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Microsoft upgrading switches to Arista Networks

"Korea Telecom is one customer that has now deployed hundreds of switches after the initial trial; the company saved over 80% in capex by deploying Arista's solution."

Thu, 4/5/12 - 5:23pm    View comments

Today, RBC Capital Markets Managing Director Mark Sue revealed the following "bombshell" in his research note:

"We believe Microsoft may also be upgrading its network based on Arista switches.

"Flattening the network and simplifying the data center offer significant cost benefits and vendors including Juniper, Brocade, Cisco, and others have set forth various fabric technologies. We also have non-fabric fabric contenders, such as Arista, which believe that a standards-based approach is the way to get scale in a network. On top of that, the OpenFlow movement and the broader opportunities for Software Defined Networks promise to address the network problem from a different angle and potentially reduce the requirements for a full fabric deployment. For its part, Arista remains adamant that no fabric is required with Ethernet set to get only better from here."

Sue continued:

"Arista says that SDNs can be implemented using controllers of distributed network controllers, each with its pros and cons. Initial applications for OpenFlow, according to Arista, include dynamic packet redirection for network tap aggregation, lawful intercept, and network segmentation deployments.

"And with more APIs in development, OpenFlow doesn't necessarily have to be the only method to deploy SDNs. Other options include OpenStack, Netconf, XMPP, VMware, or even future hypervisors, which all promise some topology agnostic network virtualization for applicant and workload mobility optimization. So while some investors may have concluded that OpenFlow equates to SDNs, others believe OpenFlow is just one option to implement an SDN."

Sue added:

"Arista typically displaces other vendors by starting with a two-to six-switch initial deployment. When customers decide that they would like to go ahead with Arista switches, they either do a rip and replace of entire data centers or grow alongside their existing network with more Arista switches.

"Korea Telecom is one customer that has now deployed hundreds of switches after the initial trial; the company saved over 80% in capex by deploying Arista's solution."

View the video of Korea Telecom's CIO Jae Lee discussing Arista switches and cloud computing.
 

Sue concluded:

"Virtualization is one of the drivers of data center consolidation and the need for more efficient data centers. Arista has a partnership with VMWare whereby Arista's operating system EOS incorporates software capabilities of VM Tracer. Through VM Tracer, network operators get better visibility into the virtualization layer and have better control of their network protocols.

"Arista's approach to next-generation data center networking is based on its software OS imbedded in its switch technology. The company claims that fabrics are more marketing related than anything else and that Arista's switches already have the capabilities that many of its competitors are claiming to be revolutionary in networking. Arista offers high performance, functionality, low latency, and ease of use on open standards to be competitive with larger competitors in data center switching.

"Arista leverages merchant silicon for its switching technology, unlike other vendors that use their proprietary ASIC technologies. Merchant silicon may be getting more advanced and Arista claims that the company can achieve 6x to 8x better performance using merchant silicon vs. utilizing ASICs. Partnering with its merchant silicon partners, Arista is able to come out with a new technology every 18 months."

Arista Application Switch: The World's First Programmable Data Plane
 

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