Our primary use case is routing. We are currently in the process of implementing the FabricOS here pretty soon, which is their alternative to the standard, what's called XOS, ExtremeOS, which is a more traditional switching and routing model, very akin to Cisco with a similar command line structure. With the routing capabilities, you basically have a way to turn your entire infrastructure across multiple locations into what looks like essentially one large switch, so routing becomes efficient. You can let VLANs talk to each other and control anyway through access control list.
I think their most valuable feature is their FabricOS. With this feature, we have the ability to virtualize the entire network infrastructure across multiple locations and multiple switches. Secondary to that, is their auto detect auto sense capability, which you can actually configure so that you do not have to preconfigure ports. You can simply plug a device in, and if it's based on several parameters and some rule sets, it will decide how to configure that port, what VLANs to connect to it, and where to connect it and where to route it based on what the device is.
My advice for those looking into ExtremeRouting is: right now all switch manufacturers are backed up for months. If you're looking to implement quickly, I would say shop around a bit because it might be difficult.
I have about a year of experience with ExtremeRouting.
So far it's so good. We have not had any failures that I know of where a piece of equipment actually failed and I think we've had to reboot one switch once. In the last instance, the issue had more to do with the interoperability of the Extreme fiber interfaces with Cisco at the other end. The interoperability can be a little tricky at times.
ExtremeRouting's stability is solid as far as I can tell. However, I have only used it with our village, which encompasses some 1,000 users. Looking at the robustness, I do not know whether it would be carrier grade – let's say for hundreds of thousands of users – but it certainly doesn't balk at 10,000 users or less.
My impression of the initial setup is that it was pretty straightforward. You get a new device; you put a cloud app on your phone; you take a picture of a barcode and of a QR code; and it integrates that device into your infrastructure. It's very quick and easy.
In terms of the pricing, you probably could get an average premises switch for about $500 a year in total and the management license. For the most part, there are not any additional costs to the standard licensing fee. On some of the lower end switches, if you want to run 10 GB, you have to pay $100 a year or so extra to get the 10 GB license. That's the 5300 series and below, not the ones we use.
ExtremeRouting's prices are at least 30% less than Cisco as a competitor in management. Extreme IQ, in spite of any of the shortcomings, is still quite superior to Meraki, especially when you bring in the SD-WAN and the Fabric capabilities that Meraki can't even touch.
Overall, ExtremeRouting requires less technical depth in order to implement the infrastructure than Cisco, for example. However, Cisco is bigger, Cisco's got more firepower when it comes to maintaining stuff. Not that I've ever had any kind of failure rates with ExtremeRouting equipment.
ExtremeRouting is a smaller company and in my experience smaller companies can be more responsive, especially for the smaller guys like me.
