Extreme aims to provide secure, converged Ethernet networks

BALI, INDONESIA: Extreme Networks is a 11-year old company based in the Silicon Valley, US. According to Mark Canepa, CEO and Helmut Wilke, senior VP of Worldwide Sales, the company is based on a principle that the Ethernet is going to be network around which people are going to build their networks. The company registered a revenue worth US $350 million last year, and currently has a workforce of 870-880. It recently hosted a three-day Asia-Pacific Channel Conference in Bali from May 14-16.

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Extreme Networks' mission has been to provide secure, converged Ethernet networks for enterprises and global service providers who have complex networking needs. The company's solutions aim to solve tough networking challenges with meaningful insight and unprecedented control that simplifies network operation.

According to Mark Canepa, the top four pain points for enterprise CIOs today were: security problem, the inability of current networks to take the weight of new services, cost of acquisition and management costs. On the topic of integration of IT assets in enterprises, he said that the integration itself assumed different forms. It was important to take the topology of the existing IT environment, all the way down to the integration of the application environment. Extreme Networks' products can be easily integrated into the application environment.

Canepa said: "If you have to deploy a new set of applications, you would want to make sure that those work. Either you have the skill or your channel partner can provide it." Commenting on the need for efficient project management, he added: "Clearly, there is a place for project management. It is an area that is just as important as professional services in order to get something done."

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Canepa made it clear that Extreme Networks was not getting into the storage side of the business, but was clearly focused on the Ethernet side of the business. However, it could be a 'good citizen to help transfer data', as the situation demanded.

One of the pressing needs of enterprises today is to convert information into valuable business assets. Would Extreme have a role to play here? Canepa said that a lot of software applications were today available to address this situation. He added: "We are not a data content company, but we are an infrastructure company. Our job is to provide an infrastructure that is both simple and mission critical. We can make use of the data stored elsewhere by using LDAP or Active Directory, and help put policies in place."

On virtualized security

Extreme Networks also highlighted the concept of virtualized security during the Asia-Pacific Channel Conference. Elaborating, Canepa said that some security problems could be from outside the firewall. However, the security threats were largely from people outside the company. He noted: "You can protect the edges with sophisticated firewalls, but do really nothing to protect the network from the inside. So basically, you would want to protect each port within your network”.

"In terms of virtualized security, you build enough intelligence within each port. You build enough intelligence into your switch. Therefore, you need one security appliance to handle everything. Not all of the bits need to be encrypted. One security appliance may be needed for every 100 ports. The ratio is the function of the traffic needed to encrypt."

According to him, intrusion detection and prevention were the same thing. "You only need to route the specific 'suspect' traffic to the intrusion prevention appliance," he added.

India a key market

Commenting on India as a big, emerging market, Canepa said that it was necessary to have the right kind of focus, given the size of the market. "We chose to focus on service providers with the right set of partners. As our products get better and better at the edge, so, if for the USA, our 450 product can be an edge box, it can be good as a core box for India," he said.

Helmut Wilke added, "For small implementations, an edge box can be as good as core box. So, we can provide cost effective solutions as well."

Jitendra Gupta, senior sales manager, Extreme Networks India, pointed out that education, healthcare, ITeS, mobile packet backbone, hospitality and manufacturing were among the key segments that the company was targeting in India. He added: "The SMB segment is also a vastly growing market. We have some new products and aim to penetrate into some class B and smaller cities."

Extreme Networks is working with ODMs for developing its products. Canepa said that its 250/400 were developed in Taiwan. The company has an India center in Chennai, which is responsible for previous generations of its OS, as well as for the QA for a number of products, besides writing parts of the ExtremeXOS. The India center is a fully active partner in nearly all activities.

Touching on the highlights of 2007 so far, and on the immediate future, Canepa said, Extreme had announced the XOS 12.0. Extreme had also managed to move up from the core right up to the edge. New features have also been built into the XOS. Extreme also talked in the past about a universal port, and successfully demonstrated one at Bali. It also launched the X250 10/100 Ethernet switch. Canepa added: "We don't believe that this market is going to go away any time soon. This particular product is great for emerging markets"

Next, Extreme Networks successfully augmented its wireless product line by introducing the Summit WM200/Summit WM2000 WLAN products. "We can now support significantly large wireless networks. We can put multiple access points in a branch. You don't need to have a sophisticated system administrator," he added. Extreme comes out with a new version of its XOS every six months, mostly due to the fact that it largely pertains to carriers.

Looking ahead, Canepa said: "Expect us to keep pushing the edge. We can provide a core-edge solution. Expect us to also push the core envelope. Our 8800 class is an excellent enterprise core for 2-3,000 nodes, especially in the emerging markets. Also, expect capacities to double or quadruple down the years. Also, we may soon have much larger metro carrier boxes." Extreme is currently developing its own fifth-generation ASIC. "Products would be out when ready," hinted Canepa.