ExtremeCloud IQ vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ExtremeCloud IQ
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
ExtremeCloud IQ provides unified management driven by Machine Learning (ML). It features configuration workflows, realtime and historical monitoring, comprehensive troubleshooting, and integrated network applications. Designed to take full advantage of Extreme’s end-to- end networking solutions, it delivers unified, full-stack management of access points, switches, and SD-WAN.N/A
Ansible
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
The Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform (acquired by Red Hat in 2015) is a foundation for building and operating automation across an organization. The platform includes tools needed to implement enterprise-wide automation, and can automate resource provisioning, and IT environments and configuration of systems and devices. It can be used in a CI/CD process to provision the target environment and to then deploy the application on it.
$5,000
per year
Pricing
ExtremeCloud IQRed Hat Ansible Automation Platform
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Basic Tower
5,000
per year
Enterprise Tower
10,000
per year
Premium Tower
14,000
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ExtremeCloud IQAnsible
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ExtremeCloud IQRed Hat Ansible Automation Platform
Features
ExtremeCloud IQRed Hat Ansible Automation Platform
Configuration Management
Comparison of Configuration Management features of Product A and Product B
ExtremeCloud IQ
7.6
Ratings
6% below category average
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
8.6
Ratings
7% above category average
Infrastructure Automation6.90 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Automated Provisioning8.40 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Parallel Execution8.00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Node Management7.20 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Reporting & Logging7.50 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Version Control7.40 Ratings8.70 Ratings
User Ratings
ExtremeCloud IQRed Hat Ansible Automation Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
ExtremeCloud IQRed Hat Ansible Automation Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
In complex environments where redundancy is required or a high density of client devices is in use. It is helpful to small enterprises with limited IT staff, as once the auto-provisioning is set up with AP templates, it means APs can be installed by non-IT staff. Licensing can be complex due to all the models, but the ability for co-term licenses to end on the same expiry is essential.
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I'm going to say it is best suited for configuration management. Like I said, patching even with security, things of that nature. Probably less suited is hardware management, but Red Hat IBM/IBM has Terraform for that. So it's a trade off.
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Pros
  • GTAC support is excellent; they understand the issue and do not hesitate to help in detail.
  • The layout is very intuitive and easy to use, especially the templating of switch port types. It makes it simple to use context-based names so the purpose of the port can be understood.
  • The auto channel selection now works very well, including the SDR dual 5GHz mode.
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  • Debugging is easy, as it tells you exactly within your job where the job failed, even when jumping around several playbooks.
  • Ansible seems to integrate with everything, and the community is big enough that if you are unsure how to approach converting a process into a playbook, you can usually find something similar to what you are trying to do.
  • Security in AAP seems to be pretty straightforward. Easy to organize and identify who has what permissions or can only see the content based on the organization they belong to.
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Cons
  • Licensing as a whole is a nightmare. If you have a device RMA'd - you have to email their licensing team to have the device license transferred to your new hardware. Licensing renewals are also a pain, as oftentimes they don't have the licenses correctly tied to each device you own. Definitely the biggest issue I have with ExtremeCloud IQ Networks
  • Hardware is tied to you once you purchase it, so there is no resale market/secondary market for the devices you purchase - should you try to sell them when they're end of life within your organization
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  • Ability to tell when a task has already been done
  • yaml configuration can be annoying at times, perhaps a built in lint so yq isn't needed
  • the become feature should be able to be set to true globally without using args
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
Even is if it's a great tool, we are looking to renew our licence for our production servers only. The product is very expensive to use, so we might look for a cheaper solution for our non-production servers. One of the solution we are looking, is AWX, free, and similar to AAP. This is be perfect for our non-production servers.
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Usability
Being a web platform, it is very easily accessible. The user interface is very simple, intuitive, and visually well-designed. The learning to use it was very quick and can be done even without specific user manuals. Access to the analytics and troubleshooting tools is also extremely intuitive and very well-crafted.
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Overall it's good but the new architecture can be complex. Improvements can be made in the Config as Code capabilities for managing Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Sometimes it can be difficult for those unfamiliar to understand the relationship between Projects/Credentials/Job Templates, etc.
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Performance
No answers on this topic
Great in almost every way compared to any other configuration management software. The only thing I wish for is python3 support. Other than that, YAML is much improved compared to the Ruby of Chef. The agentless nature is incredibly convenient for managing systems quickly, and if a member of your term has no terminal experience whatsoever they can still use the UI.
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
There is a lot of good documentation that Ansible and Red Hat provide which should help get someone started with making Ansible useful. But once you get to more complicated scenarios, you will benefit from learning from others. I have not used Red Hat support for work with Ansible, but many of the online resources are helpful.
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
I spoke on this topic today!
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Alternatives Considered
I previously used Aruba APs in the early 2010s - but have no other experience since then
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As I said earlier, Red Hat Ansible remains a top choice because it is a perfect combination of multiple capabilities. Terraform is good in IAC but not in config automation. Puppet is well-suited for developers, but not for system administrators and infrastructure integrators. OpenShift and Kubernetes are generic automators only.
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Return on Investment
  • Extreme has allowed us to significantly reduce the time required for incident resolution.
  • Close to zero-touch greatly enhanced our business.
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  • We are still early in our implementation and don't have much yet - but I can say that it has already improved the time it takes to deploy a new virtual server for us, as well as making them more consistent.
  • In working through what jobs are required, it has really improved the communication between our different teams
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ScreenShots

ExtremeCloud IQ Screenshots

Screenshot of the ExtremeCloud IQ Dashboard