* Latest in the partnership between Extreme Networks and Avaya
Extreme Networks and Avaya this month continued to advance their partnership, with a fresh round of interoperability testing between the companies’ equipment.
The partnership began three years ago, with a reselling and joint development agreement. The alliance gives Avaya switches that can be used in IP telephony deployments, and gives Extreme IP phones and communications management equipment. The companies say that customers also get a single point of accountability for service and support, and the management tools of each are also integrated.
Few companies have all the pieces available, so for these vendors, an alliance makes sense.
In the latest test, Extreme’s Summit X450 was evaluated and found to work well with Avaya’s IP telephony gear. The tests looked at performance, use of Power over Ethernet and connectivity with Avaya’s IP phones.
The Summit X450 switches are fixed edge switches. The X450a has 24 or 48 ports of 10/100/1000Base-T and four ports of 1000Base-X SFP, with 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports optional. The X450e has 24 ports of 10/100/1000Base-T with Power over Ethernet and four ports of 1000Base-X SFP. The PoE could be used to support devices such as IP phones.
The X450 was tested with Avaya’s Communications Manager IP telephony software, Media Gateways and IP phones.
In addition, the two companies teamed up on an initiative to try to reach public services organizations, including those in healthcare, education and state and local government. They say that their initiative will help those organizations create intelligent, policy-based networks that converge voice and data applications.
