Extreme Networks is working to expand its AI capabilities with new technology for its comprehensive cloud network management system to help customers quickly get detailed answers to queries about network anomalies, configurations and documentation to help them proactively troubleshoot and address network issues.
At the vendor’s Extreme Connect customer enclave this week, he demonstrated Extreme AI Expert, which he described as a Generative AI-based offering that will allow customers to ask natural language questions about network issues such as “show me all the network anomalies” and generates specific diagrams and other details about the customer’s network, what anomalies may be causing problems and what the customer can do to address them, Nabil Bukhari, chief product and technology officer at Extreme Networks, told the audience.
“We have 700,000 pages of documentation on our website, so no matter how amazing your search capabilities are – it will usually take you a while to
sift through this data to get answers,” Bukhari said. “We’re simplifying that through a task by offering a system where you can ask a question and the system will come back with a personalized answer.”
For example, a customer may have forgotten how to configure a secure Wi-Fi network, or you have a new team member you want to quickly onboard and grow, Bukhari said.
“So instead of searching through thousands of pages, you’re just asking the system how do I configure a secure Wi-Fi network? The system will tailor an answer unique to your question. Not only that, it’s also important that we not only actually validate the answer, but also expose you to the information we use to generate that answer. This information is always up to date. So we make sure that we have the latest documentation integrated and it gives you a reference that you can just follow and make sure that trust is important to know where we’ve generated,” Bukhari said.
AI Expert collects data from a combination of Extreme’s public repository, the Global Technical Assistance Center (GTAC) knowledge base and documentation, as well as customer network details.
Extract and combine data from applications and devices on the network to create intelligence for performance and experience, Extreme said.
“Extreme AI Expert will curate enterprise data to provide insights, automate operations and create alerts when it detects anomalies such as network congestion, degradation or Wi-Fi dead spots, among others,” Extreme said.
Ultimately, the system recommends preventive actions, offers suggestions and suggests network optimization based on business KPIs. Extreme AI Expert creates suggestions to troubleshoot, resolve or proactively address issues, Extreme said.
AI Expertis is currently a technology preview, and Extreme expects to begin integrating the technology — possibly into its ExtremeCloud IQ wireless and wired network management offering, as well as its AI CoPilot-based management tool.
Extreme joins a number of vendors, including Cisco, Fortinet and HPE Aruba, that have recently introduced AI-based assistants designed to help enterprise customers better assess security situations, eliminate errors and automate complex tasks.
Cisco, for example, has added AI Security Assistant, which will be deployed as part of its cloud-based firewall management center and Cisco Defense Orchestrator services. The Cisco Firewall Management Center is a centralized platform for configuring, monitoring, troubleshooting, and controlling next-generation Cisco Firepower firewalls. The orchestration platform enables customers to centrally manage, control and automate security policies across multiple cloud-based security systems.
Fortinet is building an AI-based assistant to help customers combat cybersecurity threats.
Fortinet Advisor aims to help security teams make more informed decisions, respond faster to threats, and simplify routine and complex tasks. The AI-based assistant will be available as part of Fortinet’s FortiSIEM security information and event management platform and FortiSOAR security orchestration, automation and response product.
In addition to other vendors, HPE Aruba is deploying genAI-driven search tools in its management platform to help customers access detailed answers to queries about network configurations, documentation and other IT operational issues.
The company includes multiple HPE-trained large language models (LLM) in the search tools that are part of HPE Aruba Networking Central, its primary cloud-based management and orchestration platform for wired and wireless networks spanning campus, branch and data center sites. data.
