Only three things in life are certain: birth, death, and change. In the 3rd entry of our mini-series we will show you how Extreme Fabric Connect allows you and your network to be more responsive to the organization’s constantly evolving needs!
Some businesses and organizations grow organically, some become bigger through mergers and acquisitions. Regardless – as they expand and evolve, so do their networks. And let’s not forget the fact that we’re living in an increasingly distributed world right now. More branches and remote sites are popping up constantly, and the concept of remote working has essentially become a new normal.
What it all comes down to is the fact that IT departments often have to deal with highly complex environments built on solutions from many disparate vendors and/or different generations. Having to utilize different management tools for different parts of the network doesn’t really help either.
So the question is not only how to keep the consistency of operations, drive better network outcomes and maintain a high level of security, but more importantly: how to achieve all these goals in a COST-EFFECTIVE way?
Let’s see how Extreme Fabric Connect addresses this challenge!
A single solution to unify complex environment
One of the best things about Extreme Fabric Connect is its inherent flexibility. The solution can be deployed over any wired or wireless connection, including LTE and 5G, and can be easily extended to any remote location. What’s more, it works over rings, mesh, partial mesh networks or any combination of those.
Building network-wide fabrics consisting of Fabric Connect, Fabric Attach, and Fabric Extend allows IT teams to connect islands of fabrics into a single fabric over a Public or Private WAN or MAN infrastructure.
Fabric Extend enables interoperability with 3rd party cores and IP-based WANs, extending Fabric Connect into remote locations and branch offices. This allows you to provide end-to end-services across the entire environment which can be composed of mixed-vendor networks.
Fabric edge architecture enables default gateway configuration per I-SID, as well as the ability to centrally provision VRFs and multicast.
What does it mean for your organization?
One of our favorite catchphrases goes like this: “Today’s world is complex – your network doesn’t have to be”, and Extreme Fabric Connect fits the bill perfectly. The great thing about this solution is that it’s a single technology that extends network-wide, from data center to remote branch. It allows you to cover all sites and converge multiple separated physical networks into one, fully virtualized network. The integration of wired and wireless networks creates a unified environment, which translates into better consistency of operations.
The other big aspect, especially in recent years, is the seamless extension of services across distributed sites. Services can extend across multiple areas, or they can be restricted to a just a specific area such as the Data Center. This brings more scalability, but also more security. And since Fabric Connect allows you to extend secure zones or microsegments to the branch office, you can use fewer distributed firewalls, which means additional savings. Speaking of that – tunneling multiple services or networks within a single IP service and leveraging the public Internet as back-up connectivity can also reduce your WAN costs!
Better network performance, security, and cost-efficiency – these benefits are appreciated by everyone. But there’s one more aspect, which is particularly important for complex IT environments, like manufacturing or logistics, and that’s network stability and resiliency. To give you a real-life example: since the implementation of the Extreme Fabric Connect solution in 2013 at the Škoda Auto’s manufacturing plants, no more unplanned outages per year have been seen.
We needed a stable infrastructure, so virtualization was a must. Our IT team had to have a way to deploy new services quickly (…) [with Extreme Fabric Connect] We removed the strain on our network that was hindering business growth and performance of our applications (…) Now we manage everything online, without service outages.
Martin Polak, Coordinator for Network Planning, Škoda Auto
Škoda Auto – read the full Customer Story
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What comes next?
Has Extreme Fabric Connect caught your attention? Would you like to explore the solution in more technical detail?
Consider checking out our compact e-book ‘Fabric Connect Key Capabilities’ which provides an overview of the technology as well as breaks down useful features in the area of OA&M, infrastructure, services, routing, Data Center, Campus Edge and branch. Just click the button below! 👇
And in our next ‘Exploring the Fantastic Fabric’ article we will show you how to segment your network into highly-secure zones easily and at scale. Stay tuned!