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HPE: How Dartmouth College Transformed Network Admin with Mist AI

Hewlett Packard Enterprise
07/31/2026
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When I started at Dartmouth in 2011, we had about 4,500 devices on the wireless network. Yesterday, we topped 27,000. We're no longer at the point where Wi-Fi is the primary access method. It's the only access. You genuinely have people who are never going to plug any device ever into a network again. So in order to address all these needs, what we're currently deploying is comprehensive 5 GHz coverage with Mist. Initially, when we started the journey with Mist, we actually thought the AI part was a gimmick, just because AI and ML are the two most commonly used buzzwords people throw at you. As it turns out, Mist's AI engine, Marvis, has been transformational in how we approach solving wireless tickets. Marvis basically just enables people to interact with all of the data that Mist is accumulating as a system and ask it natural language questions. You can just bring up Marvis and literally say, what is wrong with Bob's Wi-Fi today? And it'll give you back an answer. All of this also really plays into our current drive to get back into what at Dartmouth used to be described as the golden age of computing. Back in the 50s and 60s, we had a bunch of mathematics professors who were way ahead of their time. The first time that the words artificial intelligence were put together were at a 1956 summer workshop at Dartmouth with names like Marvin Minsky, Claude Shannon. I mean, the 20 people of who is who in AI or information theory today. As IT has become more commoditized, we kind of slipped away from working together and trying to make something better happen. So now we're trying to undergo an effort to get back to more of a partnership and actually enhance what they're doing in their job instead of just providing the mere basics that they need to do their job. And I think with this Mist new network upgrade, we're very much trying to deliver exactly that.

TL;DR

  • Dartmouth College's wireless network has grown from 4,500 to over 27,000 devices since 2011, making Wi-Fi the sole network access method across campus.
  • The team was initially skeptical of AI in networking but found Juniper Mist's Marvis AI engine genuinely transformational for resolving wireless support tickets.
  • Marvis allows IT staff to ask natural language questions about network issues, dramatically simplifying troubleshooting and reducing time to resolution.

Summary

In this customer spotlight, Dartmouth College's network team shares how the campus has grown from 4,500 wireless devices in 2011 to over 27,000 today — a scale at which Wi-Fi is no longer just the primary access method, but the only one. To manage this complexity, Dartmouth deployed Juniper Mist with comprehensive 5 GHz coverage across campus. Initially skeptical of AI and machine learning as marketing buzzwords, the team discovered that Mist's AI engine, Marvis, genuinely transformed how they diagnose and resolve wireless support tickets. Marvis enables staff to query the network using plain natural language — asking questions like 'What is wrong with Bob's Wi-Fi today?' and receiving actionable answers instantly. The IT team frames this capability as part of a broader institutional mission to recapture what Dartmouth calls its 'golden age of computing,' rooted in the college's historic role as the birthplace of the term 'artificial intelligence' at a 1956 summer workshop attended by Marvin Minsky, Claude Shannon, and other pioneers. Rather than simply delivering baseline IT services, Dartmouth's team now aims to be a genuine partner to faculty and staff — using AI-driven networking tools to enhance, not just enable, the work being done across campus.

Chapters

0:00 - Dartmouth's Network Growth
0:22 - Deploying Mist at Scale
0:27 - From Skepticism to Transformation
1:02 - Recapturing the Golden Age of Computing

Key Quotes

0:12 "We're no longer at the point where Wi-Fi is the primary access method. It's the only access."
0:27 "Initially, when we started the journey with Mist, we actually thought the AI part was a gimmick, just because AI and ML are the two most commonly used buzzwords people throw at you."
0:36 "As it turns out, Mist's AI engine, Marvis, has been transformational in how we approach solving wireless tickets."
0:50 "You can just bring up Marvis and literally say, what is wrong with Bob's Wi-Fi today? And it'll give you back an answer."

FAQ

What is Marvis and how does it help network administrators?

Marvis is the AI engine built into Juniper Mist that allows IT staff to interact with network data using plain natural language questions. Instead of digging through logs or dashboards, administrators can simply ask what is wrong with a specific user's Wi-Fi and receive a direct answer.

Why did Dartmouth choose Mist for its wireless upgrade?

Dartmouth deployed Mist to provide comprehensive 5 GHz coverage for a campus where Wi-Fi is the only network access method. The AI-driven management capabilities, particularly Marvis, proved to be a key differentiator in simplifying operations at scale.


Categories:
  • » Cybersecurity » Network Security
  • » Data Protection
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  • AI & Machine Learning
  • Network Security
  • Customer Story
  • Getting Started
  • Demo
  • AI-driven network management
  • Natural language IT operations
  • Campus Wi-Fi infrastructure
  • Juniper Mist
  • Marvis AI engine
  • Higher education networking
  • Wireless troubleshooting
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