In today’s world, the network has become a more strategic asset than ever. The network supports growth, operational efficiency, and flexibility, and enhanced user experiences. You can say it’s the lifeblood of any business or organization. 

At the same time, business leaders are challenged to do more with less – especially when it comes to IT resources. That means embracing digital transformation to create new opportunities, while also maximizing the value of their technology investments. Sometimes it’s a planned project but, as we’ve learned over the past two years, unexpected circumstances can cause major changes to network requirements, too.  

As organizations embark upon or continue their digital transformation journeys, they need the networking capabilities to support their current initiatives as well as future roadmaps – with the knowledge those roadmaps are liable to change. To ensure their networks are up to the task, businesses need solutions that embody the values of digital transformation: agility, flexibility, and adaptability.   

Here’s the problem: Networking vendors have traditionally locked hardware to unique operating systems and features, making it difficult to repurpose them as networking needs evolve. In other words, there’s little investment protection when it comes to expanding network capabilities. As a result, businesses have had to make the difficult choice between the cost and time of upgrading networks to meet their new needs and adapting their plans to fit their existing infrastructure. Neither is a great option when it comes to growing a business. 

But, what if there’s a better way, one allows them to both evolve their networks without having to go through a costly rip and replace? What if you can find network hardware that fits your IT budget, is simple to deploy and manage, and embraces the flexibility and agility you need to support new business needs on the fly through a cloud-managed network platform? 

That’s what we’re delivering with Extreme Networks Universal Platforms – the only solutions on the market that offer the simplicity, flexibility, and cost efficiency demanded by today’s digital enterprises. 

Our Universal Platforms, including switching hardware and wireless access points, deliver greater deployment flexibility and TCO protection by allowing businesses to maximize their hardware investments simply by allowing them to change feature sets or operating systems as needed. Rather than a full rip and replace, customers can leverage existing hardware, while adding new hardware only as needed to support expanding requirements. What’s more, all of it can be managed from a single universal management platform. 

The unprecedented flexibility of Extreme Networks’ Universal Hardware allows switches to be deployed across a range of edge, aggregation, and other environments while providing network-wide management on a single platform. Extreme is the only vendor offering this level of wired and wireless network flexibility and adds to the value proposition by including simplified ordering, licensing, and warranty processes. The result is Extreme delivers the solutions today’s digital enterprises demand while creating an effortless deployment and management experience with maximum investment protection. 

• Simplicity – Bring the power of the cloud to network management, automate onboarding and configuration, and simplify the buying process through fewer, but more flexible hardware SKUs. 
• Flexibility – Universal Platforms support multiple use cases and operating systems that can be changed at any time. The choice of cloud or on-premises management allows businesses to migrate to the cloud at their pace, and a single-pane-of-glass management platform allows IT teams to function more efficiently. 
• Cost Efficiency – Universal licensing creates a poolable, portable licensing model for network management that allows businesses to migrate to the cloud at their pace and maximizes ROI on existing investment, and lowers TCO of their network infrastructure.  

Universal Platforms increase flexibility and reduce hardware obsolescence by allowing customers to gradually adopt new technologies or change their desired use case by changing the software or feature set and/or management system while preserving the hardware and even the associated licenses. 

The bottom line is that, as a business, you never know how your networking needs are going to evolve – you know they will. So, you need to future-proof your network. By moving to Extreme’s Universal Platforms, you will enjoy true agility and a solution that can be managed easily from a single interface. Most importantly, you will benefit from the flexibility of being able to repurpose hardware as your needs evolve, so you can reduce additional expenses by adding to – not replacing – your existing network hardware.