Mist Systems, a Juniper Networks company, has announced new products and services that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to bring simplicity, flexibility and scale in IT operations and support. These additions, which include new 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) access points, the new Mist Edge and an AI-driven support model for IT, advance the company’s goal of building AI-driven enterprises that leverage automation and insight to lower IT costs, maximise end-user experience and ensure that network infrastructure is a key enabler of strategic business initiatives.

By leveraging its several core architectural advantages, including a microservices cloud architecture with abstracted control, automated workflows, an integrated AI engine and a robust product portfolio that spans the wireless local area network (LAN), wired LAN, wide area network (WAN) and security domains, Juniper is bringing simplicity and scale to IT while delivering the best possible end-user experiences. The company is expanding on these pillars to bring even more value to the AI-driven enterprise with the following new Mist products and services:

  • AI for AX: The company is expanding its access points with the new Mist AP43, the first cloud-managed 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) access point with integrated AI-driven automation and insight. The 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) standard introduces several innovations to wireless networking that enhance the throughput, performance and capacity of traditional WLANs. However, expanding networks can also create new complexity. The Mist AP43 (coupled with the Mist AI-driven cloud) simplifies 802.11ax operations through automation and maximises the value of these environments with proactive resources and client management. Key features include intelligent load balancing between radios/bands, service levels that monitor and enforce orthogonal frequency division multiple access subcarrier assignments, basic service set colouring assignments for high density Wi-Fi environments, and sticky client prevention using AI-driven algorithms.
  • Mist Edge: Mist Edge extends Juniper’s microservices architecture on premises, bringing the agility of a distributed software architecture to campus environments that require network functions to be delivered locally for high bandwidth, low latency applications. Sample use cases for Mist Edge include split tunnelling for guest access and corporate traffic, seamless roaming for large campus networks through on-premises tunnel termination of traffic to/from access points, extension of virtual LANs to distributed branches and telecommuters to replace remote virtual private network technology, and dynamic traffic segmentation for Internet of Things devices.