Arista 7130 Hardware

The Arista 7130 hardware delivers enterprise-grade reliability and performance and implements use cases that are difficult or impossible to achieve with traditional network switches. As programmable platforms, the different 7130 devices provide a variety of features to address different use cases.

Connect Series Layer 1 devices

E Series Layer 1 + FPGA devices

L Series Layer 1 + FPGA devices

The Arista 7130 series encompasses high-performance hardware including:

• Layer 1+ switching chips with port-to-port latencies as low as 4 nanoseconds.
• Programmable FPGA devices which support the Arista development standards -- EH, L and LB.
• Stable oscillators for precision timing, including OCXO and Rubidium.
• x86 CPU running EOS -- Arista's enterprise-grade network operating system.

7130 Layer 1 Connect Devices

7130 Connect Series devices implement a Layer 1+ switch, host a quad-core x86 management platform and RAM. The devices are widely deployed for low-latency market data replication, reliable, cost-effective tapping, test lab automation and remote data centre patch automation. Layer 1+ switches implement a rich set of operational functionality, deeply integrated with the operating system, including counters, LLDP, tcpdump, optical transceiver management and monitoring, and streaming telemetry.

7130 Connect & FPGA Devices

Arista 7130 Series Connect & FPGA devices provide all of the same features found on the Layer 1 hardware, and add one or more programmable FPGA resources. Those programmable FPGA resources can be used by Arista applications or 3rd party applications running on the operating system. These applications can perform functions in much the same way as custom silicon.

The 7130 FPGA devices support different development standards -- L, LB, EH Central or EH Leaf -- which determines which network applications can run on the particular devices. The Arista 7130 offers two series of FPGA-enabled devices:

7130L Series

7130L Series devices are optimized for 10G applications and host a Layer 1+ switch, a Xilinx FPGA, 32G of FPGA RAM, a precision OCXO oscillator, a quad-core x86 CPU for management and applications, with 8G CPU RAM, as well as a two-port 10G NIC. There are options for 48 or 96 ports, though the FPGA connectivity is limited to a minimum of 58 ports (60 on the 48-port variant). 7130L Series supports the L or LB development standard and compatible applications. Most Arista applications are targeted toward deployment on the L Series, but the platform is equally suited for hosting applications requiring a mix of functionality. Key use cases include precision, lossless, tap/aggregation and low latency switching.

7130E Series

Arista 7130E Series devices contain up to three high-performance Xilinx FPGAs, in a single system, with dense serial and parallel interconnects giving the lowest-latency FPGA-FPGA communication possible. The integrated Layer 1+ switch allows for each FPGA to receive a copy of any stream, and for inter-FPGA connectivity to be tapped and timestamped. Arista 7130E Series devices have 48 front-panel ports running at 10G, a TXCO oscillator, a quad-core x86 CPU, and 8G CPU RAM. Arista 7130E Series devices are purpose built to host applications with dense FPGA requirements implemented for the EH Central and EH Leaf development standard. Typical applications include trading algorithms, where parts of the algorithm such as pre-trade checks are implemented in one FPGA, and parts of the algorithm e.g. the trading algorithm, are implemented in another FPGA. The 7130E Series does not implement any FPGA RAM, in favor of fitting more FPGAs.

Operating Systems

The Arista 7130 Series natively runs on the MOS operating system. An option to support the Arista EOS (Extensible Operating System) as well as Arista CloudVision will be added.

MOS Operating System

MOS is based on Linux and provides a CLI and web interface as well as support for other management protocols. It provides a standard platform with the commands, tools and packages such as syslog, net-snmp, daemons, RPMs, Bash, Python, authentication and security.

EOS - Extensible Operating System & CloudVision

EOS is a fully programmable, highly modular, Linux-based OS, using an industry standard CLI and running a single binary software image across the Arista switching family. Architected for resiliency and programmability, EOS has a unique multi-process state sharing architecture that separates state information and packet forwarding from protocol processing and application logic.

Arista CloudVision provides a network-wide approach for workload orchestration, workflow automation and real-time telemetry enabling companies to manage the network with much fewer human resources. Rapid integration with a wide range of third-party applications for virtualization, management, automation and orchestration services are equally available.