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Extreme Networks, Inc.
- Networking Equipment - Category Main Page
(408)
579-2800
3585
Monroe Street
Santa Clara, CA 95051
www.extremenetworks.com
Sales
$352
million
Business Description
Extreme Networks, Inc. is a leading provider of network infrastructure
equipment for corporate, government, education and health care enterprises
and metropolitan service providers. We were established in 1996 to address
the issues caused by slow and expensive legacy networks. We endeavored to
change the industry by replacing complex software-based routers with simple,
fast, highly intelligent, hardware-based switches. The broad acceptance of
this innovative, simplified approach to networking has enabled us to become
an industry leader. Our ultimate goal is to realize our technology vision of
Ethernet Everywhere – a unifying network strategy that uses proven Ethernet
technology to simplify each element of the network. We believe our Ethernet
Everywhere vision is the foundation for a future of easily deployable,
highly scalable, comprehensively managed, ubiquitous bandwidth for networks,
applications and users.
Our family of switching products provides significant performance
improvements compared to legacy infrastructures, while enabling greater
network flexibility and scalability, ease of use and a lower cost of
ownership.
We have achieved these advantages by utilizing application specific
integrated circuits, or ASICs, as well as merchant silicon in our products
and by creating a common hardware, software and network management
architecture for our products. In our products, the routing of network
traffic, a function referred to as Layer 3 switching, is done primarily with
our unique chipsets that provide faster processing of data than the
CPU/software implementations used in many conventional networking products.
We believe that our unique hardware and software designs can also provide a
better price/performance ratio, resulting in a higher return on investment
for our customers. Since chipsets are built for specific purposes, it allows
for a lower cost structure with increased performance compared to other
alternatives.
The Extreme Networks Solution
We provide Ethernet networking solutions that meet the requirements of
today’s enterprises and service providers by providing increased
performance, scalability, policy-based quality of service, simplicity of use
and lower cost of ownership. Our products share a common hardware, software
and network management architecture, are based on industry-standard routing
and network management protocols and offer advanced policy-based quality of
service features. Our switches can be managed from any browser-equipped
desktop PC or the Telnet applet supported in almost all operating systems.
The Telnet applet allows access to the Command Line Interface, or CLI, which
a system administrator may prefer to use.
The
key benefits of our solutions are:
Lower cost of ownership. Our products are generally less expensive than
software-based routers, yet offer higher routing performance. We believe
that by sharing a common hardware, software and management architecture, our
products can substantially reduce the cost and complexity of network
management and administration. This uniform architecture creates a simpler
network infrastructure that leverages the resources businesses have invested
in Ethernet/IP-based networks, thereby requiring fewer resources and less
time to maintain the network.
Simplicity. Networks typically consist of many different technologies and
types of equipment. This complexity often makes it expensive and difficult
to effectively manage and expand networks. We meet these challenges by
focusing on product consistency and simplicity. Our products share a common
hardware, software and network management architecture and enable Layer 3
switching at wire-speed in each key area of the network. This allows
customers to build an integrated network environment that utilizes a
consistent feature set, performance and management capabilities.
Ease of use and implementation. Our products are designed to make networks
easy to manage and administer, thereby reducing the overall cost of network
ownership. Through the use of a standards-based design approach, our
products can be readily integrated into existing networks. Customers can
usually upgrade to our products without the need for additional training.
Moreover, our ExtremeWare operating system software simplifies network
management with a consistent, robust interface available in all product
families.
High performance. Our products provide broadband Ethernet and IP services
with the non-blocking, wire-speed performance of an ASIC-based or merchant
silicon-based Layer 3 switching engine. With our switches, customers may
achieve forwarding rates that are significantly faster than software-based
routers.
Scalability. Our solutions offer customers the speed and bandwidth needed
today — and the capability to scale their networks to support demanding
applications in the future—without the burden of additional training or
software and system complexity. Customers who purchase standard Extreme
products may later upgrade to advanced Layer 3 and Layer 4 features, such as
server load balancing or intermediate-to-intermediate system routing
protocol, or ISIS, as this upgraded functionality is designed into our
products.
Quality of service. Our policy-based quality of service enables customers to
prioritize mission-critical applications. We provide industry-leading tools
for allocating network resources to specific applications. With our
policy-based quality of service, customers can use a web-based interface to
identify and control the forwarding of traffic from specific applications,
in accordance with policies that the customers define. The quality of
service functionality of our chipsets allows policy-based quality of service
to be performed at wire-speed. In addition to providing prioritization,
customers can allocate specified amounts of bandwidth to specific
applications or users.
Products
We deliver effective application and services infrastructure for enterprises
and service providers based on award-winning technology that combines
simplicity, high performance, intelligence and a low cost of ownership. Our
Layer 3 Summit, BlackDiamond and Alpine products share the same common
hardware architecture and operating system, enabling businesses to build a
network infrastructure that is simple, easy to manage and scalable to meet
the demands of future growth.
Our award-winning 2nd Generation Inferno ASIC and 3rd Generation Triumph
chipsets are incorporated in all i-series products, including the
BlackDiamond and Alpine. Inferno provides the core technology for high-end
Summit switches.
We have also recently announced the 4th Generation Networking Silicon
System, or 4.G.N.S.S., also known by the code name “Genesis.” This
technology provides very high performance capabilities for 10 Gigabit
Ethernet and beyond as well as hardware-based support for advanced protocols
such as IPv6 and MPLS. This technology also offers high levels of investment
protection through the use of Extreme’s T-Flex technology that allows
programmability of the chipset to allow changes in protocol support as new
standards and protocols emerge.
Our principal hardware and software products are as follows:
Summit Stackable Products
The Summit family of switches is designed to meet the demanding requirements
of Enterprise and metropolitan-Ethernet-based applications. All
inferno-chipset-based Summit switches share a common switch architecture
that provides scalability in four areas: speed, bandwidth, network size and
policy-based quality of service. The Summit product family supports Gigabit
and 10/100 Mbps aggregation for enterprise desktops and servers, large
Internet data centers and broadband points of presence in MANs.
The Summit48i, Summit48si and the new Summit 200 series switches allow us to
remain an industry leader in Layer 3 switching for the desktop. The
Summit200-24 and Summit200-48 switches offer low entry costs for
sophisticated Layer 2 and Layer 3 services, respectively, at the network
edge. Additionally the Summit48i switch delivers an aggregation switching
solution with physical and logical access, security and user mobility
features at the edge.
The Summit 300 provides a unique set of capabilities as Extreme’s first
Unified Access Architecture product supporting both wired and wireless
connectivity. The Unified Access Architecture capabilities simplify the
deployment of wireless but providing simple to install access points
(Altitude 300) that are managed from a single point, reducing the cost of
ownership and providing uniform approaches to security, authentication,
quality of services and resiliency irrespective of the media connectivity
type in use.
Other members of the Summit product line address server-switching
constraints by providing switched Gigabit Ethernet ports and 100 Mbps links
to servers, delivering required bandwidth between servers, and to clients on
attached segments. In server farms and data centers, the Summit1i, Summit5i
and Summit7i switches maximize server availability and performance by
combining server load-balancing with wire-speed switching.
BlackDiamond 6800 Series
The BlackDiamond 6800 series delivers carrier-class scalability, redundancy
and high reliability for core switching in high-density Ethernet/IP
enterprise and service provider networks. These modular switches include the
fault-tolerant features associated with mission-critical enterprise-class
Layer 3 core switching, including redundant system management and switch
fabric modules, hot-swappable modules and chassis components, load-sharing
power supplies and management modules, up to eight 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps or
Gigabit aggregated links, dual software images and system configurations,
spanning tree and multipath routing, and redundant router protocols for
enhanced system and network reliability. The BlackDiamond switch can
accommodate up to 16 I/O blades, including 10/100 Mbps, Gigabit and 10
Gigabit WAN interfaces.
The network core is the most critical point in the network, serving as the
convergence point for the majority of network traffic, including desktop,
segment and server traffic. Network core switching involves switching
traffic from desktops, segments and servers within the network. Owing to the
high-traffic nature of the network core, the critical elements in core
switching include wire-speed Layer 3 switching, scalability, non-blocking
hardware architecture, fault-tolerant mission-critical features, redundancy,
and link aggregation. The ability to support a variety of high-density
speeds and feeds and to accommodate an increasing number of high-capacity
backbone connections is also important.
The BlackDiamond 6800 series is certified to be compliant with Network
Equipment Building Systems, or NEBS Level 3, and offers an extensive range
of modules, including legacy connections such as Packet-over-SONET, or PoS,
OC-3 and OC-12, and Asynchronous Transfer Mode, or ATM, metropolitan
connectivity through Multi-Protocol Label Switching, or MPLS, billing
capabilities through Accounting and Routing Module, optical connectivity
with Wave Division Multiplexing, or WDM, and industry-leading 10 Gigabit
Ethernet connectivity.
This product line has been significantly enhanced through the addition of
Extreme’s 3rd Generation technology, Triumph, which adds market leading
density/performance characteristics and sophisticated ingress based rate
shaping as well as innovative streaming media replication. This is all fully
hardware compatible with the existing “Inferno” chipset that has been
deployed in this platform for several years ensuring excellent investment
protection and continued low cost of ownership.
Alpine 3800 Series
The Alpine 3800 series provides a simple, resilient broadband infrastructure
for MANs, ISPs and mid-range enterprise networks. The Alpine 3800 series
provides total Ethernet coverage with support for both standard category 5
and fiber optic media as well as first mile technologies that extend the
reach of Ethernet-over-VDSL and legacy WAN technologies.
The Alpine 3800 series switches can be configured to scale from 8 to 56
Ethernet-over-VDSL ports. Even higher density can be achieved with a
combination of Ethernet-over-VDSL and traditional copper or fiber Ethernet
ports. The FM-8Vi module provides Ethernet-over-VDSL at 10 Mbps full-duplex
on each port, up to 2,500 feet.
This product line has been significantly enhanced through the addition of
Extreme’s 3rd Generation technology, Triumph, which adds market leading
density/performance characteristics and sophisticated ingress based rate
shaping commensurate with the Alpine’s positioning as a low cost high
density edge device for both Metro and Enterprise deployment. This is all
fully hardware compatible with the existing “Inferno” chipset that has been
deployed in this platform for several years ensuring excellent investment
protection and continued low cost of ownership
ExtremeWare Software
ExtremeWare software is the embedded operating system software that is
featured on all of our switches. It delivers the robust switching and
routing protocol support, management, control and security needed on current
enterprise and service provider networks. Its standards-based, multi-layer
switching and policy-based Quality of Service, or QoS, give network managers
the tools needed to optimize network capacity with consistent fault-tolerant
behavior.
The Extreme Networks Strategy
Our goal is to be the provider of the most effective applications and
services infrastructure for large enterprises and service providers. We seek
to provide our customers with a best-of-breed alternative to single-sourced,
highly proprietary networking equipment from larger competitors. Key
elements of our strategy include:
Provide simple, easy to use, high-performance, cost-effective switching
solutions. We offer customers easy to use, powerful, cost-effective
switching solutions that meet the specific demands of enterprises, and
service and content providers. Our products provide customers with
scalability from 10 Mbps Ethernet to 10 Gigabit Ethernet combined with the
wire-speed, non-blocked routing of ASIC-based or merchant silicon-based
Layer 3 switching. We intend to capitalize on our expertise in Ethernet, IP
and hardware-based switching technologies to continuously develop new
products that will meet the future requirements of a broad range of
customers.
Expand market penetration. We continue to market our products to new
customers in multiple market segments. The majority of our business is with
enterprise customers, including those in government, education and the
health care sectors, in addition to large commercial enterprises. Extreme
has consistently focused on these markets since early in our history.
Additionally, we aim to leverage our technology development, service and
support and business infrastructure resources to address the metropolitan
Ethernet market. These customers include ISPs, content providers and MAN
service providers. While currently most of our service provider and
MAN-related business is generated outside of the United States, we believe
there is a long-term growth opportunity in the metropolitan Ethernet market
on a worldwide basis. Once customers deploy our products in certain portions
of their networks, we offer products for other areas. As additional products
are deployed, customers obtain the increased benefits of our solution by
simplifying their networks, extending policy-based quality of service and
reducing costs of ownership, while increasing performance.
Extend switching technology leadership. Our technological leadership is
based on proprietary technology embedded in our chipsets, the ExtremeWare
operating system and network management and software. We intend to invest
our engineering resources in chipsets, software and other development areas
to create leading-edge technologies that will increase the performance and
functionality of our products. We also intend to maintain our active role in
industry standards committees such as the Institute for Electrical and
Electronics Engineers, or IEEE, and the Internet Engineering Task Force, or
IETF.
Leverage and expand multiple distribution channels. We distribute our
products through select distributors and a large number of resellers. To
quickly reach a broad, worldwide audience, we have more than 250 resellers
in approximately 50 countries, including regional networking system
resellers, network integrators and wholesale distributors. We maintain a
field sales force to support our resellers and to focus on select strategic
accounts. We are continually developing and refining our two-tier
distribution channel strategy.
Provide high-quality customer service and support. We seek to enhance
customer satisfaction and build customer loyalty through high-quality
service and support. This includes a wide range of standard support programs
that provide the level of service our customers require, from standard
business hours to global 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week, 365-day-a-year
real-time response support. We intend to continue to enhance the ease of use
of our products, and to invest in additional support services by increasing
staff and adding new support programs for our distributors and resellers. We
are committed to providing customer-driven product functionality through
feedback from key prospects, consultants, channel partners and end-user
customers.
Network Equipment Industry Background
Businesses, governments, educational institutions and other organizations
have become highly dependent on the Internet as their central communications
infrastructure for providing connectivity for both internal and external
communications. New computing applications, such as enterprise resource
planning, or ERP, customer relationship management, or CRM, large enterprise
data warehouses and sophisticated online transaction and other e-business
applications, as well as the increased use of traditional applications such
as e-mail and streaming media, require significant information technology
resources for their support. The emergence of the desktop Internet browser
as a standard user interface has enabled bandwidth-intensive applications
that integrate voice, video and data to be deployed extensively throughout
organizations. The steady rise in application sophistication and the
associated bandwidth load demands a fast, flexible and scalable network
infrastructure.
Networking environments can be segmented into local area networks, or LANs,
wide area networks, or WANs, and metropolitan area networks, or MANs.
LANs. LANs are traditional networks designed for connecting users to many
types of application servers, which may be held locally or remotely through
either private WANs or through such systems as the Internet. The LAN
consists of servers, clients, a network operating system and a
communications link to connect the LAN to other networks and to the
Internet. The LAN market as Extreme participates consists primarily of large
and medium-sized enterprise customers.
WANs. WANs are communication networks that span across large geographic
areas, such as counties, states or countries.
The addition of WAN support to ASIC-based or merchant silicon-based network
switches permits Ethernet services to reach customers where integration with
existing Synchronous Optical Network/Synchronous Digital Hierarchy, or SONET/SDH,
infrastructure is required.
The WAN market includes local exchange carriers, multiple tenant/dwelling
unit service providers, and Internet service providers, or ISPs, as primary
customers, though an enterprise may also utilize a private WAN.
MANs. MANs are networks that link mid-sized geographic areas such as a city
or an entire metropolitan area.
Due to wide deployment of Gigabit Ethernet, LANs have achieved geometric
growth in bandwidth. Available bandwidth in WANs has also grown, as
infrastructures are built out to accommodate the very rapid annual growth in
Internet traffic. The MAN has emerged as the key link between the LAN and
the WAN.
In recent years, the MAN has become a critical and dynamically evolving
arena within the overall network infrastructure. In addition to steadily
rising traffic load, the underlying network technologies, architectures and
protocols are experiencing rapid change. The competitive landscape for MAN
service providers is shifting, with an influx of new carriers who do not
necessarily depend upon legacy infrastructure technologies such as SONET/SDH.
The MAN market includes both metropolitan service providers and
municipalities that utilize a private MAN to connect multiple public
facilities, such as city hall, fire departments, road and vehicle
maintenance facilities, hospitals and emergency centers, social services and
public libraries. The technologies and architectures associated with MANs
are becoming popular within large and very large corporate enterprises,
which can utilize private MANs to create a “super campus” network,
connecting facilities spread over a city-size area.
A network must be scalable in the following four dimensions:
Speed. Speed refers to the number of bits per second that can be transmitted
across the network. Today’s network applications increasingly require speeds
of up to 100 Mbps to the desktop. Therefore, the backbone and server
connections that aggregate traffic from desktops require speeds in excess of
100 Mbps. “Wire-speed” refers to the ability of a network device to process
an incoming data stream at the highest possible rate based on the full
capability of the physical media, or wire without loss of packets.
Wire-speed routing refers to the ability to perform Layer 3 switching at the
maximum possible rate.
Bandwidth. Bandwidth refers to the volume of traffic that a network or a
network device can handle before traffic is “blocked,” or unable to get
through without interruption. When traffic was more predictable, the amount
of traffic across a network link or through a network device generally grew
in line with the number of devices connected to the network. With today’s
data-intensive applications accessed in random patterns from both within and
outside the core network, traffic can spike unpredictably, consuming
significant bandwidth to the detriment of the network’s overall performance.
Network size. Network size refers to the number of users and servers that
are connected to a network. Today’s networks must be capable of reliably
connecting tens of thousands of users and servers while providing high
performance and maximum application availability.
Quality of service. Quality of service refers to the ability to control the
forwarding of traffic based upon its level of importance. Mission-critical
enterprise applications, such as voice-over-IP, or VOIP, require specific
performance minimums, while traffic such as general e-mail and Internet
surfing may not be as critical. In addition to basic standards-based
prioritization of traffic according to importance, enhanced quality of
service also allocates bandwidth to specific applications based on a
user-defined policy.
Opportunity for Next Generation Switching Solutions
Several technology trends have enabled a new generation of networking
equipment that can meet the four scalability dimensions required by today’s
enterprises and service providers and the bandwidth-intensive,
mission-critical applications on which they depend.
While many different technologies have been deployed in the LAN environment
over the past 25 years, Ethernet has become the overwhelmingly dominant LAN
technology. According to the Dell’Oro Group, an independent research
organization, Ethernet is the technology used in over 99% of the LAN market
in 2001 and over 800 million ports were shipped over the preceding ten-year
period. Ethernet was evolved from its original 10 Mbps form into 100 Mbps
Fast Ethernet, 1,000 Mbps, or “Gigabit” Ethernet and 10,000 Mbps or 10
Gigabit Ethernet, which became available during 2002. Today, Ethernet is
moving beyond the LAN; Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet represent a
viable, high-capacity MAN backbone protocol, enabling broadband connections
to be aggregated for transport across the core of the MAN.
With the widespread adoption of Ethernet and Internet Protocol, or IP,
networking technologies, the need to support a multi-transport,
multi-protocol environment is diminishing. As a result, simplified routing
functionality can be embedded in fast, inexpensive chipsets to replace
complex software/CPU designs used in conventional multi-protocol routers.
The resulting device, called a Layer 3 switch, functions as a less expensive
and significantly faster hardware-based router. Layer 3 switches operate at
multi-gigabit speeds and can support large networks. While Layer 3 switching
dramatically increases network performance, many products fail to realize
the potential of this technology as a result of inconsistent hardware,
software and management architectures.
Customers require a quality of service solution that supports both
industry-standard prioritization and user-defined quality of service that
maps business processes and policies to network performance. In addition, to
simplify the network, customers need a family of interoperable devices that
utilize a consistent hardware, software and management architecture.
Ticker
EXTR
SIC Code
3576
- Computer Communications Equipment
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