ExtremeCloud IQ Reviews

I primarily used ExtremeCloud IQ to provide wireless internet connections to our students and academic staff. I relied on ExtremeCloud IQ for network management and to ease the IT workload, as our university did not have a large IT department.

The deployment made my life very easy. When I installed the access points with cables to our switches, I just needed to connect to the cloud and deploy. It was very easy. The automation and information provided by ExtremeCloud IQ, such as connection status and logs, were very beneficial. It made management convenient, especially since I was often working alone.

ExtremeCloud IQ is a little bit similar to cloud solutions that don't need controllers on-premises in terms of deployment. Some small offices with multiple branches across the world have a high SLA infrastructure with 10 to 28 pieces. ExtremeCloud IQ is one of the best cloud-based wireless solutions that can be used to manage all those APs in a single point or single pane of glass. We can manage all the APs from a single dashboard across multiple locations. So ExtremeCloud IQ is the best solution for companies who want to manage multiple branches in a single pane of glass. The solution provides simple management for all the processes.

In traditional controller-based operations, people locally managing the APs face certain difficulties in managing every location because they need to log in to each individual controller for that specific location. So they don't know exactly where these APs are in the floor plan. We can't do all such things in the WLC unless we have a separate monitoring platform like AirWave in Aruba.

ExtremeCloud IQ is one solution where you can manage all these APs in a single glass and move from one location to another within the tabs with just a few mouse clicks. Also, you can place the AP positions, upload the floor planning to the ExtremeCloud IQ, and plan the heat map. You can manage and monitor information like which AP is broadcasting the signal in the floor plan, where that actual AP is positioned, how many clients are connected to the AP, the channel utilization, and the interference surrounding the AP.

So along with that, you can manage users, see the user statistics, see how many users are connected to the specific access point, the traffic they are passing, how much data they have consumed, and what websites they're accessing. The solution gives you a complete device-level and user-level 360-degree view. The solution is integrated with AI and ML. It offers some things in automation and the back end with the machine learning algorithm. It provides complete user statistics as well as device statistics.

I think the most beneficial part of the tool is its ability to resolve network-related issues quickly. In the operations part, you can see why there is an issue, where the issue is, if there is an issue with the network, or if it has completely ruled out all the issues. The fact that you can give read access to support users so they can see the data without being able to change anything means that you can quickly make sure that a lot of trouble tickets are never escalated to networks. From a support operational perspective, it solves a lot of things easily or quickly compared to not having a solution at all.

The tool has both advantages and weaknesses because it has several pieces of software on which it has been working because of buyouts. The tool has several branches of software versions, and you can consolidate it into ExtremeCloud, but it also has the disadvantage that sometimes people can get issues because the software on the hardware is different than they expected, especially if it is not converted to the tool used. The tool has simplified things, but it also adds a complexity that sometimes stumps some users.

In the future, I think the tool’s onboarding setup of a new tenant could be smoother or faster. I also think that they could provide a simpler setup for first-level support so that it can be easier for them to have a support dashboard that would help them. I am talking about customer support organizations, so you usually have a high turnaround, but you need to have something that is easier to use and where you don't need so much training.

Thanks to their new cloud solutions, Extreme can be used in major stadiums, universities, and colleges. Extreme wireless devices are widely used in those spaces that require high throughput and density.

Extreme is transitioning to 802.11ax facilities running the 2G and the 5G cloud, allowing for higher density in education use cases, and ExtremeCloud IQ provides you with novel ways to manage everything. In the old days, you used to have a controller on-site for your access points, but everything is easier now.

We have ExtremeCloud IQ with access points 8410 and 460 from Extreme.

We are using it for an academic institute - specifically, for the students, faculty, and staff. 

The basic feature is that we can troubleshoot, or we can visualize anything from any site. It's not necessary that you should be present at a particular location. If I'm not able to detect any problem, so I can ask them to look from where they are. They can troubleshoot from their place. 

All the access points we can monitor on the 111 dashboards - including which is up, and which is down. That can be monitored quite easily. We can also monitor the health of the devices - which are working or to what extent they're working. 

We can also detect intrusions. Everything can be seen from the dashboard.

We can track people on campus. Including how they are moving. In the case of the pandemic, this was useful. For example, we'd be able to see if some person is here who is COVID positive and if he's moving to a particular area. You can track that.

Location tracking is also possible in case of an unfortunate event, such as hostile individuals. 

We can see how many students are there from their WiFi. 

Everything is visible from the dashboard. 

The initial setup is easy.

It's stable and scalable. 

The most valuable features so far have been the scalability of the solution, starting with a few access points on HiveManager NG and bringing it up to well over 100; and the reliability of the equipment to provide fast secure wireless for our one-to-one program.

We have been able to easily support the needs of our 2,000+ high school students and staff in our one-to-one program.

It is an active cloud solution with two main components. The first component involves Wi-Fi and cloud management, focusing on access points and controllers in the cloud. The second component is a network access control solution with a management tool, offering network visibility down to layer seven, and the ability to define policies on a per-user, per-MAC address, and per-subnet basis.

It serves as a cloud-based management solution for both Wi-Fi and logs, as well as providing security features, particularly in the context of log management.

Customers use the solution to manage Wi-Fi switches on a unified platform, making it easy to analyze and troubleshoot in one location. Some customers even use it when they have offices in multiple locations, as they can consolidate everything and manage it from a single location.

The Client 360 feature provides a comprehensive view of your clients and their activities, including the devices they use. Additionally, a feature called Network 360 offers a 360-degree view of the network, like data usage (in GB), the status of ports and AP, and other details. You can drill down on granular-level drills to gain insights into specific applications and usage patterns like application level and fee, where your data is being wasted or what your clients are doing with the Internet data, what kind of applications they are using, etc.