Arista Networks announced four new switches in its 400G portfolio. Two are aimed at the hyperscale/cloud crowd, and two are intended for enterprise data centers. The new switches promise greater port density than previous generations, and better power efficiency.
The hyperscale switches are built around Broadcom’s Tomahawk-4 silicon, which delivers 25.6Tbps of throughput. They include the Facebook-friendly 7388X5 switch. I say Facebook-friendly because the 7388X5 meets specifications for the Open Compute Project’s (OCP) Minipack2 design. Originally launched by Facebook, the OCP creates open specifications for infrastructure hardware and software for cloud-scale deployment.
The 7388X5 is a 4RU modular switch with hot-swappable components. Customers can get 64 ports of 400G or 128 200G ports. It runs Arista’s EOS network OS, or Facebook’s FBOSS network OS. (It is MetaBOSS now?)
Arista says the 7388X5 can also be configured to run the SONiC NOS if a customer wants it.
The other new hyperscaler switch is the fixed-form-factor 7060X5, which ships with 64 ports of 400G with QSFP-DD optical connectors.
For The Enterprise
Demand for 400G is highest with cloud and hyperscale customers, but Arista isn’t ignoring the enterprise. The switch-maker anticipates an appetite for 400G in some enterprise sectors to support high-performance compute (HPC), data center interconnect, and AI/ML workloads.
The new enterprise switches are built around Broadcom’s Trident-4 chipset, with throughput of 12.8Tbps. Arista says its bringing forward support for popular enterprise features including In-band Network Telemetry (INT), deep buffers, bigger IPv6 and IPv6 tables, and more.
As with the new hyperscale gear, Arista is releasing both modular and fixed form factor versions.
The modular switch is the 7358X4, a 4RU box that supports 128 100G QSFP or 32 400G ports.
The fixed device is the 7050X4, a 1RU box of 32 400G ports, with support for either OSFP or QSFP-DD optical connectors.
Arista says the Trident-4 is programmable via Broadcom’s NPL language. That means an enterprise customer could customize the packet processing pipeline, but they would have to engage Arista’s engineers to make it happen.
Availability
The hyperscaler switches are orderable now, with volume shipping expected in the first quarter of 2022. The enterprise switches will be orderable in Q1 of 2022, with volume shipping to follow. As with all infrastructure vendors, Arista says it is doing its best to address supply chain constraints and will work with customers to get them what they need.
