A discussion with Arista’s Andy Bechtolsheim

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.