Insights from the Arista Cloud Builders Seminar – Chicago 2017

Insights from the Arista Cloud Builders Seminar – Chicago 2017

By: Rob Jordan | Data Center Infrastructure Architect

 

I attended the recent Arista Cloud Builders seminar in Chicago. The seminar was well attended by representatives from the university, financial (trading), banking and medical sectors. Each of these sectors faces unique technology challenges, but there are many unifying factors, as well.

Arista’s recent updated offering of CloudVision and container-based EOS (cEOS) solutions provide users from all sectors with a vast array of solutions. These solutions support the current spine-and-leaf architecture. I was very interested in the Universal Spine and the DevOps integration discussions.

Universal Spine Architecture

The Arista 7500R Series gear was designed for hyperscale data center solutions and provides a dual layer of spine switches for a more versatile architecture for large cloud users.

The basic difference between traditional spine-and-leaf architectures and Universal Spine architectures is the dual layer of spine switches. As a Layer 1 guru, I’m excited by the promise that the new Arista FlexRoute™ technology will facilitate more than one million routing possibilities.

DevOps

The battle between production and coding has been going on since the beginning of time and there’s no end in sight. Coders need to stay ahead of the development curve and production managers don’t want newly developed processes to have an adverse effect on the network.

Arista’s cEOS and CloudVision solutions allow the two communities to coexist in a somewhat harmonious reality. Arista is doing a great job staying focused on the Layer 2 and Layer 3 architectures.

Layer 1 Infrastructure

A vital part of a successful data center design will include an effective Layer 1 infrastructure. We are committed to providing first-class designs using industry-best practices and specifications. Spine-and-leaf designs are becoming more and more popular with the increased focus on edge computing and SDN architectures.

It is truly an exciting time for data center design and planning. Whether you are planning a layer 1 infrastructure to support a Spine and Leaf Architecture or you are responsible for provisioning Layer 2/3 switches to optimize the data center network, there are a multitude of great, thought-provoking options for you to consider.

I am excited about our future in this space. Big Data and Internet of Things (IoT) will transform the look of the data center in the future and I am sure open system architectures will play a huge role, as well. Stay tuned for my next blog on flash storage and its effect on Layer 1 infrastructure.

Check out my previous recaps of Arista Cloud Builders Seminars:


About the Author

Rob Jordan is a data center infrastructure architect for CABLExpress. He has more than 20 years of experience in the fiber optic cabling industry.

He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the world’s largest technical professional organization. He is also a recipient of the Soldier’s Medal for valor and heroism, an individual decoration of the United States Army. He served in Korea, Central America, and Operation Desert Storm.

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