Extreme Networks this week is rolling out Ethernet switches and a network management application designed to address the BYOD phenomenon at enterprise campuses.
Extreme’s Intelligent Mobile Edge lineup is intended to better support businesses with mobile workers, especially those that enable employees to ‘bring your own devices’ (BYOD) to the workplace. BYOD is a growing trend in the industry with the advent of smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices able to access corporate data and applications, while also functioning as the worker’s personal device.
The BYOD trend, however, has forced IT to rethink corporate security strategies in order to protect sensitive data from leaving the company.
To address heightened security concerns of BYOD, Extreme rolled out its Ridgeline identity management software that works across LAN, WLAN and 3G/4G mobile environments. The software is designed to allow businesses to manage users and BYOD devices by authenticating network access via Active Directory, RADIUS and LDAP protocols.
With these protocols, Ridgeline is intended to enable identity-aware access control and policy enforcement, and to identify devices connected to the network so that appropriate security and network resources can be applied.
The Ridgeline software supports the new switches Extreme unveiled this week. The Summit X440 fixed configuration Gigabit Ethernet switches support PoE+, stacking and IPv6. There are 10 configurations of the X440 in all, supporting from eight to 48 ports in 1RU, and some with 10G Ethernet uplinks.
The Summit X440 switches can work with Extreme’s Summit WM 3000 series WLAN controllers to aggregate access points and provide intelligent control over them, such as enforcing security and policy.
The Summit X440 switches start at $1,295. Two 24-port models are available now; the remaining eight switches will be available in April.
Ridgeline 3.1 has a starting list price of $4,995 for a 50-switch license.
