Arista Introduced 7280R Series Universal Leaf Network Platform

Arista Networks, Inc. announced the 7280R Series, a fixed switching and routing platform for next generation data centers.

Complementing the recent 7500R Universal Spine platform, the 7280R Series Universal Leaf combines dynamic and deep buffering, Internet scale route tables, and open, programmable firm’s EOS (Extensible OS) in a compact form factor. This approach challenges traditional network designs like FC SANs, legacy routers or analog audio-video infrastructure by reducing operational costs through a single platform capable of a set of leaf networking use-cases, especially IP storage, routing and digital media.

“With the growing requirements of delivering content we needed a predictable performance, compact and scalable platform that is able to evolve more quickly to these changing needs. Arista’s 7280R platform provides significant port density, combined with a robust and programmable EOS software stack, for better control of our content delivery infrastructure,” said Peter Carlston, product owner network and storage, Spotify AB.

Multifunctional and compact platform
The 7280R Series expands upon the broadly deployed 7280SE Series and delivers a dense 10/25/40/50/100GbE solution in 1RU and 2RU form-factors. The 7280R Series consistently offers the same single EOS image, providing operational savings through reduced complexity and certification timelines. Company’s CloudVision provides expanded support of orchestration and automation across these diverse leaf use-cases.

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Universal Leaf for IP storage networking
The Universal Leaf networking platforms align closely with Arista’s storage partner ecosystem, including EMC Corp., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (HPE), NetApp Inc.’ SolidFire, Nutanix, Inc. and Pure Storage, Inc. See supporting quotes.

The networking demands of big data analytics, flash-based and scale-out storage, and hyper-converged compute solutions are driving a migration from legacy FC to next generation IP-based storage networks. These next generation storage applications require lossless and highly available platforms in order to support their unique traffic patterns. With up to 100 times the buffer memory of most fixed switches, the 7280R Series meets the IP/Ethernet storage challenge of coping with massive east-to-west traffic without intermittent loss and drops. This includes deterministic latency characteristics, any-to-any, non-blocking host communication and dynamic deep buffers capable of absorbing the largest of bursty storage patterns. EOS further simplifies IP storage network operations with the latest versions of popular features like latency analyzer or LANZ, and buffer utilization monitoring and MapReduce Tracer for visibility into Hadoop workloads. Additionally CloudVision delivers the operations portal for efficient automation of the IP storage infrastructure.

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Universal Leaf supports FlexRoute for Core/WAN routing
Enabled with company’s FlexRoute technology, the 7280R is able to reduce the solution cost from traditional router platforms for IP Peering and Data Center Interconnect (DCI) networking solutions. Furthermore, CloudVision has been expanded to support cloud ZTP (Zero Touch Provisioning) for automated provisioning of routing deployments.

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“Our cloud security services have been designed to handle the most extreme conditions possible. In order to meet this objective, our networking infrastructure needed to be scalable, flexible and deliver high performance. We did a thorough analysis of solutions in the market, and the Arista 7280R platform offered the best combination of dense switching, routing scale and native software programmability with EOS. This solution will help us deliver the best services possible, while reducing both Capex and Opex,” said Alex Cruz Farmer, VP, cloud Services, NSFOCUS IB.

Universal Leaf for media and content transformation
The 7280R Universal Leaf ushers in firm’s media and entertainment initiative, which includes key partnerships such as Aperi Corporation, Imagine Communications Corp., LAWO AG and Nevion, as well as participation in industry standard organizations including the AIMS Alliance, Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), AVNU Alliance and Video Service Forum (VSF).

See supporting quotes.

The 7280R series is the platform for digital Ethernet-based audio and video networks in handling diverse workloads, workflows and work streams. With its deep buffer architecture, the 7280R is well-suited for both streaming content and with virtually zero packet loss for file-based workloads, such as ingest, Visual Effects (VFX), rendering, editing, transcoding and finishing. In addition to supporting standards-based features for broadcast use-cases, including including IEEE 1588 PTP modes of operation (the SMPTE 2022-6 standard), the 7280R includes 25/50/100GbE for bandwidth-intensive, high definition, 4K uncompressed video.

Product attributes and availability
Key attributes of the 7280R Universal Leaf platforms are:

A choice of four new wire speed 7280R Series models:

4 to 32GB of dynamic buffer memory for reliable packet transfers
Agile port speeds of 1/10/25/40/50/100GbE
FlexRoute technology delivers up to 1 million wire speed routes with MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching), Segment Routing and EVPN (Ethernet Virtual Private Network) protocol support, programmable traffic engineering with up to 128,000 MPLS, GRE (Generic Routing Encapsulation), VXLAN (Virtual Extensible Local Area Network) and IP-in-IP tunnels.
Support for NEBS (Network Equipment Building System) for carrier deployments

The 7280R series is shipping.

Pricing is comparable to the 7280SE Series with expanded support for 100GbE and 25GbE, along with higher density combinations.