Thoughts on Network
Standards
Perry Brunelli
November 4th, 2008

Network Reliability Improved
• Code upgrades no longer #1 cause of outages
• Lab to test new IOS releases
• Synchronization of IOS upgrades
• Expertise in hardware / IOS
• One throat to choke

Best of Breed Only a Point in Time
• Notion that technologies eventually converge
• Cost associated with evaluation
• Cookie cutter approach scales
• Shift operating expenses to capital
• AANTS one example

Benefits of Vendor
Relationship
• More likely to listen to our concerns
• Annual briefing at Cisco offices
• Direct access to engineers and product managers
• Discounts negotiated on bulk orders
• Technical support on-site
• Reality is that we aren’t single vendor and in many
cases are best of breed:
• 3750 switches, Juniper border router

Established Companies Not
Nimble
• Market leader less inclined to take risks
• Less likely to embrace widely accepted standards
• Small companies better suited to fill niche
requirements
• Need to innovate not as great

Standardization Not Real
• Cisco model is to acquire companies
• New routers have four different OS’s
• SAN solution runs a different OS
• Reluctance to adopt new industry open standards

Additional Comments
• Cisco price point not always competitive
• Is there value instandardizing on commodity
equipment?
• Example: wireless AP’s
• How long do we wait for features and how much
more are we willing to pay?
• Example: iSCSI, Clusters
• Does Arista have a more compelling price point
than Cisco on 10G Ethernet gear?

Discussion Items
• How are platform decisions made? Does this
work? Should we change it?
• Does the current model work? If not, how should
we change it?