In addition to numerous smaller switches, Arista Networks is adding a brand-new, high-end data centre switch that is intended to offer greater configuration and upgrade options to meet the unique requirements of various enterprises.
In a blog post about the new systems, Martin Hull, vice president of Cloud Titans and Platform Product Management with Arista wrote “Within the same firm, different ‘client use cases’ and application deployments have different needs. Each deployment needs a right-sized solution. Few applications today require 400G of bandwidth per server, but many organisations must lay the groundwork for the move away from 10/25G”
“Over the past few years, it has been clear that both types of customers — hyper-scalers and enterprises — are searching for the solutions with the highest speed, density, performance, as well as capacity. We are seeking to address this with our most recent product additions, taking advantage of lower prices and power consumption,” Hull said.
At the top of the market, Arista has expanded its 7060X5 Series with a new switch. This fixed 32 x 800G system includes a 25.6 Tbps backplane and a choice of OSFP- or QSFP-based optics. As a result, the 7060X5 Series now offers three 25.6 Tbps-based systems: a 1RU 128 port, 200G model; a 2RU 64 port, 400G model; and the new 1RU, 32 port, 800G switch. These systems can be used to anchor high-end enterprise or hyper-scale centre spine environments.
A single 8Tbps packet processor powers all five of the new Arista 7050X4 data centre leaf switches that have been added. The updated hardware comes in a range of configurations that handle 10Gbps, 25Gbps, 50Gbps, or 100Gbps in a well-known small pluggable form factor (SFP), ensuring backwards compatibility with the sizeable installed base of hosts operating at 10Gbps and 25Gbps using NRZ modulation, according to Hull. The new boxes maintain the same rack level density of 48 ports and handle 50G PAM4-based 100Gbps and 200Gbps hosts. These systems are believed to also provide users with 400Gbps uplink ports for spine connectivity at various rates between 100Gbps and 400Gbps Ethernet.
“As clients upgrade their high-performance computing (HPC), or storage systems, these applications require more powerful networking and performance capabilities, leading to new specifications for network switches. And with this new generation of switches, we’re introducing it,” Hull said.
Additionally, the 7050X4 boxes support OSFP or QSFP similar to the 7060X5 Series, the 7050X4 boxes offer OSFP or QSFP-based optics, allowing users to upgrade to new devices using the optical technology of their choice rather than forking over their legacy optical environment to support higher densities, according to Hull.
The first quarter of 2023 will see the release of the 7050X4 and 7060X5 platforms, which are based on the Broadcom Trident4 and Tomahawk4 chipsets.