Arista Networks Redefines Data Center Switching

MENLO PARK, Calif. Arista Networks today introduced the Arista 7500, a revolutionary switching platform for maximizing data center performance, efficiency, and overall network reliability. The Arista 7500 is the highest performance and most power efficient 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) switching platform available. It was specifically designed to address the most demanding customer requirements for cloud computing, virtualization, and mission-critical data centers. "The architecture of the Arista 7500 is ideally suited for cloud computing and a great match for Dell's PowerEdge server and EqualLogic iSCSI storage solutions where an uncompromised cloud network is critical for delivering the optimal customer experience."

The Arista 7500 has 10 terabits per second of switching capacity and 384 wirespeed L2/L3 10GbE ports in only eleven rack-units. It is five times faster, one-tenth the power draw per wirespeed port and one-half the footprint compared to other modular data center switches. The Arista 7500 was designed with the most demanding requirements in mind, delivering a new class of Cloud Network spine and aggregation layer within the Arista portfolio.

"Cloud Networking requires a new class of scale, price/performance, and resilience previously not addressed with existing modular switches," emphasized Jayshree Ullal, president and chief executive officer of Arista Networks. "The introduction of the Arista 7500 is significant and transformational to customers and the 10GbE market - this platform ushers in the next phase of the data center industry."

Arista's First and Flagship Modular Switch
The Arista 7500 supports an unprecedented L2/L3 throughput of 5.76 billion packets per second in a single chassis - the platform will also deliver 40 and 100Gbps Ethernet interfaces in the future. A low-latency, non-blocking fabric enables traffic to be carried without loss and manages congestion under the most demanding workloads, for any type of network traffic. These capabilities enable large-scale data center consolidation and improve server efficiency, significantly reducing operating costs of the entire IT infrastructure.

"When deploying a cloud infrastructure in the data center, network performance, power efficiency, low latency and scalability are all key considerations," said Forrest Norrod, vice president and general manager of Dell's Server Platform Division. "The architecture of the Arista 7500 is ideally suited for cloud computing and a great match for Dell's PowerEdge server and EqualLogic iSCSI storage solutions where an uncompromised cloud network is critical for delivering the optimal customer experience."The Arista 7500 runs EOS, Arista's Extensible Operating System. Built with a modular software design with a unique multi-process, state sharing architecture, EOS offers open access to Linux tools, extensible network services, and allows easy integration with third-party applications. A first in the networking industry, EOS provides a single binary image across all Arista networking platforms and delivers mission-critical data center features such as Stateful Fault Repair and In-Service Software Upgrades.

The modern data center demands radically simpler network designs for large-scale server, storage, and cloud deployments. A simple two-tier design of Arista 7500 spine switches and Arista leaf switches can support over 8,000 servers with over 100,000 cores. This enables predictable performance per server and low end-to-end latency. "The Arista 7500 is a fundamental advance in the state-of-the-art of data center Ethernet switching," said Andy Bechtolsheim, Arista's chairman and chief development officer. "This platform was designed and engineered with the performance and capability to continue to scale and address the most challenging and demanding data center requirements, including future 40Gb and 100Gb Ethernet."

Several industry analysts have provided comments on Arista 7500 and its impact on the modular Ethernet market. The Arista 7500 Series starts at $140,000 and a fully configured system is at the breakthrough price of less than $1,200 per wirespeed port. The Arista 7500 is available now and is in production in mission-critical facilities today.