Arista Open and Programmable

At the core of Arista cloud networking solutions is EOS, which is purpose-built to be fully programmable and highly modular. Arista EOS provides a rich set of APIs that use standard and well-known management protocols. It is programmable at all layers--Linux kernel, hardware forwarding tables, Virtual Machine orchestration, switch configuration, provisioning automation and detailed monitoring of the network. Moreover, the programmability of EOS enables rapid integration with a wide range of third-party applications for virtualization, management, automation, orchestration and network services.

Standard Linux is the underlying operating system of EOS, providing customers with access to all Linux operating system facilities. EOS can be extended with off-the-shelf Linux applications and a growing number of open source management tools to meet the needs of network engineering and operations.

Featured Video: Arista EOS Deep Dive

Extensibility and Programmability

EOS offers the ability to write scripts and load applications directly onto the Linux operating system and to run these applications as guest VMs. Features of EOS extensibility include:

• Installation without modification of third-party software for Linux
• Scripting and Linux shell-level access for automation
• Programmable at all layers: Linux kernel, hardware forwarding tables, Virtual Machine orchestration, switch configuration, provisioning automation and detailed monitoring

EOS provides a rich set of standards-based, well known programmable interfaces including:

• Linux
• EOS extensible APIs (eAPIs) using JSON
• Python
• XMPP
• Advanced Event Manager
• SQLite Databases

OpenFlow & DirectFlow

Arista EOS supports OpenFlow 1.0 controlled by OpenFlow controllers for filtering and redirecting traffic. Arista EOS also supports a controller-less mode relying on Arista DirectFlow to direct traffic to the SDN applications (for example, TAP aggregators).

• DirectFlow combines the flexibility of a programmable data plane with the reliability of proven routing and bridging technology.
• The matches and actions available for flows include those available in the OpenFlow 1.0 specifications, providing a standard match and action policy familiar to the SDN community is familiar with.
• Arista DirectFlow is intended to complement OpenFlow for greater flexibility and broader ecosystem integration.