Bart Moves Faster With High-Performance Network From Juniper Networks

Juniper Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: JNPR), the leader in high-performance networking, today announced that the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District has deployed the Juniper Networks DX load balancing and application acceleration platforms. BART deployed the DX platforms to speed up response times for employees using its new Oracle PeopleSoft human resources and payroll/timekeeping applications. The DX appliances offer BART additional server load balancing, application acceleration and proxy security control for Oracle PeopleSoft applications and approximately 110 electronic time collection devices across the Bay Area.

As part of the company’s Business Advancement Program (BAP), BART installed several DX appliances to help streamline the performance of online employee resources. Migrating from a paper-based manual system to a fully automated scheduling, time collection and approval process has dramatically improved efficiency and reduced the risk of errors. The implementation of the DX appliances was designed, installed and implemented together with BART’s new network architecture and datacenter.

“Thanks to the Juniper Networks DX appliances our BAP rollout went very smoothly,” said Robin Cody, CIO at BART. “With our BAP initiative, we’ve been able to automate many of our manual functions including payroll and timekeeping, as well as many of our human resources applications. The DX appliances help us to manage our employee resources in real-time, reduce the number of errors, and increase productivity and security.”

BART selected MAXIMUS (NYSE:MMS), a certified Oracle PeopleSoft systems integrator, to provide end-to-end business transformation services and the implementation of the DX appliances. “BART’s BAP called for a substantial replacement of its information technology systems to support its administrative business with an integrated suite of enterprise applications to meet the District’s current and future business needs,” said Scott Lemasters, Technical Director at MAXIMUS. “We’ve used the Juniper Networks DX appliances in several previous PeopleSoft deployments with dramatic performance improvements, and when BART decided to roll out its BAP initiative we knew that the DX appliances would be an integral part of the network infrastructure.”

The Juniper Networks DX load balancing and application acceleration platform delivers a complete solution for improving the performance of web-enabled and IP-based business applications for local, remote and mobile users. Based on the unique DX Framework, the DX platform greatly enhances the end-user experience by delivering content quicker and enabling increased user productivity. The DX appliances offer high-availability and security requirements through a combination of centralized services-including server load balancing, global server load balancing, SSL encryption and termination, HTTP compression and application security-on a single device.

“By leveraging the capabilities of the DX appliances BART is able to provide improved services to both management and employees in real-time,” said Sanjay Beri, vice president and head of the Access Solutions business unit at Juniper Networks. The DX appliances help offload CPU intensive tasks on the servers to free up resources and improve application performance, dramatically improving the efficiency of BART’s new applications.