Arista Teams with VMware to Develop Adaptive Network for Public and Private Clouds

Menlo Park, CA – August 24, 2010 - Arista Networks today introduced an extension of its EOS (Extensible Operating System) software capabilities with Arista VM Tracer™. This new capability uniquely bridges the gap between the physical and virtual networks within a VMware environment through a set of software features that run on the Arista 7000 Family of Cloud Networking Switches. Arista VM Tracer™. provides networking operators new levels of visibility into the virtualization layer while enabling VMware administrators to have seamless control through the VMware vSphere™ interface.

Changes in networking and virtualization technologies are increasingly leading to the creation of divergent architectures within IT departments. With the goal of making it operationally simple to converge the management of physical and virtual networks, thus facilitating departmental cooperation, Arista Networks is extending its EOS (Extensible Operating System) software capabilities with Arista VM Tracer™.

"Arista VM Tracer is a unique operational innovation that is the result of our work with VMware. With VM Tracer, Arista has delivered the best cloud networking platform for virtualization deployments that adapt to the requirements of the virtualization platform in real-time," stated Douglas Gourlay, vice president of marketing, Arista Networks.

The use of the VMware vSphere platform to create private clouds and virtual machine farms is becoming mainstream; however, most current network architectures are not responsive to the dynamic segmentation requirements of these new infrastructures. VM Tracer automatically creates, prunes, and opens VLANs (Virtual LANs) across the network infrastructure as new virtual machines are added, moved, or changed. The Arista Cloud Network works in close concert with the VMware vSphere vNetwork virtual networking technology to always keep the network stable, support multi-tenancy, and react in real-time to changes.

"VMware’s vision of the private cloud enables customers increased levels of control and efficiency while simplifying management," said Parag Patel, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware. "An important ingredient of this vision is ensuring the different teams in the IT department have the information and control they need. Arista VM Tracer, which complements VMware vSphere™4 vNetwork Distributed switch technology, bridges the divide between the network and server teams, helping streamline their cloud deployments."

Arista VM Tracer: Industry First that Simplifies IT Workflows


VM Tracer provides five key capabilities to the network and virtualization administration teams:

VM Auto Discovery - Find exactly which VMware hosts and VMs are on a given port in the network. Displays the full Physical to Virtual Binding and provides visibility into the network reachability of a given virtual machine and the virtual machine's state.

VM Adaptive Segmentation - Arista EOS will dynamically create VLANs as they are needed by the virtual machines. If a virtual machine shuts down or is moved, its VLAN(s) can be pruned to preserve bandwidth and CPU cycles for active workloads.

VM Host View - Gives the network administrator visibility into the host with critical information such as: Manufacturer, Processor type, NIC type.

VMware ESX Port Profile - Arista EOS will automatically configure the interface based on the best practice for connecting virtual machines.

VM Tracer Multi-Tenancy - Arista EOS supports connections to up to four separate VMware vCenter™ administrative domains with VLAN span-of-control per VMware vCenter Server instance. This allows for a single switch to connect to and participate in multiple virtualization domains concurrently. This is ideal for environments with a mix of production and lab services where each is allocated a specific range of VLANs.

Hosting and service providers looking to share infrastructure across multiple tenants see Arista VM Tracer as a way to maximize their operational return on investment while providing an improved service for their customers. "Arista VM Tracer enables customers to see both their physical and virtual networks for traditional hosting and public and private cloud deployments. This can simplify network operations by lowering operating and management costs. And, with the low power-draw, it can enable higher customer density," stated Michael Duckett, president at CoreLink Data Centers. "By keeping the administrative and operational costs low customer efficiency in the data center can be improved."

"Arista VM Tracer is an innovative set of software features that solves the architectural issues that arise between network and virtualization administrators. This provides the network team with the visibility into the virtualization platform while giving the virtualization administrator an infrastructure layer that adapts dynamically to VMware vMotion changes." Vanessa Alvarez, analyst at Frost and Sullivan.

"Arista VM Tracer is a step in the right direction, linking the network to the virtualization platform," says Scott Lowe of EMC, recognized virtualization expert and author of Mastering VMware vSphere 4. "It brings increased virtualization awareness to the network and thus offers capabilities to both the network and virtualization administrator. Both groups win."

VM Tracer is designed to enable API integration and the active sharing of information with key technology partners in the VMware ecosystem. "IT realizes that not only are end users demanding cloud-based services, but if done right, these services can also save them significant time and money," said Pete Privateer, CEO of Reflex. "We are excited to be working with customers and partners like Arista Networks with the unique VM Tracer capability to deliver on a vision of a ubiquitous cloud infrastructure that is as easy to manage on the back-end as it is for users on the front-end."

VM Tracer is available immediately as a software license within Arista EOS 4.5 and higher, and is priced according to the switching platform on which it is operating. Pricing is available here.

About Arista

Arista Networks was founded to deliver cloud networking solutions for large datacenter and computing environments. Arista offers best-of-breed 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches that set the standard for scalability, robustness, and price-performance. At the core of Arista's 7000 Family is the Extensible Operating System (EOS), a modern software architecture with self-healing and live in-service software upgrade capabilities. The Arista team is comprised of experienced management and engineering talent from leading networking companies. Arista markets its products worldwide with a strong dedication to partner and customer success.

For more information, please visit https://www.arista.com or contact Arista at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 650-462-5000.


Press Contact:

Mari Mineta Clapp
Arista Networks
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(408) 398-6433


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