Arista Warrior

Book excerpt: Though Arista Networks is a relative newcomer in the data center and cloud networking markets, the company has already had considerable success. In this book, renowned consultant and technical author Gary Donahue (Network Warrior) provides an in-depth, objective guide to Arista’s lineup of hardware, and explains why its network switches and Extensible Operating System (EOS) are so effective. Anyone with a CCNA or equivalent knowledge will benefit from this book, especially entrenched administrators, engineers, or architects tasked with building an Arista network. Is Arista right for your data center? Pick up this guide and find out. Topic highlights include: SysDB: the EOS system database that holds state, statuses, and variables Multichassis Link Aggregation (MLAG): for linking a port-channel to multiple switches instead of just one Latency Analyzer (LANZ): the interface-buffer troubleshooting tool with a reporting granularity of one millisecond VM Tracer: for adding, changing, and removing VLANs without human interaction Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP): for remote switch configuration Hardware advantages: including merchant silicon, low-latency networking, and power consumption Gotchas: issues with Arista switches or systems