Arista Network Virtualization

Overview:

The goal of Network Virtualization as an overlay network is the decoupling of the physical topology from the logical topology, to allow connectivity between compute (virtual or physical) and network services (virtual or physical) regardless of where they may reside within the data center. This approach delivers an optimal level of flexibility and mobility, so that compute nodes can now be dynamically placed anywhere in the data center, removing the traditional L2 boundaries of the physical infrastructure.

The foundation of Arista’s network virtualization solution is Virtual eXtensible Local Area Network (VXLAN), an open IETF specification designed to standardize an overlay encapsulation protocol and EOS CloudVision®, a platform for network-wide workload orchestration and workflow automation.

Key highlights of the solution include:

• Support for VXLAN across broad product portfolio
• Open Control Network (OCN) approach to deliver standards based control plane for VXLAN
• VXLAN+MLAG - Provides an active-active, fully redundant, highly available solution for VTEPs
• VXLAN aware VMtracer for network telemetry across virtual and physical networks
• EOS CloudVision:
  • Provides controller agnostic support for network-wide virtual and physical workload orchestration using open APIs such as OVSDB, JSON and OpenStack plugins
  • Offers a single point of integration for third party controllers such as VMware NSX, Nuage VSP and Microsoft Windows Server
  • Enables plug and play control plane deployments