The California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) and its related organizations including the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) spent more than a year working with Sunnyvale-based Juniper Networks, a familiar vendor, to transform its data center and office networks. Among the takeaways:
- CNRA’s architecture prior to modernization was spread across 36 offices, its data center and headquarters, and its Wi-Fi network was controller-based. Somewhat simultaneously, state IT policy since 2010 has focused on transitioning out of non-Tier III data centers and server rooms; and the agency and related entities moved locations for the first time in six decades. CNRA and 11 affiliated organizations moved to 715 P St. in Sacramento in the fall of 2021, marking the occasion with an open house last June. Per an Oct. 29, 2010, IT policy letter from the Office of the State CIO, DWR’s data center “serves as the Tier III-equivalent facility for the Natural Resources Agency and its associated departments.” But, CNRA and DWR Chief Technology Officer Sarb Takhar said in a statement, “We left old-school government thought processes behind. We looked at how we would design the data center and office networks as if we were a Fortune 500 corporation.” Find Juniper’s use case on its work with DWR and CNRA here.
- Juniper had already worked with CNRA and DWR on smaller refreshes at the core of its network; but these, Juniper Practice Leader for State & Local Government Ben Caruso told Industry Insider — California, weren’t full-fledged modernizations. Following a competitive procurement, he said, Juniper worked with the agency and other partners to modernize its architecture end to end. The project began in 2020 and finished in 2021, about 13 months later; it’s now in operations mode. Juniper products used included the AP43 high-performance Wi-Fi 6 access point; Wi-Fi Assurance, a machine learning-based cloud service that automates manual troubleshooting and takes it wireless; and Marvis, the company’s premiere virtual network assistant for enterprise-level wireless local area networks (WLANs) as well as LANs and wide area networks (WANs) that makes network ops proactive.
- “Doing a project with this magnitude during the pandemic was no easy feat with supply chain issues, resourcing,” Caruso said. “But given all of that, given the scope of the modernization and given the adversity from the pandemic and the positive outcomes we’ve seen from this project, it’s probably one of my most favorite use cases across state and local government.”
- The project’s results have been significant; it consolidated networks from nine different entities into one. The agency calculated more than $1 million in savings from the reduced network operating costs of a shared infrastructure; per the use case, the new data center now supports 36 CNRA entities, 2,500 business applications, 6,000 servers and 13 petabytes of data. There’s been an 80 percent increase in data center network capacity. Automating processes was crucial. Automating implementation via zero-touch provisioning helped speed time-to-value, and artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps) automated operational processes for network operators. Driving operational simplicity and creating a culture of innovation, Caruso said, facilitates the entry of talented younger hires who may not have a lengthy list of certifications but are ready to move beyond mere troubleshooting positions.
- On takeaways from the project, Caruso indicated confusion may sometimes exist between whether a refresh or a larger modernization is needed. Modernizations, he said, should have positive outcomes that touch on three pillars: improving the experience, containing automation and providing a financial benefit whether via operating expenses (OPEX), real dollars or time and effort — with the first two leading to the third. Overcoming any knowledge gap is vital, he said, suggesting knowing an entity’s existing environment and needs are key, as is knowing what private-sector partners like Juniper can bring to the table.
