SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Extreme Networks, Inc. (EXTR) today announced several initiatives that broaden its portfolio of SDN offerings for data centers, clouds, mobile carrier networks and campuses. The Company will provide OpenFlow support across its ExtremeXOS®-based Ethernet switch portfolio and will support multiple OpenFlow controllers including NEC and BigSwitch. Extreme Networks will introduce a plug-in for OpenStack to manage network switches using the Quantum APIs. Lastly, a new Web portal called xKIT will be launched aimed at sharing SDN applications.

Extreme Networks portfolio of high performance Ethernet switches and the ExtremeXOS® operating system today offer a variety of programmability options including APIs, SDKs, and purpose built applications, including XNV™, for centralizing network intelligence, network abstraction, and third party application development. Today's announcements broaden and reinforce Extreme Networks commitment to SDN.

By enabling OpenFlow across its line of Ethernet network switches, application developers can build SDN applications for campus, cloud and carrier networks using a consistent framework powered by ExtremeXOS. Additionally, by supporting multiple controllers, Extreme Networks offers customers a set of choices when it comes to their SDN deployment. The OpenFlow capabilities described above will be available to new and existing customers with active support agreements in July 2012.

"Creating private clouds is a top 10 IT initiative for 2012, however these rapidly scaling and dynamic environments create significant challenges for legacy networks," said Bob Laliberte, senior analyst for ESG. "Software Defined Networks hold significant promise to overcome those issues and enable new applications and services to be delivered. Extreme Networks SDN announcement demonstrates its commitment to deliver to its customers a foundation for open and programmable network environments to better meet cloud computing requirements."

Extreme Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: EXTR)