“Network managers have two imperatives they need to act on: simplification and automation”– 2018 Strategic Roadmap for Networking, Gartner
Customers deploying Extreme’s Automated Campus architecture have benefited from the combination of our Shortest-Path Bridging technology (Extreme Fabric Connect), along with our Extreme Management Center platform. Together, these solutions streamline the network and simplify operations, while providing integrated analytics, policy and insight – all through a single pane of glass.
But time doesn’t stand still, and we continue to evolve these solutions. We wanted to share our most recent 10 enhancements – available now or in the very near future – to help you start thinking about how to take your network to the next-level!
We introduced Extreme Management Center integration for our ERS and VSP portfolios just months after the Avaya acquisition. Now, we are introducing within Extreme Management Center comprehensive fault, visualization and provisioning capabilities for our Fabric Connect technology. This will make your simple and secure network even easier to manage and operate.
Extreme Defender for IoT is an innovative IoT security solution that locks down who and how an IoT device can communicate over any type of network. It also isolates an IoT device within its own secure network zone. While most agree Defender is cool, Defender deployed in conjunction with Fabric Connect, as part of our Automated Campus solution, is mega-cool! With the combined technologies, you get policy plus dynamic secure segment establishment over a stealth (invisible) topology.
Arguably one of the most exciting enhancements is the extension of our application telemetry and analytics capabilities to our VSP portfolio. This allows for a consistent deep level of network and application insights that extend end-to-end. These deep insights help strengthen security by detecting anomalous packets as well as pinpointing machine-to-machine or user-to-user attacks across the network.
Public cloud services are being adopted at a rapid pace, and not from just a single provider. Most customers are now picking and choosing cloud services from multiple providers – hence the trend towards hybrid and multi-cloud. Extreme’s analytics and policy capabilities now extend into cloud environments – including AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure – to provide end-to-end network and application analytics in and out of public clouds with consistent policy capabilities.
Our users need for speed is insatiable! And with more bandwidth-consuming applications on the horizon, building a future-proof high-capacity backbone is something you need to continue thinking about. Extreme is introducing the VSP 7400 switch – which not only is our first purple VSP switch – but also is one of the only platforms in the market that flexibly supports data rates from 10 to 100G, all in a single model.
The edge is where it’s at. It’s not only the intersection point of users and the network, it’s also the first line of defense against cyber-attacks. The edge switches you install matter! The X465 Series supports 1, 2.5, and 5-Gig ports for connecting a range of access devices – with flexible 10/25/40 Gig uplink options. It also includes 30W, 60W and 90W PoE model options with greater speed and resilience for powering connected devices.
One of the unique characteristics of Extreme Fabric Connect is that it extends to the wireless APs. This common data plane along with management, policy and analytics will be extended to our Wi-Fi 6 (or 802.11ax APs). Another critically important feature when talking about wired and wireless multi-site networks is our Distributed Virtual Routing (DvR) capabilities. For any of you with large multi-site deployments, take a look at DvR to see how you can improve wireless performance, optimize client roaming and optimize traffic flows within the campus.
Many campuses require a border router to reliably and securely connect to the Internet. What better product to provide this than Extreme’s SLX portfolio! With a variety of models to suit different campus environments, these products offer price and performance leadership, scalability, and security. Plus, they are integrated into Extreme Management Center for single pane of glass management.
Do you have guests frequently visiting your organization? Do you have non-technical staff that need to on-board devices? If yes, the new Guest and IoT Manager in ExtremeControl allows non-IT personnel to on-board guests and devices in less than 10 seconds! This can be done via a choice of on-boarding mechanisms, including self-service, front desk, sponsor and social media. Onboarding can now be delegated to non-IT personnel, while still enabling IT to maintain a full audit-trail for compliance.
We all know Extreme Fabric Connect is amazing; however, we also know there are switches in your network that do not support this functionality. With our upcoming Fabric Assist feature, you can extend fabric-based automation to your non-fabric enabled switches including; S- and K-Series, as well as A/B/C/N-series, 7100-Series and ISW switches. This feature automates the translation of VLANs to fabric-based services to dramatically simplify networking.
To learn more about the Extreme Automated Campus solution, please visit our solution page or these resources:
