By Paul Hooper, Chief Marketing Officer, Extreme Networks, Inc.

1. From a technological standpoint, what is Extreme Networks’ top priority for 2009?

During the course of 2009, we will continue to focus on the delivery of innovative technical solutions that solve real world business challenges. We have a proven record of accomplishing this since inception of the organisation and with our track record of Enterprise empowering capabilities including Universal Port to automate common tasks, Ethernet Automatic Protection Switching, providing sub 50 millisecond failover, and native XML support on all our switching products.

Throughout 2009 we will continue to prove that there is more to an Enterprise vendor than just their presentation. Our value is broader than three words: our solutions deliver leading price/performance, low power demands compared to other vendors, the simplicity and reliability of a single, modular Operating System, ExtremeXOS, across our portfolio and the most intelligent switch stacking within the industry.

For our partners in 2009, there are some exciting events to highlight. First, we are delivering enhanced 10 gigabit connectivity for the Data Centre ‘top of rack’ with the release of our Summit X650 product family. This product delivers full non-blocking stacking performance, 10 Gigabit and SFP+ configurations and a modular Operating System at the heart of the data centre. Secondly, we will be delivering the highest standard performance of Wireless LAN technology - 802.11n with Access Points that require only a single-wire approach for Power over Ethernet (PoE). This is both the easiest in to install and the most power efficient. And finally, we will continue to build deeper and stronger relationships with our partners through the recently enhanced Partner Program at Extreme Networks.

2. Where is Extreme Networks investing dollars and why should VARs being paying attention to these types of technologies?

The Data Centre is a place to look for excitement in the coming year. At last April’s Interop, we announced our new Summit® X650 switch to an enthusiastic audience. This is a stackable 10 gigabit, 24 port switch that will be ultimately be expandable to 32 10 Gigabit ports and truly is the first of its kind in the marketplace. It is aimed at the broad collection of customers migrating their Data Centres to 10 Gigabits so that they can take advantage of favorable performance and lowered costs per port.

VARs should be paying attention to 10 gigabit technology because customers are already beginning to deploy servers with high speed interfaces to support their most intensive applications. 10 Gigabit Ethernet is an optimal technology for this because servers today contain multiple processing cores supporting multiple execution threads with high performance memory and I/O buses. These multi-core CPUs require much higher network bandwidth to realize their internal efficiencies. Furthermore, the increases in server density and the requirement for high performance, high availability attachment to the network make 10 Gigabit vital.

3. What specific products is Extreme Networks releasing in 2009 that VARs should be aware of? What markets will they serve and what opportunities will resellers gain by adding them to their portfolios?

With the Summit X650 switch beginning to ship, channel partners will be able to offer customers a clear choice – Data Centre networks architectures built around ‘top of rack’ or ‘end of row’ connectivity. The power and industry leading stacking capability of the Summit X650 will help our partners in creating a very strong position when selling an Extreme Networks solution into the Data Centre. With greater stacking, port density and performance than the competition, our partners can tackle budget conscious customers.

Wireless LAN is also an area to highlight. Extreme Networks demonstrates that a combined wired and wireless infrastructure presents the greatest value for enterprise customers. Wireless LANs are best built as an overlay edge network for nomadic users, be it in conference rooms, or for guests, contractors, or mobile devices like VoWLAN phones or scanner guns in a distribution facility.

Extreme Networks offers unique benefits regarding 802.11n. Our 802.11n based Access Points provide full, dual radio 11n performance with standard 802.3af Power over Ethernet, unlike major competitive solutions, thus saving customers money because they can use existing their PoE switches and 100 meter single-cable runs. Additionally, Extreme Networks’ 802.11n Access Point uses several watts less thus making it “greener” to operate over the long-term. Customers purchasing new WLAN equipment should always select 802.11n access points, even if they will not expect a majority of their 11n clients in the near-term.

4. What technologies do you believe provide resellers with the most opportunity in 2009 and beyond?

Power efficiency will continue to provide our reseller partners with a chance to clearly differentiate their overall solution in 2009, and this is central to Extreme Networks’ value proposition. Power is the major consideration for Enterprise IT as the demands of higher density server and compute environments are straining their already over‐subscribed power into the Data Centre, while it also creates cooling challenges with the consumption demands of network, storage and server devices.

Extreme Networks leads the industry with core switches that consume one-third of the power of comparable Cisco solutions and only half the power of Foundry technology under numerous configurations and loads. This fact has been independently certified by Tolly Group and a report published by Tolly confirms these findings. In addition, Extreme Networks provides a unique capability – Universal Port – that enables Network Administrators to configure the network so that it intelligently controls power delivery to attached devices and in doing so can reduce consumption in the wiring closet by over 50 per cent.