Extreme Networks joins forces with Fortinet - Updated

Network technology company Extreme Networks and security appliance vendor Fortinet have announced a joint marketing agreement targeting large enterprises and cloud service providers.

The businesses have recently completed interoperability testing evaluating their switch and security technology with services like integrated firewall, VPN, IPS, web filtering and application control.

David Ginsburg, chief marketing officer for Extreme Networks, says the collaboration will allow the companies to meet the three key segments of the cloud business case: cost, scale and security.

"Our work with Fortinet addresses each of these concerns by providing combined scalability, performance and intelligence,” Ginsburg says, "allowing enterprises to more confidently choose robust and interoperability tested solutions within budget.”

Extreme Networks is distributed in ANZ by Brightstar and Networld Systems (Distribution Central), while Fortinet is distributed in New Zealand by Distribution Central and Ingram Micro, and has partnerships with with Dimension Data, Datacom, Asnet and Revera.

Update: A second Extreme Networks marketing collaboration deal has been announced, this time with data, server and storage networking infrastructure company QLogic.

The companies will deliver a combined data center solution allowing operators to connect Ethernet networks to both Fibre Channel and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) networks for a converged storage solution.

Chris Humphrey, vice president of corporate marketing for QLogic, says the solution will give customers a way to implement converged data center networks more easily.

"Developing a joint reference architecture that delivers FCoE and native 16GB fibre channel gives customers the option to deploy the right technology based on their unique requirements,” Humphrey says.