Arista modernises routing in the Wide Area Network

Arista Networks has introduced the Arista WAN Routing System, which combines three new networking offerings: enterprise-class routing platforms, carrier/cloud-neutral internet transit capabilities, and the CloudVision® Pathfinder Service to simplify and improve customer wide area networks. Based on Arista’s EOS® routing capabilities, and CloudVision management, the Arista WAN Routing System delivers the architecture, features, and platforms to modernize federated and software-defined wide area networks.

The introduction of the Arista WAN Routing System enables customers to deploy a consistent networking architecture across all enterprise network domains from the client to campus to the data center to multi-cloud with a single instance of EOS, a consistent management platform, and a modern operating model.  

Modern WAN Management, Provisioning, and Optimization

A new Arista WAN Routing System component is the CloudVision Pathfinder Service, which modernizes WAN management and provisioning, aligning the operating model with visualization and orchestration across all network transport domains. This enables a profound shift from legacy CLI configuration to a model where configuration and traffic engineering are automatically generated, tested, and deployed, resulting in a self-healing network. Arista customers can therefore visualize the entire network, from the client to the campus, the cloud, and the data center.

“As an Elite Partner and Arista Certified Services Provider (ACSP), we have been using Arista EOS and CloudVision for years and testing the Arista WAN Routing System in production environments for several quarters.  The software quality and features within the system are ideal for enterprise network architectures embracing modern distributed application architectures across a blend of edge, campus, data center, cloud and SaaS environments,” stated Jason Gintert, chief technology officer at WAN Dynamics.

Arista WAN Platform Portfolio

An enterprise WAN also requires modern platforms to interconnect campus, data center, and edge networks, as well as a variety of upstream carriers and Internet-based services. In addition to CloudEOS for cloud connectivity, the new Arista 5000 Series of WAN Platforms, powered by Arista EOS, offer high-performance control and data-plane scaling fit-to-purpose for enterprise-class WAN edge and aggregation requirements. Supporting 1/10/100GbE interfaces and flexible network modules while delivering from 5Gb to over 50Gbps of bidirectional AES256 encrypted traffic with high VRF and tunnel scale, the Arista 5000 Series sets the standard for aggregation and critical site interconnect with multiple use cases such as:

• Aggregation and High-Performance Edge Routing – The Arista 5500 WAN System, supporting up to 50Gbps of encrypted traffic, is ideal for data center, campus, high-performance edge, and physical transit hub architectures. 

• Flexible Edge Routing – The Arista 5300 WAN System is suited for high-volume edge connectivity and transitioning WAN locations to multi-carrier, 5G, and high-speed Internet connectivity with performance rates of up to 5Gbps of encrypted traffic.

• Scalable Virtual Routing – Arista CloudEOS is a binary-consistent virtual machine implementing identical features and capabilities of the other Arista WAN systems. It is often deployed in carrier-neutral transit hub facilities or to provide scale-out encryption termination capabilities.

• Public Cloud Edge Routing – Arista CloudEOS is also deployable through public cloud marketplaces and enables Cloud Transit routing and Cloud Edge routing capabilities as part of the end-to-end WAN Routing System. CloudEOS is available on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and through Platform Equinix.

• CPE Micro Edge – In addition to the fully integrated, dynamically configured, and adaptive Arista WAN Routing System platforms, the Arista Micro Edge is capable of small-site interoperability with the WAN Routing System to provide simple downstream connectivity options.

Cloud and Carrier Neutral Transit Hubs

The Arista WAN Routing System also embraces a new implementation of the traditional WAN core – the Transit Hub. These are physical or virtual routed WAN systems deployed in carrier-neutral and cloud-neutral facilities with dense telecommunications interconnections.  

Arista has worked with Equinix to develop virtual and physical implementations of the Arista WAN Routing System that are globally deployable in Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers. This enables customers to access a distributed WAN core leveraging multi-carrier and multi-cloud transit options – all provisioned through the CloudVision Pathfinder Service.

“Arista Pathfinder leverages Equinix’s Network Edge, Equinix Metal, and Equinix Fabric services to deliver scalable routing architectures that accelerate customers with cloud and carrier-neutral networking,” stated Zachary Smith, Global Head of Edge Infrastructure Services at Equinix. “Pathfinder’s ability to scale, in software, from a single virtual deployment to a multi-terabit globally distributed core that reallocates paths as network conditions change is a radical evolution in network capability and self-repair.”