|
|
This Presentation date is March 29, 2012 at 13:30-15:30.
Presenters: Andre Pech, Andy Bechtolsheim, Douglas Gourlay
Arista Networks presented at Networking Field Day 3, highlighting their focus on high-performance Ethernet switches for data centers. The new Arista FX platform, featuring an FPGA, was introduced, enabling customers to add custom features and protocols. Arista’s approach emphasizes automation, extensibility, and real-world utility, distinguishing itself from competitors.
Arista Networks Product Introduction with Douglas Gourlay
Watch on YouTube
Watch on Vimeo
Douglas Gourlay, VP of Marketing for Arista Networks, began by talking about the company’s hardware and software architecture and key features and capabilities. He also introduced the new Arista FX platform, which includes an FPGA on the switch.
In his presentation, Gourlay emphasized Arista’s focus on producing high-performance Ethernet switches specifically for data centers, avoiding other markets like campus, metro, or mobile backhaul. He highlighted that many networking vendors often fail by trying to be everything for everyone and emphasized Arista’s unique value proposition lies in its dedication to providing value through innovative features that enhance usability and management, such as the capacity for automation in operations and providing extensible platforms that can be custom-tailored to specific customer needs. Gourlay’s approach distanced itself from marketing fluff, favoring real-world utility and focusing on impactful technology development, such as their programmable capabilities that make network management more efficient and responsive.
The new Arista FX platform was one of the key highlights. This platform integrates an FPGA into the switch, allowing customers to add their own custom features and protocols. This capability is particularly useful for high-frequency trading operations, data centers handling large-scale computational tasks, and organizations needing advanced and specialized data processing. The idea is to provide a flexible, highly configurable hardware environment that can be adapted to handle unique workloads effectively. Gourlay asserted that this kind of adaptability and forward-thinking design is what sets Arista apart in a competitive market where many customers are continuously seeking ways to optimize their network’s performance and reliability.
Personnel: Douglas Gourlay
A discussion with Arista’s Andy Bechtolsheim
Watch on YouTube
Watch on Vimeo
In a Tech Field Day presentation recorded on March 29, 2012, Arista co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim discussed the current challenges in networking and his approach to solving them. Bechtolsheim emphasized the importance of the EOS model of stateless agents, which keeps all the state in one database, making it easier to update other nodes from the primary node. This model is particularly useful for redundant supervisor switches and can be extended to multi-node systems. He also touched on the topic of OpenFlow, noting that while centralized management of a collection of switches is a common customer use case, replacing traditional routing with centralized routing agents is less practical due to the need for distributed routing to survive failures.
Bechtolsheim provided a critical perspective on the adoption of new networking standards and technologies. He pointed out that despite the initial excitement around OpenFlow, there have been no significant production deployments. He compared this to other standards like TRILL and FCOE, which have seen slow adoption despite being introduced years ago. The main challenge, according to Bechtolsheim, is that most customers have existing networks and are reluctant to adopt new architectures that do not interoperate with their current systems. He argued that the most popular and scalable deployment model today is ECMP (Equal-Cost Multi-Path), which is mature, reliable, and does not require the adoption of new, unproven technologies.
Bechtolsheim also highlighted the importance of centralized management and the role of silicon advancements in networking. He explained that Arista’s approach to centralized management, such as zero-touch provisioning, helps reduce operational expenses by minimizing the need for network engineers. He also discussed the use of various silicon chips from different vendors, emphasizing that Arista’s software stack allows them to choose the best chips available at any given time. This flexibility enables Arista to support new features and higher performance levels without reinventing the network. Bechtolsheim concluded by noting that while software-defined networking (SDN) and programmable network gear are important, the focus should be on solving real customer problems with robust, scalable solutions.
Personnel: Andy Bechtolsheim
Arista Next-Generation Network Management Demo by Andre Pech
Arista’s presentation at Networking Field Day 3, led by Andre Pech, highlights advanced networking solutions focusing on multi-system switch CLI, automation, and extensibility. Arista has emphasized the ease of enabling a single-point management system that does not force customers into specific network architectures or hardware configurations. The demo showcased Arista’s capability to upgrade 50% of a network in approximately five minutes using just two commands, without causing any packet loss. This was coupled with historical event tracking to ensure network visibility and control during the upgrade process.
The demo illustrated the integration of Linux-like capabilities within Arista’s switches, where traditional switch commands can be executed alongside bash commands and Linux utilities. The use of standard tools such as TCP dump and ping for network debugging was demonstrated, highlighting the openness and extensibility of Arista’s network solutions. With VM Tracer, Arista showcased automatic VLAN provisioning for virtual machines based on their dynamic locations, connecting the network’s physical and virtual environments seamlessly. This feature enhances the ease of managing VLANs dynamically, mitigating manual configurations and potential errors.
Additionally, Pech demonstrated Cloud Vision, Arista’s multi-switch CLI, and zero-touch provisioning (ZTP). He explained how ZTP allows for fully automated network upgrades by rebooting switches to a new configuration without manual intervention. The presentation concluded with a discussion on advanced event monitoring, which provides detailed, timestamped logs for network changes, facilitating precise forensic analysis. Arista’s solutions thus focus on simplified management, enhanced automation, and the ability to conduct in-service upgrades with minimized network disruption.
Personnel: Andre Pech