A networking-focused conference, Extreme Connect usually pulls a diverse group of like-minded professionals, executives and product leaders. This year’s edition spanned two days and hosted informative keynotes and presentations, educational sessions and networking opportunities.

Fort Worth, Texas, played host to the event, and the agenda was chock full of hard-hitting, technical discourse. Addressing a technically inclined audience, Enterprise Networks Inc.’s Chief Product Officer Nabil Bukhari took to the stage on day one, highlighting key themes centered around connectivity, security and AI.

“There was also a fourth theme that emerged as the event progressed, and it was about being future-focused,” according to Bob Laliberte, principal analyst at theCUBE.

In his event analysis, Laliberte unearthed key themes from the two days at Extreme Connect, covering new product announcements, integrations and an increased ecosystem focus.

Day one: Groundbreaking advances in connectivity and security

During his day one keynote at Extreme Connect, Bukhari explored several themes on connectivity and AI, imploring the industry to remain future-focused in its approach to innovation. A barrage of announcements followed the keynote, the first being Extreme Networks’ approval for standard power outdoor for Wi-Fi 6E and 7. Also, the company lifted the lid on its Universal Zero Trust Network Access, now in limited availability.

“The approval for Extreme to leverage AFC, or automated frequency control, enables organizations to activate the standard power setting and the 6GHz frequency for outdoor and indoor use,” Laliberte wrote in his analysis. “Before this, Low Power Indoor (LPI) has been used in Wi-Fi 6E solutions.”

The addition of automated frequency control has several ramifications for the enterprise. First, U.S. and Canada-based organizations that are already on Extreme Networks’ 6E-enabled outdoor access points can access the new capability at the flick of a switch (with more regions to follow, according to the company).

Second, AFC certification means there’s no interference or frequency overlap with existing providers, ensuring smooth operations for current 6GHz spectrum users, according to Laliberte.

“Using standard power indoors requires additional engineering support as GPS sensors don’t always work deep inside a building,” he said. “To overcome that, Extreme leverages [access points] near the exterior and positioning technology to report on those [access point] locations.”

Day two: Bringing the networking community together

Kicking off with a keynote by Extreme Networks Chief Marketing Officer, Monica Kumar, the event’s second day focused on the larger ecosystem, customer success and artificial intelligence.

First, the company unveiled Extreme Labs, its initiative to foster innovation and integration across the larger partner ecosystem. The first fruit of this broad collaboration is AI Expert, a generative AI solution that is underpinned by an Intel Corp. Network Interface Card and drives visibility from the network endpoint upward.

“Extreme demonstrated the power of the forthcoming gen-AI solution that leverages all of its manuals, technical documents and TAC use cases, as well as the ability to leverage customer environment-specific information,” Laliberte said. “This solution will enable organizations to query issues and quickly search the entire Extreme data lake. One of the important features that CTO of EMEA Markus Nispel highlighted was that it was a multimodal generative AI solution. So, it wasn’t just to bring back text-based answers, but also video and images.”

The essence of Extreme Networks as a networking player was captured at the event. From its key announcements, themes and customer testimonials, there is proof of the company’s commitment to innovation and customer success in the competitive networking space, Laliberte concluded.

Read the full analysis here.

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