How automation changed daily work, accelerated change, and reduced the burden of manual, onsite tasks.
In education networks, 'uptime' isn’t an IT metric-it’s the baseline for access to learning and services. For CEnet, supporting the digital needs of 370,000 students and educators across 816 schools required a network that was resilient, secure, and agile enough to adapt quickly as member needs evolved.
At the same time, demand growth was relentless: schools’ internet connectivity needs are increasing 20% year over year. That kind of growth exposes the limits of manual operations, especially when changes require time-consuming processes, onsite visits, and risk-heavy implementations.
The goal: accelerate delivery while simplifying operations
CEnet wanted to modernise its data centre services to deliver applications and services faster and more efficiently. That included refreshing the primary data centre and establishing a secondary data centre to enhance resilience, performance, and operational agility.
The decision came down to finding a platform that could support transformation without overextending teams or budgets. As Jenkins explains: “Juniper was the obvious choice to reimagine and rearchitect our network,” adding that CEnet could achieve its data centre transformation goals within the allocated budget while streamlining operations and accelerating service deployments.
The shift: lifecycle automation with intent-based networking
CEnet adopted Juniper’s automated data centresolution to simplify operations by automating fabric operations across its highly available data centres, improving business resiliency and accelerating IT service delivery.
In practice, that automation is delivered through Juniper Apstra Data Center Director, which manages the data centre fabric and automates the full lifecycle from Day 0 design through Day2 operations. Intent-based networking and blueprints ensure accurate configurations from the start and continuously validate that the live networkmatches the intended configuration. That means fewer surprises, clearer governance, and more confidence when changes are required.
Secure Agility led the end-to-endtransformation, redesigning and modernising the environment while minimising operational disruption. Mike Merit summarises: “Given the critical nature ofthe environment, a phased after-hours migration was essential. It allowed us to modernise the platform and significantly improve resilience while ensuring the network remained fully operational, so the many organisations that depend on it.”
The real win: operational responsiveness
The most visible impact shows up where IT teams feel it every day-how quickly they can deliver changes and services. CEnet can now provision network services in minutes, rather than the 4–8hours required for manual changes, including travel.
Jenkins captures that change in plain terms: “We can make changes in minutes versus spending a half day or full day driving to the data centre to make physical changes as we did before.” That single operational shift translates into faster outcomes for members and less disruption for schools and communities.
Automation also enables safer change practices. With Data Center Director, CEnet can design changes abstracted from the live environment and execute them at off-peak times so they won’t impact schools, childcare centres, or parish communities. That supports a more controlled change cadence, without forcing engineers into constant firefighting.
Designed for scale, built for what’s next
Underneath the operational workflow is a fabric designed for agility and resilience. CEnet’s high-throughput EVPN-VXLAN fabric enhances scalability, optimises resource efficiency, and improves resilience for applications and infrastructure services. On the edge, JuniperMX304 routers aggregate traffic from member schools, helping CEnet meetgrowing bandwidth and service demands in space- and power-constrained environments.
As bandwidth consumption rises, CEnet’sbroader strategy remains focused on delivering value to members. Jenkins notes:“Our members downloaded 27 petabytes of data last year,” and CEnet has seen a 2,381% volume increase in internet traffic while saving $15 million over 10 years because of its on-net network strategy.
The bigger takeaway is that lifecycle automation isn’t just a 'better way to configure switches.' It changes how quickly an organisation can respond while protecting service continuity for the communities that depend on it. And that’s exactly what education networks need most.
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