Extreme Networks (News - Alert) recently announced that its BlackDiamond 8800 modules have passed interoperability compliance testing with Avaya's IP telephony solutions. This expands Extreme’s relationship to the company, already having established a global strategic alliance with Avaya.

 

Being a platinum member of the Avaya DevConnect (News - Alert) program, most of the products from Extreme Networks’ portfolio of core to edge network infrastructure have been evaluated and approved of compliance by the Avaya (News - Alert) DevConnect program, which promotes the development, compliance-testing and co-marketing of new third-party products compatible with its standards based solutions.

 

"The BlackDiamond 8800 modular switch keeps with our theme of offering enterprises versatile Gigabit performance and expansive Power over Ethernet options at the network edge," said Gregory Heath, director of convergence solutions for Extreme Networks, in a statement. "With a modular switch that is suited for the converged edge and tested with Avaya's IP telephony, customers gain scalability that is required for deploying hundreds or thousands of IP handsets and similar edge devices easily and efficiently.”

 

Extreme Networks' G48Tc and G48Te2 modules — tested with Avaya S8500 Server, Avaya G650 Media Gateways and Avaya's IP telephones for interoperability —are capable of providing high density 10/100/1000 Ethernet connectivity with the PoE (Power over Ethernet) function. BlackDiamond 8800’s PoE function will enable its series switches to support converged and wireless LAN (Local Access Network) deployments.

 

"Working with Extreme Networks provides customers with a wide range of high availability network infrastructure options that allow them to grow as they integrate IP communications," said Eric Rossman, vice president of developer relations and technical alliances at Avaya, in a statement. "With these solutions, enterprises are better enabled to take advantage of the rich features of Unified Communications (News - Alert) to increase workgroup productivity and improve interaction with their customers."

 

The BlackDiamond 8810 switch has enough scalability to support nearly 432 IP phones in an individual chassis. It can also support class 1, 2 and 3 phones in addition to the emerging enhanced PoE standard, ePoE. This results in a voice and data support that is powerful and scalable along with high bandwidth capacity.