Extreme Networks announced Tuesday that it enhanced OneController, its OpenDaylight-based SDN controller (not to be confused with Cisco ONE), to include Group-Based Policy (GBP), the model that allows for an intent-driven network.

While the news is exciting, it's not exactly what many want to be asking Extreme about at Interop this week — considering three executives exited the company recently, along with other new appointments at the executive level. Officials say more word on the departures will come from new CEO Ed Meyercord on May 6 when Extreme's earnings are announced, so hold tight.

Tuesday's announcement allows Extreme's enterprise customers to bring GBP to their entire network infrastructure with a single management app, letting them deploy policy-driven SDN in multivendor, brownfield environments, Extreme says.

With OpenDaylight in the picture, customers can try options outside of OpenFlow, says Markus Nispel, Extreme's vice president of solutions architecture and innovation. This means less fragmentation in the application development community, Nispel says.

Customers like the Town of Enfield, Conn., and Mount Mary University in Wisconsin are some of the first users for Extreme's updated controller capabilities. In Enfield's case, police, schools, and the town administration have saved money by setting up centralized IT support for 32 locations. Applications being run by the town include an on-demand, self-service portal for lab scheduling in schools.

For Mount Mary, the challenge rests with policy deployments related to quality-of-service (QoS) and security. With the updated SDN platform from Extreme Networks, QoS policies can be automated.

Along those lines, Tuesday's announcement also included specific support for Microsoft's Skype for Business unified communications platform, formerly named Lync. OneController can use OpenDaylight to apply QoS to Skype for Business, resulting in quicker and simpler deployment, Extreme officials say.