredible customer experiences
3:23 for end users like you across their
3:25 networks
3:26 so that you're not going to have all
3:28 those annoying problems with the live
3:29 streams in the future hey that's all i
3:32 want it should just work so that i can
3:35 do my thing and sing my songs right
3:37 and now i kind of see where this is
3:39 going too i see the similarity when it
3:41 comes to the creative process so i'm
3:44 constantly testing out and trying things
3:46 out before my songs take shape into
3:48 their final form
3:50 yeah well you hit upon something really
3:52 important when you said constantly
3:54 testing and trying things out you see
3:56 when our networking expert audience here
3:58 gets creative with innovating their new
4:00 telecom service offerings then many
4:03 times they really don't know whether
4:05 they're going to be encountering
4:06 performance problems with lags and
4:08 interruption like you've been seeing
4:10 until their customers actually complain
4:13 and that's the big problem we've
4:15 conducted a study of 200 enterprise
4:18 customers in the us that actually showed
4:20 us that more than 60 percent of these
4:22 problems are actually not being caught
4:24 by the telecom network operators and
4:27 that's a big gap that our audience here
4:29 might not have a solution for
4:31 to make sure that the end result is
4:33 great quality service that we want
4:37 so the great news is that juniper
4:39 networks has a solution to this problem
4:41 called paragon active assurance and it
4:43 allows the quality of our services to be
4:46 tested from an end user perspective
4:48 across the whole service delivery chain
4:50 whether they own the network the traffic
4:52 passes through or not
4:54 it's because the solution uses synthetic
4:56 traffic on the data plan so that it can
4:59 test across even third-party partner
5:01 networks and into clouds and data center
5:03 service chains where their applications
5:05 are hosted
5:06 in fact the idea of testing out and
5:08 trying out my ideas through my creative
5:11 process is pretty similar in the sense
5:13 that every song is unique
5:16 for me and it always has to come from my
5:18 own feelings
5:19 and experiences in life so there's no
5:21 real normal for me but i'd rather try to
5:24 write songs pretty organically
5:27 i guess it's all about creating those
5:28 bespoke moments and special experiences
5:31 for your audience
5:32 let me ask you a question so what would
5:35 happen to all of this including your
5:37 creative process if you were say signed
5:39 by a record label and all of a sudden
5:41 they would introduce really tight
5:43 deadlines for you to meet a certain
5:44 quote of songs and produce a lot of new
5:47 music at an even faster pace
5:49 like do you think that freeing yourself
5:51 from that kind of stress by being an
5:53 independent artist is actually the
5:55 reason why you could stay true to
5:56 yourself and your vision for your music
5:59 so that you could be more open and free
6:01 to drive your own success yes i actually
6:03 really love the freedom of being
6:05 independent
6:06 and i actually don't know how musicians
6:08 working with labels can deal with that
6:10 kind of pressure it must totally stifle
6:12 their creativity
6:14 absolutely all of us definitely would
6:17 like to have more time for our families
6:19 for being active for being creative and
6:22 you sound like you really know what's
6:24 best for you and your creativity
6:26 also through listening to you i totally
6:28 now see the similarity between this and
6:30 the challenges of our telecom network
6:32 operators
6:33 it's all about how our network
6:35 automation software can bring more of
6:37 that precious time needed to be creative
6:40 while reducing anxiety through being
6:42 able to test that everything being put
6:44 out is delivering amazing experiences
6:48 maddie thank you for sharing your
6:50 experiences with us today
7:00 [Applause]
7:00 [Music]
7:01 [Applause]
7:07 you