What makes Juniper Mist so special? 5 questions with Softsource vBridge
Juniper Mist’s AI-Native network capabilities are designed for heavy-hitting enterprise performance – but how relevant are they to the needs of smaller New Zealand organisations? We sat down with Pablo Garcia-Curtis, Group CEO of Softsource vBridge, to find out why New Zealand businesses should pay attention to Juniper Mist no matter their size or industry.
Q: To start with, tell us a bit about Softsource vBridge and your mission.
Pablo Garcia-Curtis: For the past 20 years, we’ve been providing New Zealand businesses with ICT solutions that help them innovate and compete more effectively. We offer world-class IT deployments, built on the best tech from around the world, in a consumption model that prioritises local-friendly prices and terms to make innovation as accessible to New Zealand as possible.
Dicker Data has played a big role on this journey. With their help on distribution and support, we were able to pioneer several network-as-a-service offerings in the country. And as we start to roll out new solutions like Juniper Mist, they help us stay up to date with both our own technical knowledge and the latest industry developments so that everything we build directly matches what our customers need most.
Q: What do you see as the biggest trends in New Zealand’s enterprise networking space right now?
PGC: On the one hand, IT is focusing heavily on automating for AI integration – largely to improve network productivity and performance. They want to do more with less, especially with access to dedicated technical skills becoming increasingly restricted and competitive.
On the other hand, business leaders – especially those at the board level – recognise a growing need to enhance network security from the ground up. Local-level security is no longer sufficient: you increasingly need zero-trust technology and design to mitigate all sorts of complex and diffuse risks like those posed by remote working.
Q: How does Juniper Mist fit into all of this?
PGC: The addition of the Juniper Mist stack to HPE’s networking portfolio is exciting because it single-handedly addresses both these trends. Mist AI, for example, provides a lot of the automation capability to optimise the network for innovation at speed and scale: it’s already proving a real game-changer for many of the enterprises and public sector organisations we’re talking to. And with that automation comes much deeper visibility of networks, right down to the individual end-user device – which allows for much more robust cybersecurity and overall network management.
For us as a managed services provider, Juniper Mist allows us to take much greater control of the overall network experience. We’re able to use the reporting and statistics that Juniper Mist offers to identify patterns that might be abnormal, diagnose them at speed, and block the underlying causes before they can pose any significant risk to productivity or security – even in hybrid environments where not all devices or systems are within the traditional enterprise bubble. Overall, that means a much more consistent experience where all users get the right applications and the right responses at the right time.
Q: Juniper Mist’s value proposition primarily addresses large enterprises. Can New Zealand’s businesses still benefit from it?
PGC: I would say the underlying capabilities are incredibly valuable to businesses of all sizes. Our goal as a managed services provider is to create accessibility around such capabilities so that every business in New Zealand can take advantage of the Juniper technology’s benefits to generate new opportunities in exciting innovations or new markets.
A big part of this involves upskilling the community – not just partners, but also customers. Most New Zealand organisations, whether small or large, still aren’t hugely familiar with what AI-powered networking solutions like Mist can do. A big part of our work so far has been finding ways to help these organisations learn what’s possible and then apply those learnings to their own situations.
I would also encourage smaller businesses to look at and learn from larger players in their industry. We’re already seeing strong demand for Juniper Mist in certain industries where cybersecurity is critical, like finance and healthcare. The productivity angle of Mist particularly appeals to finance, where AI-driven network optimisation can help improve the speed of every single transaction while remaining within the bounds of regulation. Those kinds of use cases can offer value industry-wide, and even create some compelling competitive advantages for smaller firms that move fast on adoption.
Q: For those IT or business leaders who want to make that first move, but aren’t exactly sure how to start, what would be your advice?
PGC: First, identify what issue you want to solve with Juniper Mist. Then, tell the story about how you plan to do so. The more significant the problem, and the more impactful the value your story presents, the more likely you are to get buy-in from the rest of the business.
My suggestion would be to start with cybersecurity – which is one of the biggest drivers of board-level conversations in New Zealand today. Boards everywhere are constantly looking at ways to mitigate risk and give comfort to end-users that they are doing so. If you can demonstrate how Juniper Mist strengthens the organisation’s overall cyber posture by plugging weaknesses in new ways, you’re well on your way to getting your most important decision-makers on board.
Finally, learn and keep learning about what Juniper Mist can do to address your organisation’s challenges. Join industry events (like those we and Dicker host), read up on best-practice examples in New Zealand and abroad, talk to those who are already in the process of implementation. The more you know about what’s possible with Juniper Mist, the easier you’ll find it to close the gap between problem and innovation.
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