What is our primary use case?
Our use cases for Arista Networks Platform are extremely agile, such as in command control centers in smart cities and in particular defense systems, where minimum latency will cost you many hazards in terms of security protocols. Fractional latency is something we always try to minimize, and Arista core and spine platform always gives you the maximum possible latency minimization. It is the fastest that is available and, of course, the most premium.
For video-related workflows with production workflows, we prefer to go for that kind of ecosystem. An ecosystem means that the switch is not blocked because of jumbo frames access from video editing. We have a huge throughput, almost 50 or 70 megabytes going to and fro per port, which means 100 Mbps speed required thoroughly without any static failures; otherwise, there will be rendering issues somewhere down the production line.
If somebody is using a Da Vinci 5 robotic automation for an operating room, there is an enormous amount of criticality in doing that operation. When you lose connectivity, the patient will die, so they will always go for an Arista fabric; they will never go for any other fabric.
What is most valuable?
For the spine switches, we always prefer to go for Arista Networks Platform. Since I am operating from India and India is an extremely cost-sensitive market, people tend to go for Netgear enterprise fabrics unless it is an extremely critical value proposition. These are on the 100 gigs and aggregations with 40 gig distributions. The entire India is currently exploring different NVIDIA switching fabrics, so it is quite diversified. However, Arista Networks Platform always has our preference for their lineup of specific products.
Fractional latency is something we always try to minimize, and Arista Networks Platform core and spine platform always gives you the maximum possible latency minimization. It is the fastest that is available and the most premium.
Arista Networks Platform is known for ultra-low latency, having the fastest backplane ever built. The benefits are endurance and ultra-low latency. It is the best fabric for low latency and high bandwidth traffic, being a monopoly in that aspect.
Arista Networks Platform provides excellent switch management, aggregations, and on-the-fly changes regarding VLANs. The mainframe OS is very sophisticated and stable, surpassing others with fewer bugs. Arista Networks Platform does not use bronze or gold standards for power supplies; instead, they utilize platinum or titanium, ensuring minimal carbon footprint.
The switch is not blocked because of jumbo frames access from video editing. We have a huge throughput, almost 50 or 70 megabytes going to and fro per port, which means 100 Mbps speed required thoroughly without any static failures; otherwise, there will be rendering issues somewhere down the production line.
What needs improvement?
The support of Arista Networks Platform is quite complex; it is not very easy to configure. It needs a lot of network expertise for token sheddings and different kinds of configurations. It is very difficult to configure because Arista Networks Platform does not have a flexible GUI like Huawei or Netgear; everything is a very CLI kind of mainframe architecture.
Scalability at every single step has a huge upgrade cost which is required for port mapping, connectivity, and transceivers certified by Arista Networks Platform, then the fabric upgrades from a software firmware level. Arista Networks Platform should improve commercial aspects to be affordable. There is no path for growth with a perfect score because the focus is more on reducing costs globally.
For how long have I used the solution?
My overall experience with Arista Networks Platform is more than 20 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Arista Networks Platform is an extremely stable platform. They are made like tanks. That is the best thing I can tell you; they are sturdy and reliable. The amount of failure is low because we have tested a Huawei platform of the same grade beside Arista Networks Platform, and Arista Networks Platform always won.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is always a 7.5 for me because Arista Networks Platform's scalability at every single step has a huge upgrade cost which is required for port mapping, connectivity, and transceivers certified by Arista Networks Platform, then the fabric upgrades from a software firmware level. If it is a US customer or a UK customer with special deals, Arista Networks Platform works the best. However, if it is a standard deal for a very low volume where somebody wants to get something at $100,000, Arista Networks Platform is going to be expensive for them. If somebody is having almost a $100 million purchase, Arista Networks Platform is going to be the cheapest for them. It is very deal-specific.
How are customer service and support?
Arista Networks Platform always provides very critical technical support. They always expect the tier one and the sister OEM or the associated OEM to have Arista Networks Platform technical compliances. Arista Networks Platform gives you the per terabyte, petabyte per wattage per second per carbon footprint pricing, which is the cheapest. Complexity is there with the extended business operation of Arista Networks Platform; the way Arista Networks Platform operates is not consistent globally.
How was the initial setup?
The setups are quite straightforward out of the box. You get extremely good support from Arista Networks Platform in terms of assistance if you are stuck somewhere because you need to go through a lot of boot and reboot cycles to test that particular ecosystem. When you talk about a very advanced setup where you need to create a very minimal configuration and tamper the network into different zones, different access levels, and different distribution levels, it is not as simple as Netgear because these are two different ecosystems.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Affordability always becomes a very big issue with Arista Networks Platform and nothing else. You get a 48 gigs, a 25 Gbps or a 40 Gbps switching fabric at a price of $30-40,000 from Netgear super-fast clusters, whereas Arista Networks Platform is going to cost you three times that. Scalability has a huge upgrade cost for port mapping, connectivity, certified transceivers, and fabric upgrades from a software firmware level.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I will never choose Cisco for core networking for video and very high-end GPU computing. However, if I talk about BFSI, then Cisco will always go better than Arista Networks Platform because of the ease of support and maintenance and the know-how from local support engineers. Due to Chinese penetrations, Huawei is not so well recommended in the Indian ecosystem because of geopolitical considerations. Netgear is at a higher SMB level, but they are definitely acceptable to use; they are not Arista Networks Platform. Then there is Juniper Networks; Juniper is owned by Dell or HP. I have checked Juniper and it is way too complicated; it does not make any sense for high-end video graphics environments.
If somebody specifies Arista Networks Platform, that means they are not looking for any other solution; they know why they need it.
What other advice do I have?
In India, the supply of Arista Networks Platform to some extent is quite restricted. We are only restricted to using the core and the distribution layer of it. We do not go into the traffic controls and TRS controls with Arista Networks Platform; we always try to keep it in the distribution and access layers, and everything else we control through our systems. We do not get Arista Networks Platform with all of its sophistication layer and intelligence layer; we get Arista Networks Platform in a very controlled manner. We know exactly what modules of Arista Networks Platform we should get from them because we cannot tweak our engineering overnight.
I think the EOS, their vision, which is the Arista Networks Platform vision, was introduced very newly in 2024-25; I think that came out into the market. We personally do not have any exposure to those virtual operating system and software layers of Arista Networks Platform; we have not used them.
We do not use the software or the smart tier of Arista Networks Platform; I have no exposure to that.
If you talk about a basic way to start an open switch ecosystem, an open switch ecosystem means you fire on the system, do the basic setups, and the switch is completely open without any configuration.
My overall review rating for Arista Networks Platform is 8.7.