Extreme Networks Ridgeline Guide Manual page 16

Ridgeline Overview
environments. Ridgeline's open architecture accommodates a multi-vendor, service-rich environment
that enables voice-class availability and the enforcement of robust security policies.
Operational Simplicity. Simplicity begins with a detailed real-time view of the entire network.
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Ridgeline's maps provide users with an overview of every element of the network and how they all
connect at Layer 2 and Layer 3. Centralized configuration management and firmware management
simplifies the configuration and maintenance of your network elements. These functions can be
performed simultaneously on groups of devices anywhere on the network as well as on devices
individually.
Voice-Class Availability. Ridgeline's availability is greatly enhanced by granular health and status
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monitoring of the network. Ethernet Automatic Protection Switching (EAPS) protocol support within
Ridgeline enhances a highly available Extreme Networks switching environment. The Real Time
Statistics feature provides a graphical representation of utilization and error statistics for multiple
ports on a device, device slot, or within a port group.
Point-and-click network provisioning. Ridgeline's provisioning features simplify network
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configuration tasks with selectable options in dialog boxes. Ridgeline automatically validates the
options you've selected prior to deploying the configuration to managed devices, ensuring that the
configuration is correct before it goes into production.
Comprehensive Security. Ridgeline provides multiple features that control and monitor the security
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features on Extreme Networks' products, including creation and management of VLANs easily
throughout the network. The IP/MAC Address Finder tool can locate any MAC address on your
network.
Hierarchical grouping for devices and ports. Ridgeline allows you to assemble the devices and
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ports in your network into groups and subgroups, and view information about them or manage
them at a group level. You can organize your network into a hierarchy of groups, with subgroups
for campuses, buildings, and individual rooms.
Integrated network topology maps. Ridgeline's network topology map feature is integrated with the
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device group functionality, so that when you create a device group, you have the option of selecting
the Map view of the group, which causes Ridgeline to generate a network topology map, populated
with the devices in the group. Ridgeline automatically adds any links that exist between the device
nodes, and organizes them into submaps as appropriate. You can further customize your maps with
background images, decorative nodes and clouds, and user-specified links.
Overlay views of VLANs in network maps. Information about the VLANs configured on the
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devices in your network is readily accessible from Network View windows. VLAN services
information (VMAN, VLAN aggregation, VLAN translation, and Private VLAN) is incorporated into
network topology maps.
Advanced scripting capabilities. Ridgeline includes an interface for creating and executing scripts
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on your managed devices. Scripts created in Ridgeline can include ExtremeXOS CLI commands, as
well as commands and constructs in the Tcl scripting language. Scripts bundled with Ridgeline ease
common network configuration tasks. Ridgeline scripts can also be configured as script tasks, which
can run automatically at designated times.
Multi-platform capability. The Ridgeline server supports Sun SPARC and Intel platforms, and the
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Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Solaris operating environments. Clients on any of
these platforms can connect to servers on any platform.
Support for multiple users with security. Users must log in to the Ridgeline application, and can be
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granted different levels of access to the application features based on their assigned role. Three basic
predefined roles are provided, and additional user roles can be created. Telnet and SSH access to
Extreme switches can also be controlled based on the user identity. To protect sensitive data from
being intercepted or altered by unauthorized access, Secure Shell 2 (SSHv2) protocol and HTTPS
protocols are provided. These protocols encrypt traffic between the switch management port and the
Ridgeline.
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Ridgeline Concepts and Solutions Guide