ClearTech Loop: In the Know, On the Move

When the Market Converges with Dan DeBacker

• ClearTech Research / Jo Peterson • Season 1 • Episode 28

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The market is converging. 

Networking, security, and cloud operations are no longer separate conversations. They are colliding at the operational layer, driven by hybrid environments, AI driven operations, and growing pressure to reduce complexity without losing control. 

In this episode of ClearTech Loop Market Perspective, Jo Peterson sits down with Dan DeBacker, Chief Product Officer at Extreme Networks, to explore what this convergence looks like in practice and why simplicity, unified policy, and cloud design are increasingly inseparable decisions. 

Dan shares how enterprises are grappling with operational friction created by multiple control planes and fragmented policy engines, and why the market is responding by collapsing domains into platforms. The conversation examines convergence not as a trend, but as a response to real operational pressure. 

Through the lens of AI Enhanced Cloud Operations, the discussion focuses on how AI is tightening feedback loops, exposing hidden complexity, and forcing organizations to rethink how visibility, policy, and control operate across cloud and on premises environments. 

If you’re navigating hybrid operations, policy sprawl, or the growing pressure to simplify without sacrificing sovereignty, this episode brings clarity to where the market is headed. 

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Key Quotes 

“If you have to integrate and manage multiple UI experiences, multiple policies, multiple ways of doing things… that’s complexity. Our goal is to reduce friction by bringing those together.” 
— Dan DeBacker 

“When you talk about NAC policy, VPN policy, Zero Trust policy ideally they should not live in silos. The next evolution is a unified policy engine.” 
— Dan DeBacker 

“AI doesn’t tolerate fragmentation. The more intelligence we embed into operations, the more exposed complexity becomes.” 
— Jo Peterson 

Three Big Ideas from This Episode 

1. Convergence is an operational reality, not a future state 

The collision of networking, security, and cloud operations is happening because fragmented environments cannot keep up with AI driven decision cycles. 

2. Policy is becoming shared operational infrastructure 

Unified policy models are emerging as the connective tissue across access, security, and network operations, replacing siloed controls that slow response and increase risk. 

3. Cloud and on premises now function as a continuum 

Organizations are designing for flexibility and sovereignty by treating cloud as an experience rather than a location, applying consistent control across environments. 

Episode Notes

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Resources Mentioned 

Extreme Platform ONE Security: Accelerating Zero Trust and Simplifying Operations for Network Leaders
https://www.extremenetworks.com/resources/blogs/extreme-platform-one-security-accelerating-zero-trust-and-simplifying-operations-for-network-leaders 

Gartner: AI Enabling Cloud Services Are the Future of Cloud 

Jo Peterson:

Jo, Hey, y'all welcome. Thanks so much for joining clear check loop. I am Jo Peterson. I'm the vice president of cloud and security for clarify 360 and you know, I'm your hostess with the most US, and every week I try to bring an interesting guest to the table, and this week is no exception. I've got Dan deback, who is the Chief Product Officer for infrastructure for Extreme Networks. Hi Dan.

Dan Deback:

Hi Jo. Glad to be here.

Jo Peterson:

Thank you for coming. You'll notice my squeaky voice here. That is my gift from reinvent last week. So it's my gift to you today, if you can understand the squeaks. But back to Dan. He's more important. Dan has held various roles at Extreme Networks. He's been there for over eight years. He's been in both product and engineering, and he recently got promoted to Chief Product Officer. So be on the lookout for some more new, cool stuff, right? That's what that means. Dan's been an industry veteran for more than 25 years, and he's worked for other large brands like Nortel Avaya and Brocade. So if this is the first time you're joining clear tech loop, our podcast is just this hot take approach to what is happening right now in tech with a focus on security, and we ask three questions that go real fast. So we're going to start with the first one. Dan, how has extremes cloud strategy evolved? And what should we expect to see in the coming months?

Dan Deback:

We're so excited, Jo, about what's happening here around the cloud. We've been in the cloud for quite a long time, and over the course of the last six months, recently introduced extreme platform, one which is a new way, really, to look at and to manage infrastructure and networks. So moving into a platform makes things so much easier for our customers. It's simple, it's easy, and what's even more important is that it is built on an AI core, and AI is pervasive across the entire infrastructure, so it's no longer siloed into just wired or wireless or SD Wan. It's across the entire infrastructure, both for purple devices, extreme devices and non purple devices. So from a cloud perspective, you know, as we continue to evolve, I think the simplicity piece of this and the ability for customers to really consume AI at their pace of trust is what we're offering right now.

Jo Peterson:

I love the fact that it's not siloed. That's so important from an IT ops perspective. All right. Next question, talk across the industry other than AI, if you can believe there is talk other than AI, is all about data sovereignty. What is extremes, thoughts and position on how to address this across the globe, because it's hard.

Dan Deback:

Oh, it's so hard. It's Jo it's changing every week almost. It's insane about how quick the pace of change is happening around this. And I think, you know, everyone is very focused on security, securing the data, securing, you know, all the personal information and things of that nature. And sometimes it sounds counterintuitive, because AI needs a lot of data, so the more data we can feed AI, the better AI gets. But now we have this concern about, well, what about the security of that data as it goes into AI? So I think you know, as we look at this from multiple aspects, you're trying to solve multiple variables all at the same time. So for us, for data sovereignty, we have a couple of different solutions, right? We can always do things that are in country with cloud providers. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't work. The other option that we have is what we call extreme cloud edge, which is now being transformed into platform one on premise, so taking that exact cloud experience and moving it on prem, so data never leaves a customer's data center. I think you know, when we look at that the sovereignty piece, which you can define it in multiple different ways, everyone defines cloud sovereignty a little bit differently, and data sovereignty, our ability to manage networks, give a customer that cloud experience. And for us, Cloud is an experience. It's not a place. So if we can take that cloud experience that normally you would get into an AWS or an Azure or a GCP, we bring that same exact experience on premise, and we manage that entire infrastructure. So we're not asking a customer to figure out how to manage a cloud infrastructure. We manage that cloud infrastructure, but that data remains resident within the within that data center or that location or that country for a customer. So. Starting this, and we've been doing this for for quite a while, for a couple of years now, from a management perspective. And what you'll see is that, you know, we can see the the ability of AI and inference engines being brought down into the data center to continue that, that whole thought process moving forward.

Jo Peterson:

I think you just mentioned the word of 26 which is inferencing, right? It's bubbling up. It is so in such a good answer about the fact that you're able to meet the customer where they are from a security standpoint, right, that you offer them options. So we touched on it a little bit, but how many you can dig in a little bit more security is so top of mind for everyone. What does extreme offer?

Dan Deback:

Yeah, I mean, we've we look at ourselves as offer. We're a network infrastructure company. There's no doubt about it, right? We're not going to hide behind that. That's exactly who we are, what we are, but we want to make sure that we offer secure solutions for our customers. So a year ago, just over a year ago, we introduced our universal ztna Security offering, which really brings together cloud nak capabilities along with ztna capabilities that fully integrated into our solutions, whether it's wired, wireless or SD Wan integrated into our platform. So now, when you look at that type of a security aspect, it's not a bolt on, it's integrated in. And again, we continue, and you will hear this from us over and over again about simplicity. How can we make it easy for our customers to deploy a solution, a network infrastructure solution, manage that structure, that infrastructure from a platform, and have security built right in. So make it very simple. Make it very easy from that, that perspective. So, you know, when we look at at that, that security aspect, you know, it's, it's a lot of different things, as you can imagine. I mean, there's the whole concept of SSE and firewalling, and there's a lot of different things. Being able to bring those types of capabilities and integrate them into a single, unified platform, in a single unified infrastructure, again, makes it so much easier for our customers.

Jo Peterson:

So educate me a little bit, because I'm of the thinking that zero trust network access is often the front door to more of a total zero trust journey. Give me your thoughts on that?

Dan Deback:

Oh, absolutely. And I think this is one of those things where customers are very familiar with knack and they've been doing network access control for a long time. And we have on prem solutions. We have cloud solutions, really, again, depending on what the customer needs, but now the ability for for us to extend that into zero trust and having simpler and easier access for our customers, you're absolutely right. It's the first step into, you know, a fully secure solution, whether it's URL filtering, it's XDR, it's all these different types of technologies that are now built into that, that infrastructure solution. So moving away from the the old concept of VPNs and into zero trust. I think, you know, as we went through the craziness of covid and everything that happened there, and we had all these users that are now working from home or distributed, all of a sudden now that that security boundary just got expanded significantly. So how do you maintain that user experience? How do I make sure that Jo can access the applications that you need to access anywhere in the world securely. And I think that's that first step with with zero trust network access. So you know, having that kind of capability makes it so much easier again, because now I can manage policy across my entire infrastructure from one place. They don't have to manage a NAC policy over here and a zero trust policy here and a VPN policy over here. Again. That's not simple. That's not easy. So let's consolidate all of this into one single policy engine that now it doesn't matter where you are anywhere in the world and what network you're attached to, we can manage your access and your user experience remains the same.

Jo Peterson:

Plus, as you migrate to the cloud, you know your your attack surface changes, and this is a another great way to maybe get your arms around limiting that attack surface a little bit better, right?

Dan Deback:

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, as we look at our solutions, it is a, it's a security first mentality, and because the world is shifting so quickly, and all the things that are happening again, we talk about sovereign cloud and data sovereignty and those types of things. I mean, these are the, these are now the basic tenants. Of the requirements to deploy networks in the past, it was, you know, what speeds and feeds did you have, and what features did you have? Do you have this feature and that feature and those types of things, those are kind of those are still important, but they're further down the list, and those are somewhat table stakes. At this point. It's like, How can I deploy, how can we deploy a secure solution for our customers, and it cannot be a one size fits all. It has to be flexible, you know, whether it's vertical specific or just that customer's specific requirements. So the the ability for us to customize that and to make it easy and simple, you know, lowers that barrier to entry.

Jo Peterson:

Yeah, that's great. Well, thank you for your insights and your time today. Love to have you back and talk a little bit more as you know the year progresses, and love to learn more about some of the AI specific security things that you guys have in place, because I'm sure that that's interesting. So thank you for taking time to join today.

Dan Deback:

All right. Thanks, Jo. Really appreciate it. You.