Topology

The equipment that can participate with this product is pre-provisioned from the factory to directly connect to ExtremeCloud. No provisioning of your local infrastructure is required.

The network requirements are:

You must have Internet access and have a DHCP server that provides cloud-enabled switches and APs with IP addresses and the address of a DNS server.
Verify that Network Time Protocol (NTP) is allowed out through your firewall on port 123 so that the APs can submit NTP queries to pool.ntp.org to set their clocks.
Each site must have L2 connectivity. The APs within a site operate within a single RF domain and therefore must have L2 connectivity to function properly.
The best practice is to use a single VLAN for all the APs in a site instead of distributing the site's APs over multiple VLANs. If you decide to distribute a site's APs over multiple VLANs, then you must allow either routing or forwarding of SIAPP multicast between those VLANS.

The supported APs and switches provide automatic discovery using the standard HTTPS/SSL port number 443 that is allowed by most firewalls. Additional information about firewall and port requirements can be found in the Prerequisites to Deployment section.

Cloud-enabled switches and APs communicate with ExtremeCloud for management, configuration and reporting. Cloud-enabled switches and APs place user payload traffic directly on your network. No user network traffic is communicated to the cloud; only analytics are captured and communicated to the cloud.

Deployment scenarios include, but are not limited to:

AP and cloud-enabled switch environment
AP and non-cloud switch environment

AP and Switch Environment

ExtremeCloud-enabled switches provide the optimal access solution for cloud-enabled ExtremeWireless APs. The cloud-switches require little configuration when used to provide the wired network access layer for the supported cloud-enabled APs. Larger deployments will benefit using both cloud-enabled switches and access points.

ExtremeWireless AP and Switch Environment

ExtremeWireless AP and Non-Cloud Enabled Switch Environment

Significant simplifications can be realized by deploying cloud-enabled ExtremeWireless APs and switches together. However, there is no requirement to use ExtremeCloud-enabled switches. This option can be sufficient for smaller deployments. You can deploy cloud-enabled ExtremeWireless APs in your environment with existing switches that are not ExtremeCloud-enabled. The cloud-enabled APs will communicate with ExtremeCloud through the switch, but the switch will not be manageable from the ExtremeCloud user interface. Instead, you will continue to manage your switch through the existing software interface.

Topology Manager

Topology Manager is a feature in the user interface that visualizes your topology.

Topology Manager monitors the network topology state for physical devices, showing L2 switch interconnects and the end device connections to the switch. The data is displayed in the user interface using a physical layer diagram to show a switch and what is connected to each port. Zoom in and out to see the state of nodes and edge devices in a network.

More Information

Use Topology Manager

Published September 2019prev | next

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