Support for Your Network – Mist Cloud Services

We gave you an insight into Mist’s Wired Assurance service back in February: now it’s time to take a look at the other cloud services. You can subscribe to these services on top of the basic system. Their aim is to adapt the system to the user’s requirements in the best way possible. Customers shouldn’t have to pay for services they don’t need, nor waste resources for them on their access points.

Mist’s proposition was to modularise the entire Wi-Fi management, incorporating AI support. This starts with the controller. With Mist, this is no monolithic overall construct, but instead consists of interlinked microservices. This provides resilience because if one microservice should fail, this will not affect the others – the network continues to function. Other advantages result from the flexible scalability of the overall system and the RESTful APIs, which also ensure that the system can be perfectly adapted to your requirements.

In addition, Mist anchors artificial intelligence capabilities at the very heart of its Wi-Fi management. This is used to give proactive warnings about potential problems, before the user notices anything. This is possible because Mist monitors more than 150 status values and can draw conclusions about the quality of the network in real time, aiding administration.

Mist uses the same concept of modularity paired with artificial intelligence for their cloud services. Here too, Mist’s approach is to offer supplementary services to the basic system as individual modules – so that you only pay for the features you actually need. The cloud services also have the advantage of modularity: new services are constantly being added, based on customer demand.

The cloud services can be divided into three categories. These are the assistance modules, which make managing the network easier, the Bluetooth LE services, which also enable the access points to be used as Bluetooth Low Energy beacons, and an analysis module which can also process data from third parties.

Assistance Services

Mist offers three services which will help make administrating your network easier. The two subscription services, Wireless and Wired Assurance, offer you a deeper insight into the structure of your network and make you aware of possible problems or potential system optimisations.

Whereas Wireless Assurance is set up to support operation of wireless networks, Wired Assurance helps you monitor your cable-connected networks. The service is fully supported by the Juniper Switches EX series, but other models and switches from third-party providers can also be incorporated, even if it isn’t possible to use all the features they offer. You can find a more detailed introduction to Wired Assurance here.

Both services enable you to define service level expectations and to check regularly that they are being adhered to. To achieve this, the services analyse a series of metrics, which you can define yourself. If the service level expectations are not adhered to, the Assurance services will inform you, in line with pre-set criteria. Wireless Assurance monitors the data beyond the service level expectation metrics, to optimise the signal strength of the individual access points and to ensure perfect coverage.

Both services also offer useful tools to help you track down errors. Not only do both services permit dynamic packet capturing but, via Wired Assurance, using the Dashboard you can also perform a cable check, check the power compliance of network components as well as checking port assignments. This enables your technicians to diagnose problems remotely and take appropriate action. This not only saves a lot of time when searching for errors, but costs as well.

Marvis, the Virtual Network Assistant, is another subscription service which is designed as an add-on to the above-mentioned Assistants: acting as an interface between people and machines. Marvis translates the information from the Dashboard and the network monitoring system and presents it in an overview which is easy to understand. It is able to answer questions in natural language, too.

Marvis’ artificial intelligence can also correlate events, so solutions can be found more quickly should problems arise. This is often significantly faster than searching for errors manually. Marvis can also suggest solutions to problems.

Bluetooth LE Services

As well as Wi-Fi modules, the Mist access points also have Bluetooth Low Energy antennas with a 16-element antenna array, which can be used for accurate and scalable location services. The Bluetooth integration can be used in two ways: as a beacon for indoor navigation and as a gateway for asset tracking.

The User Engagement cloud service gives you all the tools you need to implement indoor navigation or proximity messaging. This offers a particular advantage for customer communication. The indoor navigation scores well, with a precision of up to one metre and latencies of less than a second. Read more about it in our blog article, New possibilities for Bluetooth LE in interaction with the customer.

In contrast, the Asset Visibility service aids the integration of the Mist access points into a Real-Time-Location-System (RTLS). Here products are tagged using Bluetooth, so their movements can be tracked by the system. The subscription service does not only provide the service itself, but also enables evaluation of the movement data. We have highlighted the application areas which are particularly relevant for industry in our blog article, Bluetooth Low Energy in industry – more than just asset tracking.

Analytics Service

The latest Mist Cloud service is Premium Analytics. This service allows you to perform deep analysis on all your network data. It not only processes information from Mist and Juniper hardware, but also handles data from third-party providers. This ensures unprecedented transparency for your network.

Here Premium Analytics goes beyond problem and status analysis, offering evaluation of user behaviour. So you can improve your focus and better adapt to your users’ needs when planning your network infrastructure. Align your network more closely to your daily requirements, based on traceable and in-depth data evaluation.

Summary

Mist Cloud Services provide true added value, opening up opportunities for network use beyond Wi-Fi. Mist is constantly extending its portfolio of services – meaning more exciting services can be expected in the future, too. So it’s worth checking out every so often. We would be delighted to advise you on which services are appropriate for your business, and how you can get the best out of your network.

Questions? Just ask!

I am Pablo Vertedor Sanchez from the HCD sales team. I will be happy to advise you or assist you with any questions. You can phone me on +41 58 590 110-0 or reach me using our contact form.

Questions?Just ask!