Here Come New Products from Extreme Networks’ ‘Smart OmniEdge’

Extreme on Tuesday announced the Smart OmniEdge family of products, including four new technologies that are designed to enhance the edge network experience. The new products fuse together technology from acquisitions over the past year and a half.

The Smart OmniEdge technologies include: ExtremeAI for Smart OmniEdge; Extreme Cloud Appliance; Extreme Extended Edge Switching; and Extreme Defender for IoT.

“We’ve been pretty effective over the last year bringing together our Agile Data Center product portfolio and our Automated Campus product portfolio as well, and we had a very unified wireless product offer, but we just haven’t taken the opportunity to market the Smart OmniEdge capabilities that we have,” Mike Leibovitz, senior director of product management and strategy at Extreme Networks, told us.

The latest Extreme product, Smart OmniEdge is an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled network edge solution that’s comprised of a secure, unified wired/wireless (WLAN) infrastructure and AI-driven management capabilities that are accessible through a single pane of glass. The solution provides visibility, policy and authentication services across the entire infrastructure.

Mike Leibovitz

Calling the edge of the network the lifeline for many organizations, particularly in verticals such as health care, retail and education, where the user experience is largely over Wi-Fi, organizations have their unique set of challenges that go beyond simply providing Wi-Fi service to augmenting the experience and creating a better business outcome.

Smart OmniEdge is purpose-built to address the growth of users, as well as IoT devices, to deliver a consistent customer-driven experience across diverse network environments, via flexibility of on-premises deployment or as-a-service offering. The resulting network and insights give customers the agility required to grow and adapt quickly as their business needs change, while protecting their investments.

The new Smart OmniEdge product family includes Extreme’s wired, wireless, network management, cloud, analytics and security capabilities, including:

• ExtremeAI for Smart OmniEdge — A hosted application that augments human intelligence with artificial intelligence to the complex task of RF management. The solution uses machine learning to collect network analytics, device statistics, connection rates, and user and application experience characteristics. This enables the network to continuously learn and adapt to a customer’s clients and applications accessing the Wi-Fi network.
• ExtremeCloud Appliance — Designed for customers who like the simplicity of ExtremeCloud and want an on-premises solution, ExtremeCloud Appliance delivers cloud-like licensing and management with tightly integrated services and features that on-premises deployments require. ExtremeCloud Appliance is container-ready for operational expansion. It is also available as a virtual machine (VM) for customers that have their own private-cloud services.
• Extreme Extended Edge Switching — An innovative technology that collapses multiple network layers into a single logical switch, enhancing the intelligence of edge switches, while flattening the network and eliminating deployment complexity. The result is a simplified operational model that reduces costs.
• Extreme Defender for IoT — A comprehensive security solution that simplifies on-boarding and securing of wired IoT devices. The Extreme Defender application can be deployed on the ExtremeCloud Appliance in any form factor and used to ensure secure access of IoT devices plugged into the wall jack AP or the Extreme Defender Adaptor. The solution provides centralized visibility and management, enabling IT to analyze traffic flows and pinpoint anomalies. The solution works with Extreme FabricConnect or over third-party networks to protect IoT devices. It’s ideal for health-care environments.

The new offers open up new customer conversations for partners.

“It’s an excellent opportunity for resellers to have a business conversation with their customers,”  Leibovitz said, referring to the ExtremeCloud Appliance, which gives businesses the flexibility to invest in technology for today and tomorrow. “We want to make sure that it’s very easy to sell and deliver the outcomes for the given verticals and customers regardless of what their network or organization looks like,” he said.

Smart OmniEdge products will begin shipping in August. ExtremeAI and Extreme Defender will ship in September or October, the company said.