Monitoring network packets at picosecond granularity provides new insights

SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 2, 2020 -- Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET), today released audited tests, proving the accuracy and capacity of their network monitoring solutions. Arista MetaWatch, running on the Arista 7130 L-series platform, provides customers with new insight into the behavior of critical network systems, enabling trading firms to optimize performance and exchanges to validate market fairness.

The results were independently audited and verified by the highly respected Securities Technology Analysis Center (STAC®). The audited STAC-TS™ results confirm a maximum total difference in the time measured between any of the 47 ports of 376 ps. When two devices were synchronized, the worst-case total error between any two of the 94 ports was 799 ps -- less than one billionth of a second. For comparison, light travels less than 2 inches (5 cm) in fiber in 376 ps.

The Arista MetaWatch application for the 7130 L-series converges tapping, timestamping and aggregation, allowing extremely precise timestamping with non-blocking bandwidth and a 32GB buffer.

“The port synchronization accuracy across two devices was the highest of anything we’ve tested, and a single device was able to capture bursts of 470Gbps for up to half a second,” said Peter Lankford, Executive Director of STAC.

“MetaWatch is a huge leap forward for network timestamping accuracy in low latency environments,” said Dr. David Snowdon, Director of Engineering at Arista Networks. “By capturing every packet on a large number of ports, without a performance impact, financial trading firms can far better understand the behavior of their trading systems.”

Key Features

MetaWatch enables firms to understand the behavior of their networks, enabling Exchanges to be fair, traders to be performant, and regulators to be confident in their observance. It provides the following advantages over other network timestamping solutions:

  • Extremely precise timestamps
  • Integrated tapping using Layer 1 switching
  • Very large buffers of 32GB
  • Traffic rate shaping and flow control

Availability

The Arista 7130 L-Series devices are available now and used in production environments by the world’s leading financial services firms. Arista is presenting at Global STAC Live on June 2nd and will conduct virtual demos.

For detailed test information and further results, please find the audited STAC Report™ here:
www.STACresearch.com/ARI200518

Numbers in this press release were taken from the results reported in the STAC Report™ linked above.

  • 376 ps is taken from the summed skew and random error components of STAC-TS.PSE1.TOTAL
  • 799 ps is taken from the the summed skew and random error components of STAC-TS.PSE2.TOTAL

“STAC” and all STAC names are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Securities Technology Analysis Center, LLC.

About Arista Networks

Arista Networks pioneered software-driven, cognitive cloud networking for large-scale datacenter and campus environments. Arista’s award-winning platforms redefine and deliver availability, agility, automation, analytics, and security. Arista has shipped more than twenty million cloud networking ports worldwide with CloudVision and EOS, an advanced network operating system. Committed to open standards across private, public and hybrid cloud solutions, Arista products are supported worldwide directly and through partners.

ARISTA, EOS and CloudVision, are among the registered and unregistered trademarks of Arista Networks, Inc. in jurisdictions around the world. Other company names or product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Additional information and resources can be found at www.arista.com. This press release contains forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, the enablement of performance, capabilities and efficiency. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements including: rapid technological and market change; product, support or service quality problems; customer requirements and industry standards, general market, political, economic and business conditions, as well as other risks stated in our filings with the SEC available on Arista's website at www.arista.com and the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Arista disclaims any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made.

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