Subscribe to Blog Notification Emails

Latest Blog Post

Celebrating One Million Ports of Software Defined Cloud Networking and Introducing the Arista Data Analyzer (DANZ)

Jayshree Ullal
by Jayshree Ullal on Feb 12, 2013 9:12:44 PM

For the past 5 years, Arista has been setting the agenda for software defined cloud networking. We are not addressing the legacy enterprise market for general-purpose applications. Instead our innovative customers expect us to enable high performance transactions and analytics with cloud-scale, self-healing resilience, programmability, precision data analysis and network wide virtualization, while radically reducing capex and opex. I am especially proud to celebrate a key measure of our success - we have now shipped our first one million ports for this new software-defined cloud-networking era.

The massive cloud-scale of these new networks has also created challenges in the areas of traffic visibility and the attendant analysis needed to diagnose problems for the terabits of data carried by these networks. Troubleshooting applications, assuring performance, and securing cloud networks are collectively impossible with legacy methods. I believe the key is innovating and building a modern network with programmability and openness - avoiding becoming a victim of old legacy and expensive habits. Arista EOS enables this through the power of SDN.

Today we are announcing another breakthrough SDN differentiator, Arista Data ANalyZer (DANZ). It analyzes data and network behavior, while providing detailed capture and accounting of traffic for forensic analysis as part of our Software Defined Cloud Networking (SDCN) strategy.

Introducing Arista’s DANZ for TAP Aggregation Applications

Arista's Precision Data ANalyZer (DANZ) is the first and only switch solution to deliver cloud-scale, integrated end-to-end monitoring. Arista DANZ leverages the programmable data plane of the Arista 7150 series to provide low-latency packet processing and data capture with exceptional flexibility and precision in a single switch - at line-rate. Captured data can be delivered with precision timestamps, filtered and reformatted, as well as correlated with internal congestion detection and reporting.

Key highlights include the ability to:

    • Aggregate, replicate and capture traffic for processing at 10 and 40 GbE without affecting the production network or building a second network infrastructure solely for monitoring
    • Apply advanced filtering profiles, precision time stamps, truncate packets, and symmetrize captured data at wire rate
    • Utilize a dedicated TAP/SPAN aggregation mode for servicing legacy TAP infrastructures in the standard Arista device platform
    • Monitor, capture and correlate congestion and microburst events in real time
    • Integrate tightly with many standard 3rd party APIs and Application/Network management and analysis tools

DANZ-diagram

  • Arista DANZ offers three fundamental and collectively unique core capabilities provided by the Precision Data Analysis solution: Advanced Monitoring, Precision Capture, and Event-Driven Programmability, as shown in the figure above.

Eco-System of Arista DANZ Partners

We are witnessing a sea change in networking in reducing operational costs and enabling SDN solutions. Arista is working closely with its visualization, application analysis, and performance management partners to offer a complete solution for DANZ. These include Corvil, Endace, ExtraHop Networks, nPulse Technologies, Riverbed/Opnet, Splunk and TS-Associates to name a few. Arista DANZ together with the partner eco-system gives network operators, application architects, and capacity planners a powerful, tightly integrated solution that simplifies and automates traffic analysis operations while providing robust insight into application behavior.

Celebrating Arista’s first million ports of cloud networking!

As I have been travelling the world, meeting customers, CIOs and analysts, I am struck by Arista’s momentum in an ocean of established older players. Our customers and well-wishers have validated us with their acceptance and deployments. They are demanding a modern alternative – one that is not propagating legacy packaging and mediocrity but truly building modern SDN based cloud networks. Arista finds itself uniquely positioned to satisfy their insatiable appetite for SDN innovation and to benefit from their acceptance of this new data center architecture. Thank you all for your support!

As always I welcome your comments at feedback@arista.com.

References

Opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of Arista Networks. The content is provided for informational purposes only and is not meant to be an endorsement or representation by Arista Networks or any other party.
Jayshree Ullal
Written by Jayshree Ullal
As President and CEO of Arista for over a decade, Jayshree Ullal is responsible for Arista’s business and thought leadership in cloud networking. She led the company to a historic and successful IPO in June 2014 from zero to a multibillion-dollar business. Formerly Jayshree was Senior Vice President at Cisco, responsible for a $10B business in datacenter, switching and services. With more than 30 years of networking experience, she is the recipient of numerous awards including E&Y’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2015, Barron’s “World’s Best CEOs” in 2018 and one of Fortune’s “Top 20 Business persons” in 2019. Jayshree holds a B.S. in Engineering (Electrical) and an M.S. degree in engineering management. She is a recipient of the SFSU and SCU Distinguished Alumni Awards in 2013 and 2016.

Related posts

The Arrival of Open AI Networking

Recently I attended the 50th golden anniversary of Ethernet at the Computer History Museum. It was a reminder of how familiar...

Jayshree Ullal
By Jayshree Ullal - July 19, 2023
Network Identity Redefined for Zero Trust Enterprises

The perimeter of networks is changing and collapsing. In a zero trust network, no one and no thing is trusted from inside or...

Jayshree Ullal
By Jayshree Ullal - April 24, 2023
The Arrival of AI Networking at Petascale

The AI industry has taken us by storm, bringing supercomputers, algorithms, data processing and training methods into the...

Jayshree Ullal
By Jayshree Ullal - March 1, 2023