Reinventing Data Center Switching
Tom Flaherty - Colorado
David Koerner – Utah
• Best-of-Breed
• Performance
• Quality
• Reliability
• Innovation
• Value
• Rapid market adoption
• Support
Arista and VLCM Deliver
• Networking Experience
• Data Center Experience
• Technical Resources
• Dozens of certifications
• Over 30 years in Utah
• Strong responsive team
• Knowledge of adjacent &
complementary solutions
 Founded by Andy Bechtolsheim, David Cheriton, Ken Duda
 1200+ Employees
 70% of employees are engineers
 3300 Customers
 Fastest growing switch maker, highly profitable
 7 of 8 of the largest Cloud Titans run on Arista Networks
 8 of 10 of the largest Financial Services firms run on Arista
Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET)
Thinking differently about the data center...
Where has it gotten us?
Starting in the early 2000’s there was an EXPLOSION of hyper-scale cloud
data centers. Existing solutions could not keep pace with demands.
Enter Arista. (HQ Offices in Santa Clara, California)
Arista: Created for the new Cloud Data Center
Arista EOS
x64 Linux Kernel
vCenterAPI
UserKVM
SysDB - Central State Database
XMPPClient
LED
ASICs
STP
CLI
MLAG
Routing
World Class Hardware
 Highest Densities
 Lowest Power Consumption
 Superior buffering
Software Architecture (EOS)
 Built on unmodified Linux Kernel: Standardized, Simple and Open.
 Single binary SW image across entire platform: Simplicity, lower OpEx.
 Unique “SysDB” database manages process state and process communication.
Hardware Architecture
7048T
48-port Data Center
Class Gigabit Ethernet
Switch with Deep
Buffering
7150S
Ultra Low Latency
24,52,64-port SFP+
1G-40GbE Switches
Intelligent
Application Switch
7050 S/T/Q
1/10G & 10/40G Data
Center Switches
10G SFP+ / 10G-T
Dense Virtualization
10GbE / 40GbE DC
7050X & 7280X
Dense Low Latency
32 & 64-port QSFP+
96xSFP+/8xQSFP+
48-port 10Gb w/
100Gb Uplinks
Advanced Virtualization
Scale-out
Visibility
7500E
Lossless, High
Density, Modular
Switching System
supporting up to 1152
Wire speed 10GbE
Ports
Spine
10-40-100GbE
7300X
High Density,
Modular System
supporting up to 512
40GbE
Cloud Scale
Leaf and Spine
10GbE-40GbE
7010
48-port Data Center
Class Gigabit Ethernet
Switch
Arista Networks: The Best Data Center Portfolio
Built for ANY Application – Universal Cloud Architecture
Network Applications
Big Data
IP Storage
VM Farms
Cloud
VDI
Legacy
Applications
Web
2.0
HFT
Legacy Data Center
100s of nodes 2000 era
“Leaf-Spine” 2010+
100,000 nodes
SDCN Network 2014+
Leaf, Spine, Spline Model
Multiple north-south points of
management, oversubscription,
wasteful cost model
Simplified management, active-active
links, optimized model
Open One View Vision
physical and virtual and any-to-any
programmable operations
Software Driven Cloud Networking: 2010-2014+
A Simple Comparison...
3-Tier Legacy 2-Tier Leaf/Spine
Total # of Aggregation
Switches
10 4
Cabinets per Aggregation
Switch
3.6 17.25
Power for Aggregation 24.4kW 8.4kW
Number of Network Ports 2,304 1,152
Number of Host Ports 3,456 6,816
Network to Host Ratio 1:1.5 1:6
 Only product line to win INTEROP Grand Prize…
Twice.
 11 RU
 1152 10Gb Ports
 288 40Gb Ports
 96 100Gb Ports
 Non Blocking
 Ultra low latency with advanced buffering
 3x less power consumption
 EOS
Arista 7508E – At a Glance
 Industry’s first 100Gb 1RU Switch
 Up to 72 10Gb Ports
 2 100Gb Ports
 Ultra deep packet buffer (9Gb)
 Up to 1.44 Terabits per Second
 Non Blocking
 Ultra low latency
 EOS
Arista 7280E – At a Glance
*Car sold separately
Software Architecture
IOS
Real Time OS
Single-Instance Code
‘Blob’
Modular OS
Modified BSD KernelRouting
Protocols
SpanningTree
JunOSSpace
SNMP
Arista EOS
x64 Linux Kernel
vCenterAPI
UserKVM
SysDB - Central State Database
XMPPClient
LED
ASICs
STP
CLI
MLAG
Routing
1980’s 1990’s 2010
 Limited modularity – JUN OS / NX OS
 All communication goes through shared
memory, or kernel based IPC
 Each new process requires changes to all
others it communicates with
 No concept of ‘state’ Extensive kernel
modification reduces reliability and slows
security response
 A simple architecture
 < 25k lines of code,
 Any failure causes complete
system crash
 Bugs and defects have no
accountability
Architectural Features - Self healing
 Fault Isolation/Repair
 Process-Level Upgrades
Defect Elimination
 Auto-build/ Auto-test
 Machine Generated SW
Open & Programmable
 Persistent VM Space
 Direct Shell Access
 Python CLI
 Event Triggered
 LANZ/DANZ, ZTP/ZTR, RAIL, etc
OperatingSystemMaturityDifference in Network Operating Systems
Arista EOS
x64 Linux Kernel
vCenterAPI
UserKVM
SysDB - Central State Database
XMPPClient
LED
ASICs
STP
CLI
MLAG
Routing
Superior Software Architecture
 Processes run in their own Linux name space and communicate through SysDB.
 A bug or crash in one process does not spillover to other processes
 SysDB has state awareness for each process, and can even restart a process
automatically
 Improves stability and troubleshooting
 No “Christmas Tree Light” effect
 4x fewer RMA’s
Linux Kernel
Arista: One Extensible Operating System. Quality, Simplicity and Scale
NX-OS N9K NX-OS & iNX-OS
Linux 2.6 kernel Linux 3.4.10 kernel
STP
Port-
Sec
802.1X
MSDP
ETH-
PM
Eukera
USD
Lamira
USD
IPQOS
ACL
ELTM
L2FMC
L2FM
BD-
MGR
SVI-
MGR
LC
ELTM
LC_ACL
QOS
PIM
IGMP
NF
M6RIBMFDM
PIXMC
IGMP
Snoop
PIXM
SA
CT
UFDM
U4RIB
BGP
CoPP
EARL
NF
SPM
LC
FIB
oRIB
L2
MCAST
OTV
OSPF
ISIS
EIGRP
RIP
M4RIB
U6RIB
STP
Port-
Sec
802.1X
MSDP
ETH-
PM
Eukera
USD
Lamira
USD
IPQOS
ACL
ELTM
L2FMC
L2FM
BD-
MGR
SVI-
MGR
LC
ELTM
LC_ACL
QOS
PIM
IGMP
NF
M6RIBMFDM
PIXMC
IGMP
Snoop
PIXM
SA
CT
UFDM
U4RIB
BGP
CoPP
EARL
NF
SPM
LC
FIB
oRIB
L2
MCAST
OTV
OSPF
ISIS
EIGRP
RIP
M4RIB
U6RIB
EOS
Cisco NX-OS software
architecture
Complex to code, debug,
test and troubleshoot
(Modular spaghetti)
Arista EOS software
architecture
SysDB used for all State and IPC
System Integrity is not dependent on
synchronous ordering of events.
Does not fail at scale
Cisco iNX-OS software
architecture
(Moving from a Linux-2.6
to 3.4 kernel does not
fix NX-OS quality)
Arista CLOUD ECO-SYSTEM
Open and Programmable at Every Level
Some examples…
Arista VM Tracer
with VXLAN support
automatically provisions
segments and supports
thousands of VMs
VMware
Arista integrates
with VMware NSX
in VLAN mode
today and in 2015
will integrate via
OVSDB
VMware NSX
Arista natively supports
Openstack Neutron
ML2 integration natively
Openstack
Openstack w/ SDN
Controller
Arista integrates with
multiple controller
vendors to support
Openstack orchestration
Network Virtualization Deployment Architectures
NMSApplications
Switch detects potential
congestion
LANZ alerts applications and NMS
Application
reacts to
conditions
NMS
Identifies
hotspots
Understand the source of latency (local or remote) - Microbursting
• Alert applications to congestion trends early via LANZ streaming
• Enable pro-active response - avoid losses or latency increases
• Export data to management systems - correlate/graph historical data
LANZ Revolutionizes Network Visibility
Multi-Destination Fine Grain
Symmetric Load balancing
4x10Gb or 40Gb Monitor Ports
7150S
Hardware Time Stamp
IP StorageApp
Platforms
Database
Platforms
App
Platforms
App
Platforms
App
Platforms
App
Platforms
Scales with predictable investment - does not compromise visibility
7150S
Hardware Time Stamp
Flow Aggregation
7150S
Hardware Time Stamp
7150S
Hardware Time Stamp
EOS API
7150S
TAP Aggregation
Monitoring Traffic
Production Traffic
DANZ Open & Scalable Data Analysis Solution
• Track Hadoop nodes
• View activity statistics
• Correlate congestion events with jobs running
• Automatically trigger packet capture
• Proactive failed node notification
MapReduce Tracer
HPC – Storage & Big Data Tracers
Detect
• Routing issues
• Hardware problems
• Performance bottlenecks
Log
• Packet loss per path
• Stream loss per hop
• Network paths taken
React
• Alert operations
• Execute script
• Exception flow
forwarding
• Notify external
controller
PathTracer
Untrusted/Unknown Flow
Trusted Flow
Software Defined Networking with Context
Intelligent integration makes optimized and secure SDN forwarding decisions
Arista Switch
Next Generation Firewall
Attack Flow
Deploy switches in minutes
Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP)
Customers LOVE our Support
THANK YOU
Questions?

Arista reinventing data center switching

  • 1.
    Reinventing Data CenterSwitching Tom Flaherty - Colorado David Koerner – Utah
  • 2.
    • Best-of-Breed • Performance •Quality • Reliability • Innovation • Value • Rapid market adoption • Support Arista and VLCM Deliver • Networking Experience • Data Center Experience • Technical Resources • Dozens of certifications • Over 30 years in Utah • Strong responsive team • Knowledge of adjacent & complementary solutions
  • 3.
     Founded byAndy Bechtolsheim, David Cheriton, Ken Duda  1200+ Employees  70% of employees are engineers  3300 Customers  Fastest growing switch maker, highly profitable  7 of 8 of the largest Cloud Titans run on Arista Networks  8 of 10 of the largest Financial Services firms run on Arista Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET)
  • 4.
    Thinking differently aboutthe data center... Where has it gotten us?
  • 5.
    Starting in theearly 2000’s there was an EXPLOSION of hyper-scale cloud data centers. Existing solutions could not keep pace with demands.
  • 6.
    Enter Arista. (HQOffices in Santa Clara, California)
  • 7.
    Arista: Created forthe new Cloud Data Center Arista EOS x64 Linux Kernel vCenterAPI UserKVM SysDB - Central State Database XMPPClient LED ASICs STP CLI MLAG Routing World Class Hardware  Highest Densities  Lowest Power Consumption  Superior buffering Software Architecture (EOS)  Built on unmodified Linux Kernel: Standardized, Simple and Open.  Single binary SW image across entire platform: Simplicity, lower OpEx.  Unique “SysDB” database manages process state and process communication.
  • 8.
  • 9.
    7048T 48-port Data Center ClassGigabit Ethernet Switch with Deep Buffering 7150S Ultra Low Latency 24,52,64-port SFP+ 1G-40GbE Switches Intelligent Application Switch 7050 S/T/Q 1/10G & 10/40G Data Center Switches 10G SFP+ / 10G-T Dense Virtualization 10GbE / 40GbE DC 7050X & 7280X Dense Low Latency 32 & 64-port QSFP+ 96xSFP+/8xQSFP+ 48-port 10Gb w/ 100Gb Uplinks Advanced Virtualization Scale-out Visibility 7500E Lossless, High Density, Modular Switching System supporting up to 1152 Wire speed 10GbE Ports Spine 10-40-100GbE 7300X High Density, Modular System supporting up to 512 40GbE Cloud Scale Leaf and Spine 10GbE-40GbE 7010 48-port Data Center Class Gigabit Ethernet Switch Arista Networks: The Best Data Center Portfolio
  • 10.
    Built for ANYApplication – Universal Cloud Architecture Network Applications Big Data IP Storage VM Farms Cloud VDI Legacy Applications Web 2.0 HFT
  • 11.
    Legacy Data Center 100sof nodes 2000 era “Leaf-Spine” 2010+ 100,000 nodes SDCN Network 2014+ Leaf, Spine, Spline Model Multiple north-south points of management, oversubscription, wasteful cost model Simplified management, active-active links, optimized model Open One View Vision physical and virtual and any-to-any programmable operations Software Driven Cloud Networking: 2010-2014+
  • 12.
    A Simple Comparison... 3-TierLegacy 2-Tier Leaf/Spine Total # of Aggregation Switches 10 4 Cabinets per Aggregation Switch 3.6 17.25 Power for Aggregation 24.4kW 8.4kW Number of Network Ports 2,304 1,152 Number of Host Ports 3,456 6,816 Network to Host Ratio 1:1.5 1:6
  • 13.
     Only productline to win INTEROP Grand Prize… Twice.  11 RU  1152 10Gb Ports  288 40Gb Ports  96 100Gb Ports  Non Blocking  Ultra low latency with advanced buffering  3x less power consumption  EOS Arista 7508E – At a Glance
  • 14.
     Industry’s first100Gb 1RU Switch  Up to 72 10Gb Ports  2 100Gb Ports  Ultra deep packet buffer (9Gb)  Up to 1.44 Terabits per Second  Non Blocking  Ultra low latency  EOS Arista 7280E – At a Glance *Car sold separately
  • 15.
  • 16.
    IOS Real Time OS Single-InstanceCode ‘Blob’ Modular OS Modified BSD KernelRouting Protocols SpanningTree JunOSSpace SNMP Arista EOS x64 Linux Kernel vCenterAPI UserKVM SysDB - Central State Database XMPPClient LED ASICs STP CLI MLAG Routing 1980’s 1990’s 2010  Limited modularity – JUN OS / NX OS  All communication goes through shared memory, or kernel based IPC  Each new process requires changes to all others it communicates with  No concept of ‘state’ Extensive kernel modification reduces reliability and slows security response  A simple architecture  < 25k lines of code,  Any failure causes complete system crash  Bugs and defects have no accountability Architectural Features - Self healing  Fault Isolation/Repair  Process-Level Upgrades Defect Elimination  Auto-build/ Auto-test  Machine Generated SW Open & Programmable  Persistent VM Space  Direct Shell Access  Python CLI  Event Triggered  LANZ/DANZ, ZTP/ZTR, RAIL, etc OperatingSystemMaturityDifference in Network Operating Systems
  • 17.
    Arista EOS x64 LinuxKernel vCenterAPI UserKVM SysDB - Central State Database XMPPClient LED ASICs STP CLI MLAG Routing Superior Software Architecture  Processes run in their own Linux name space and communicate through SysDB.  A bug or crash in one process does not spillover to other processes  SysDB has state awareness for each process, and can even restart a process automatically  Improves stability and troubleshooting  No “Christmas Tree Light” effect  4x fewer RMA’s Linux Kernel
  • 18.
    Arista: One ExtensibleOperating System. Quality, Simplicity and Scale NX-OS N9K NX-OS & iNX-OS Linux 2.6 kernel Linux 3.4.10 kernel STP Port- Sec 802.1X MSDP ETH- PM Eukera USD Lamira USD IPQOS ACL ELTM L2FMC L2FM BD- MGR SVI- MGR LC ELTM LC_ACL QOS PIM IGMP NF M6RIBMFDM PIXMC IGMP Snoop PIXM SA CT UFDM U4RIB BGP CoPP EARL NF SPM LC FIB oRIB L2 MCAST OTV OSPF ISIS EIGRP RIP M4RIB U6RIB STP Port- Sec 802.1X MSDP ETH- PM Eukera USD Lamira USD IPQOS ACL ELTM L2FMC L2FM BD- MGR SVI- MGR LC ELTM LC_ACL QOS PIM IGMP NF M6RIBMFDM PIXMC IGMP Snoop PIXM SA CT UFDM U4RIB BGP CoPP EARL NF SPM LC FIB oRIB L2 MCAST OTV OSPF ISIS EIGRP RIP M4RIB U6RIB EOS Cisco NX-OS software architecture Complex to code, debug, test and troubleshoot (Modular spaghetti) Arista EOS software architecture SysDB used for all State and IPC System Integrity is not dependent on synchronous ordering of events. Does not fail at scale Cisco iNX-OS software architecture (Moving from a Linux-2.6 to 3.4 kernel does not fix NX-OS quality)
  • 19.
  • 20.
    Open and Programmableat Every Level Some examples…
  • 21.
    Arista VM Tracer withVXLAN support automatically provisions segments and supports thousands of VMs VMware Arista integrates with VMware NSX in VLAN mode today and in 2015 will integrate via OVSDB VMware NSX Arista natively supports Openstack Neutron ML2 integration natively Openstack Openstack w/ SDN Controller Arista integrates with multiple controller vendors to support Openstack orchestration Network Virtualization Deployment Architectures
  • 22.
    NMSApplications Switch detects potential congestion LANZalerts applications and NMS Application reacts to conditions NMS Identifies hotspots Understand the source of latency (local or remote) - Microbursting • Alert applications to congestion trends early via LANZ streaming • Enable pro-active response - avoid losses or latency increases • Export data to management systems - correlate/graph historical data LANZ Revolutionizes Network Visibility
  • 23.
    Multi-Destination Fine Grain SymmetricLoad balancing 4x10Gb or 40Gb Monitor Ports 7150S Hardware Time Stamp IP StorageApp Platforms Database Platforms App Platforms App Platforms App Platforms App Platforms Scales with predictable investment - does not compromise visibility 7150S Hardware Time Stamp Flow Aggregation 7150S Hardware Time Stamp 7150S Hardware Time Stamp EOS API 7150S TAP Aggregation Monitoring Traffic Production Traffic DANZ Open & Scalable Data Analysis Solution
  • 24.
    • Track Hadoopnodes • View activity statistics • Correlate congestion events with jobs running • Automatically trigger packet capture • Proactive failed node notification MapReduce Tracer HPC – Storage & Big Data Tracers Detect • Routing issues • Hardware problems • Performance bottlenecks Log • Packet loss per path • Stream loss per hop • Network paths taken React • Alert operations • Execute script • Exception flow forwarding • Notify external controller PathTracer
  • 25.
    Untrusted/Unknown Flow Trusted Flow SoftwareDefined Networking with Context Intelligent integration makes optimized and secure SDN forwarding decisions Arista Switch Next Generation Firewall Attack Flow
  • 26.
    Deploy switches inminutes Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP)
  • 27.
  • 28.

Editor's Notes

  • #3 Arista is located in Santa Clara CA in the heart of silicon valley. It was founded by Andy Bechtolshiem and David Cheriton. David Cheriton is currently a professor at Stanford university. Andy was a co-founder of sun Microsystems in 1982. Andy and David co-founded a company called granite systems in 1995 which was subsequently acquired by Cisco systems in 1996. Andy served at VP and GM of Cisco’s Gigabit Systems business unit from 1996 to 2003. The gigabit Systems business unit was responsible for the highly successful Catalyst 4500 and 4900 Series of switches. Andy and David were also the initial investors in Google in the late 90s Jayshree Ullal, formerly SVP of Cisco’s Data Center, Switching and Services group was named Arista’s CEO in 2008. A 15 year veteran of Cisco, Jayshree originally came to Cisco through their first acquisition of Cresendo in 1993.
  • #6 The market leader had a “silo” approach (different infrastructures for different applications) which was over-engineered, too complex, too expensive, too rigid, and prone to software deficiencies (excessive bugs requiring restarts, patches or upgrades) Customers demanded higher value and reliability. Better automation, standardization, and programmability. In short: Next-generation data centers required a new hardware and software architecture.
  • #8 Better stability, fewer bugs, faster troubleshooting.
  • #11 Network virtualization is all about the overlay, we’re are the underlay, which is the foundation for any virtualized network or service. In fact, when the President of Vmware came to speak at Arista, he coined the phrase: “Software doesn’t run on Software”
  • #14 This switch is the heart (and the Spine) of the two largest networks in the world (Netflix)
  • #15 The largest buffers in the industry – when performance really matters. Competitive switches have 9 MB (buffering), we have 9 GB. 1000x