Arista Networks Solidifies Open Cloud Networking Software Leadership

Arista Networks strengthened its commitment to open network software with the introduction of Arista switches Powered by SONiC (Software for Open Networking in the Cloud). Enabled by a new Arista SAI (Switch Abstraction Interface) offering, customers now have the flexibility to deploy SONiC software on Arista switching platforms, combining the benefits of open source software with Arista EOS for open, high performance, highly available networks.

“This latest initiative is another proof point of the continued long-term partnership between Arista and Microsoft on our mutual cloud networking journey. This expansion of SONiC support allows customers to take advantage of Arista’s broad platform portfolio, high quality system design, as well as global support allowing for broader adoption of cloud networking,” said Dave Maltz, Distinguished Engineer, Microsoft.

“Arista has a long history of collaboration and support for open networking with major contributions to SONiC. Arista switches Powered by SONiC brings open software choices for on-premise enterprise datacenters. We are helping customers realize their cloud networking transformation around resilience, automation, and modern analytics backed by world-class engineering and support,” said Anshul Sadana, Chief Operating Officer, Arista Networks.

Introducing Arista SAI
Arista’s SAI layer allows SONiC to run on Arista switches, leveraging Arista’s advanced hardware design and platform drivers. SONiC is an open source network operating system that runs on multiple hardware platforms and was developed initially by Microsoft for the Azure cloud platform.

Arista SAI enables customers standardizing on open-source software platforms to achieve consistency across their estate while taking advantage of Arista’s core platform development differentiation. Arista SAI on Arista hardware platforms delivers robust software, modern streaming telemetry, verbose troubleshooting tools and diverse platform support. In addition, Arista provides integrated software and hardware support through its industry leading engineering and customer support organizations.

Key benefits of Arista SAI include:

• Choice of high-performance platforms from Arista’s data center portfolio for leaf and spine networks
• Lower opex by leveraging DevOps tools for consistent automation for compute and networking deployments
• Native streaming of deep platform telemetry with OpenConfig APIs
• High scale and extensive debugging capabilities leveraging from cloud deployment experience
• 24×7 global customer support from Arista world-class services organization for SAI and platform related issues for a positive end-user experience

Distribution of Arista switches Powered by SONiC will be available as a network operating system in addition to Arista’s standard EOS offering. Customers have the option of choosing between Arista EOS and Arista SAI with SONiC software on these systems, and as an added benefit, Arista platforms running SAI can be easily migrated to EOS, providing a flexible path to the mainstream, feature-rich EOS software for broader network roles.

Open Network Software Benefits
Customers building large scale deployments are seeking a consistent operating model, open software choice and the flexibility to choose from a broad set of hardware platforms.

These attributes empower network operators to customize their operating environments for serviceability, availability, and scale, with a uniform workflow for development, testing, and deployment of differentiated services. With an open network software model, customers can take advantage of innovations in merchant silicon, enable rapid technology transitions and cater to new use cases in cloud-scale deployments.

Availability
The open-source SONiC operating system is already available and in production on Arista switching platforms for select customers. Arista SAI on a range of Arista 7050X and 7060X switching platforms will be available in the second half of 2020.

For more information on Arista Networks, please contact Bryan Obeidzinski at [email protected].