Scaling Data Centres for Efficient Growth

At Servers Australia, we pride ourselves on delivering top-tier cloud and colocation services through our secure data centres located in Australia’s major cities.

Our infrastructure-as-a-service solutions, including private cloud offerings and Virtual Data Centres, are designed to meet the evolving needs of our customers. To continue delivering exceptional service and staying ahead of the curve, we modernised and automated our data centre infrastructure using Juniper Apstra intent-based networking software and Juniper data centre switches.

The Challenge

As demand for our cloud, web hosting, and infrastructure services grew, we recognised the need to enhance the performance and capacity of our data centre networks. Scaling efficiently and ensuring reliability were critical to supporting our customers’ diverse requirements, including enterprise storage and security.

In addition to scaling, we wanted to:

• Automate our operations to support a lean infrastructure team

• Improve agility to quickly respond to customer needs

• Maintain consistent, reliable network performance

Expanding our service portfolio led to increased customer demand, and we knew that automation would be essential to meeting this challenge. As Jaden Roberts, our Network Operations Manager, explained, “We wanted to use automation to ease infrastructure operations for our lean team.”

The Solution

To achieve our goals, we implemented Juniper Apstra intent-based networking software to streamline the design, deployment, and operations of our network fabric in our Sydney data centres.

With Apstra, we gained:

• A single source of truth for managing our infrastructure.

• The ability to make network-wide changes confidently.

• Advanced analytics to optimise network performance and address issues proactively.

“Apstra was a game changer, enabling a seamless, reliable network to support growing demand.”

Jaden Roberts - Network Operations Manager

We deployed Juniper QFX5120 switches to build a robust EVPN/VXLAN network fabric. By following Juniper’s validated design, we ensured a smooth deployment and maintained consistency across our data centres.

Previously, provisioning private cloud services for our customers required hundreds of lines of code and took 8-12 hours. With Apstra, we reduced this process to just 30 minutes.

The Outcome

The modernisation of our data centre networks has delivered significant benefits to our business and our customers:

1. Faster Service Delivery
   Apstra’s automation capabilities have enabled us to hand over services to our customers much faster.
   “Instead of taking days or weeks, it can now be same day or next day, depending on the service ordered,” said Jaden Roberts.

2. Enhanced Network Performance and Capacity
   Our network now supports significantly higher performance levels.
   “Before the upgrade, servers, and storage were connected at 2x10G, and now it’s 2x25G. The backbone has increased from 10G to multiple hundred gig,” Roberts shared.

3. Streamlined Operations
   Automating policy implementation has eliminated the need for time-consuming, error-prone manual configurations. This allows our team to focus on strategic initiatives that drive customer success.

With Juniper’s solutions, we are well-equipped to meet the growing demands of our customers and continue delivering the reliable, high-performing cloud and colocation services they expect from Servers Australia.