ExtremeCloud Orchestrator | Extreme Networks
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ExtremeCloud Orchestrator

Full Life Cycle and Network Management

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Product Highlights

Highlights

Orchestrate better Business Outcomes

  • Provide centralized Data Center fabric management, and simplify network fabric operations with full-service network orchestration to enable business agility.

Fabric Life Cycle Management

  • Simplify the deployment, provisioning, and management of network services with Extreme IP Fabric life cycle management.

Scalability for Small and Large Data Center Networks

  • Support for smaller network fabric design, or large 3-stage and 5-stage IP Fabric with EVPN-Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) deployed as the overlays.

Improved User Experience

  • Industry leading graphical user interface (GUI) to deploy, provision, and manage Extreme IP Fabric solutions.

Ecosystem Integration

  • Provisioning of network fabric through API-driven automation to provide the network foundation for 5G cloud native infrastructure solution.

ExtremeCloud Orchestrator

ExtremeCloudTM Orchestrator (XCO) is an orchestration application that provides a unified and holistic graphical user interface (GUI) and application programming interfaces (APIs). It enables fabric-wide life cycle management (Fabric Skill) with a highly scalable and flexible deployment model for Extreme solutions1. It provides the common infrastructure, as well as consistent installation and upgrade strategies for SLX and Extreme 8000 series. The user interface enables IP fabric life cycle management of SLX, and Extreme 8000 series devices.

XCO also integrates with Extreme ONE OS, a new Networking Operating System (NOS) for IP fabrics, data centers, and enterprise networking environments. Extreme ONE OS consists of OS Software and microservices that provide various services and functionality. It is designed with API-first architecture, cloud-native principles and service provider-grade security to provide scalability, performance, and operational agility. Extreme ONE OS powers Extreme 8000 switches.

As organizations adapt to an unprecedented rate of change, IT teams are grappling with a lack of automation and integration between technologies, a lack of broad and deep visibility, widening skills shortages, and increasingly complex licensing. XCO addresses today's fast-paced and complex IT and mobile 5G network environments, in which organizations are increasingly turning to management and network automation solutions to improve network management, performance, and security. By providing a unified view and control of resources, network fabric and services, XCO enables a seamless user experience and improves network agility, scalability, and reliability while helping to reduce operational costs and errors.

1 As of Version 4.0.0, ExtremeCloud Orchestrator no longer includes support for the Visibility Skill.

Benefits

XCO simplifies the orchestration of complex networks by providing a unified view and control of resources, fabric network infrastructure, and health services to create a seamless user experience with a new unified graphical user interface (GUI) and application programming interfaces (API). Network orchestration improves network agility, scalability, and reliability while reducing operations costs and minimizing errors.

XCO serves as a platform and framework for delivering composable management components. It is based on a set of microservices and adheres to cloud-native design principles. It is composable by nature, enables life cycle management, network health, and automates interactions between networks, devices, domains, applications, and systems with large network infrastructures. The architecture enables organizations to easily and quickly deploy specific capabilities they need and can scale and evolve orchestration capabilities as new and yet unknown use cases become available over time.

The Fabric skill consists of a bundle of microservices that execute the automation and orchestrating of an IP fabric.

Skills within XCO are designed to deliver a unified and integrated orchestration experience for organizations.

With this approach, organizations can easily and quickly deploy specific capabilities and can scale and evolve their orchestration capabilities as their needs change over time.

The XCO architecture is built on the concept of composable skills that can be activated and accessed at the workspace or orchestration layer. The workspace application provides the graphical presentation of the fabric skill currently and potentially other skills in the future. This application is designed to provide an intent-based interface to define outcomes across a network fabric and to represent services and solutions.

The Fabric skill dashboard manages the complete life cycle managementof IP fabric networks, including:

  • Building and managing small data center fabrics and 3-stage and 5-stage IP Clos fabrics.
  • Managing networks for more granular control over who has access to which resources.
  • Integrating Virtual Management ecosystem platforms, such as VMware vCenter, OpenStack (via ML2 plugin), and Microsoft SCVMM.
  • Providing a single point of configuration for the entire fabric network, comprising the fabric(s) as well as an overview of system health and quick access to locations, devices, and users configuration pages.
  • Managing tenants and their provisioning parameters: tenant port-channels, tenant VRFs, their BGP peer groups, and BGP peers.

XCO currently supports the following deployment modes:

  • Fabric Mode (Fabric Skill)

For the Fabric Skill, the deployment models supported include:

  • Server
  • Open Virtual appliance (OVA)
  • Third Party Virtual Machine (TPVM) residing on an SLX or ONE OS device 

Note: For detailed information regarding supported TPVM versions, SLX-OS versions, and SLX devices, refer to the specific version of the ExtremeCloud Orchestrator Deployment Guide at: https://supportdocs.extremenetworks.com/support/documentation.www.extremenetworks.com.