Arista Switches

Just wondering if any one has much experince with these?

The seem to have a very simmler interface to CISCO IOS (maybe all the ex cisco people working for them)

but I have a client using them in large ultra low latence data center and I was jstu wonderign what other people think of them..

Are they any good, seems almost to good to be true, same proformace for a < 10th of the price??

Can they really be that good?

DevilWAH

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Comments

it_consultant

Honestly, if you want a lower priced set of switches to use in place of Ciscos you really have 3 choices. Juniper, HP ProCurve (stay away from the line that came from whoever they just bought), and Brocade (formerly Foundry).

Pick your poison.

RTmarc

I'd add Extreme Networks to that list.

networker050184

I've never used the Aristas but I've heard good things about them around the net.

DevilWAH

it_consultant wrote: »

Honestly, if you want a lower priced set of switches to use in place of Ciscos you really have 3 choices. Juniper, HP ProCurve (stay away from the line that came from whoever they just bought), and Brocade (formerly Foundry).

Pick your poison.

Not me they already have it set up and installed in a few of there data centers.

And we are not talking some small company. A big investment bank you would all know well. (one of the biggest)

And not for standard network, but Ultra low latency used to deal with stock market data.

This is specilised stuff so not so unusualy to use speclised makes/models

chrisone

To be honest i have never heard of them until reading your post.

it_consultant

I guess you could add extreme to the list, but I thought they were extremely expensive. You can use Dells or Nortels for low latency high performance switching, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it but the brand is almost irrelevant. Most switching boards come off the same assembly line somewhere in China. The question is your familiarity with the software, industry support, and price. They could be the best switches in the world but if only 3 people know how to use them and the company is going to go under to get purchased while you are still using them, that puts you in a precarious situation.

cablegod

I have some for top-of-rack L2 10GBase-T duty. They are great for that. It's the "secret sauce"

I've seen a LOT of them in use in this type of scenario within the past year in quite a few large datacenters. 24 ports for <$13k is quite a good deal. They are extremely resilient and robust. Very IOS-like.

DevilWAH

cablegod wrote: »

I have some for top-of-rack L2 10GBase-T duty. They are great for that. It's the "secret sauce" I've seen a LOT of them in use in this type of scenario within the past year in quite a few large datacenters. 24 ports for <$13k is quite a good deal. They are extremely resilient and robust. Very IOS-like.

Yep this is exactly what they are using them for. Top of rack.

And its shocking how IOS like they are! I surprised they don't get a law suit slapped on them.

never seen them myself before and was surprised that a company that has 1,000's of Cisco switches in there data centre should be using an almost unheard of make.

stuh84

They seem to have made some headway in the past year, I'm guessing them getting mentioned and interviewed on the Packet Pushers podcast didn't do them any harm either.

I've not worked with them, but I've seen a lot of people recommending them, so I can see why they would turn up.

bertieb

RTmarc wrote: »

I'd add Extreme Networks to that list.

With the advantage that Extreme Networks switches come in a wonderful shade of purple that is almost fluorescent. Useful when the server room lights go out and you need to find your kit

it_consultant

DevilWAH wrote: »

Yep this is exactly what they are using them for. Top of rack.

And its shocking how IOS like they are! I surprised they don't get a law suit slapped on them.

never seen them myself before and was surprised that a company that has 1,000's of Cisco switches in there data centre should be using an almost unheard of make.

Have you ever worked in the CLI of a Dell, ProCurve, or Foundry? They are all very similar. Idiosyncrasies exist, of course, but if you know one the others will not be totally unfamiliar.