Extreme Networks Technology Solutions
Wireless LAN:
Driving success for Apple® iOS® devices at school and in the workplace
The realities of today's enterprise "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD) initiatives are changing the landscape of wireless infrastructure design, rollout, and management. At the forefront of this revolution is the Apple iPad® and iPhone®. The quality of user experience and simplicity of these content-rich Apple devices has accelerated adoption of these devices in the home, classroom, and work place. Without exception, users of Apple devices have come to expect an easy anytime-anywhere wireless LAN connection for their WiFi devices that is equal to or better than the service from their cellular connection. Most importantly to enterprises is that these devices do not disrupt traditional workplace IT access requirements.
Extreme Networks is exceeding the WiFi simplicity expectations of users, without compromising the robust enterprise feature sets and security functions required by IT. Extreme Networks iFriendly wireless LAN simplifies the delivery and reduces the operational expense of delivering wireless services to users. One area is reducing the number of wireless networks, traditionally known to users as "SSIDs", to a single campus SSID with role-based user access controls. This unique technology simplifies traditional wireless network design while simplifying the onboarding experience for users connecting their Apple devices. Extreme Networks specific security controls ensure this is accomplished without sacrificing the iOS client's network access security.
Extreme Networks leads the wireless market with their ability to transparently transition access to available IP services for users without disruption or action performed on the client device, such as changing an IP address. Some companies may advertise that they can use a single SSID - but what they don't tell you is that you must use a complex VLAN architecture and ACLs when provisioning services for users. This complexity results in users experiencing service outages, increased time to troubleshoot service tickets and unhappy end users.
The Extreme Networks wireless LAN solution addresses a key issue with iOS application functionality: application proxy. Many iOS applications are not "proxy-aware" - a function that is able to detect whether or not a network proxy is required for that application to receive traffic critical to the application's function. This incompatibility results in end user frustration, evolving the IT service desk to a technical assistance desk for each application in use on the network. That is a cost and function many enterprises just cannot afford.
Extreme Networks provides a transparent proxy service natively as a part of their wireless network fabric - to proxy application traffic even if the WiFi device doesn't support it. This removes a key obstacle for users; the requirement for the user to configure their apps for use on your wireless LAN. Easing the deployment for the user reduces service desk calls and improves end user satisfaction with IT.
Simply stated, Extreme Networks is accelerating the adoption of connected Apple devices into the wireless IT landscape without sacrificing user experience or corporate security posture.
Simplify Wireless LAN for Users
- Single wireless LAN (SSID) for every user
- Per user controls vs. per SSID access controls greatly simplifies wireless deployment and reduces annual operational expenses
- OneView for complete asset profile and location awareness of all Apple iOS client devices throughout the connected environment, improving troubleshooting and service delivery
- Native iOS client device fingerprinting can identify and/or eliminate network access of "unsupported" or "jailbroken" devices to improve systemwide security
- Bonjour® multicast filtering which eliminates unnecessary peer-to-peer communication, improving bandwidth and application responsiveness within a dense Apple client environment
Data Center:
Providing Automation and Resiliency to Ensure Application Availability
The data center serves as the backbone of the corporate network, connecting together servers, applications and storage across one infrastructure. Cloud computing and virtualization technologies are forcing enterprises to rethink their data center design to ensure the performance and efficiency of computing and storage resources in the face of increasing application demands.
To meet these challenges, enterprises require networking solutions that go beyond basic high speed connectivity. The network must be interoperable, scalable and optimized to meet the automation and visibility requirements of a highly dynamic data center.
Extreme Networks data center solutions drive down operational costs through a combination of management automation across both physical and virtual environments and a robust and highly resilient distributed architecture. Built-in compliance controls and an open, standards-based approach for interoperability with existing data center solutions ensures a solid foundation for virtualization.
Extreme Networks Data Center Manager (DCM) is a key member of the Extreme Networks data center solution family. This powerful unified management system provides IT administrators a transparent, cross-functional service provisioning process that bridges the divide among the server, networking and storage teams. By presenting an integrated view of virtual server and network environments, this solution provides significant operational efficiencies among teams in the IT organization. With a unique vendor-agnostic approach, DCM supports a variety of virtualization, storage and server platforms, enabling the unified management of the physical and virtual network and ensuring networks will have the high availability necessary for critical applications and business data.
With network intelligence that can easily and dynamically provision resources across both virtual and physical environments, Extreme Networks data center solutions are leveraged by enterprises around the world to:
- Ensure the highest availability for mission-critical data center applications
- Offer interoperability with leading virtualization platforms
- Reduce the work load and increase the efficiency of the IT organization
- Provide secure mobility of virtual machines across geographies
Integrated Voice and Video Networks:
Providing Unique Capabilities to Guarantee Service Quality for Multimedia IP-Based Networks
Unified voice, video, and data communications in conjunction with collaboration technologies enable employees to work more productively and enhance overall business efficiency. The challenges to achieving these goals include increases in devices being networked, new multimedia applications with demanding network service requirements, and increased employee mobility. Enterprises worldwide need to satisfy the reliability, quality, manageability, mobility and security requirements of integrated voice, video and data services, all of which are essential elements of unified communications.
To meet these challenges, enterprises demand networking solutions that provide both wired and wireless access as well as automated traffic prioritization capabilities to support today's multimedia business applications. With embedded intelligence that can be fine-tuned to the stringent requirements of voice and video applications, Extreme Networks networking solutions are leveraged to:
- Increase employee productivity through improved availability and reliability of real-time and collaborative applications
- Reduce administrative expenditures and costs with automated configuration of IP phones and other devices
- Automatically identify, prioritize, and control voice and video traffic on a per user basis based upon business requirements
- Guarantee service quality and reliability for voice and video applications within shared wired and wireless environments
Cloud Computing:
Providing the Visibility to Ensure Cloud Application Availability
With the promise of reduced costs and improved productivity, enterprises are making the move to cloud computing. Emphasizing a pay-as-you-go model, the cloud architecture allows organizations to deploy applications and resources on an as-needed basis, greatly reducing on-going costs.
The trend towards cloud computing is forcing enterprises to ensure they have the bandwidth and controls in place to ensure Quality of Service (QoS) for applications. Traditional network equipment lacks the visibility into cloud content needed to ensure on-demand applications have the flexible network resources they depend on to perform as expected.
To meet these challenges, the Cloud-Aware Network™ solution by Extreme Networks simplifies deployment of a private cloud computing framework. The Extreme Networks Cloud-Aware Network automatically provisions and prioritizes applications and users, ensuring a positive and productive user experience. Extreme Networks cloud computing solutions are leveraged to:
- Assure Quality of Service (QoS) for on-demand applications
- Reduce infrastructure CAPEX and OPEX through network optimization and automation
- Promote interoperability with existing network environments through the use of standards-based technology
- Take advantage of the enhanced capabilities of the Extreme Networks LAN and WLAN product portfolio to ensure a positive experience for cloud computing users
Compliance:
Efficiently Addressing Changing Regulatory Mandates and Minimizing Business Impact
Businesses have to manage an ever-changing list of regulatory mandates from government agencies and financial institutions. They need solutions to enable compliance with minimal cost and impact on business performance. The Extreme Networks network approach to enabling compliance focuses on building and maintaining a properly secured network. This allows enterprises to efficiently satisfy the network requirements of multiple compliance mandates and at the same time gain the benefits of a well-managed and more secure network.
Extreme Networks compliance solutions ensure that only authorised users can access critical information using approved applications from approved locations at approved times. Network access is controlled, business critical information is properly prioritized and secured, and threats are detected and mitigated. The Extreme Networks solution provides reporting tools to easily audit usage of the network and validate compliance with internal or external regulations and policies. Extreme Networks solutions are fully standards-based and designed for open interoperability to protect the enterprise's existing investments.
Extreme Networks solutions for compliance are leveraged to:
- Protect the confidentiality and integrity of data as it traverses the network infrastructure
- Prioritize and control access to critical information, including managing guest access
- Identify, isolate and automatically remediate security incidents
- Report on compliant and non-compliant states of end systems, applications and services - both real-time and at historical intervals