Arista Warrior

Gary Donahue

Oct 2012 · "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

About this ebook

Though Arista Networks is a relative newcomer in the data center and cloud networking markets, the company has already had considerable success. In this book, renowned consultant and technical author Gary Donahue (Network Warrior) provides an in-depth, objective guide to Arista’s lineup of hardware, and explains why its network switches and Extensible Operating System (EOS) are so effective.

Anyone with a CCNA or equivalent knowledge will benefit from this book, especially entrenched administrators, engineers, or architects tasked with building an Arista network. Is Arista right for your data center? Pick up this guide and find out.

Topic highlights include:

• SysDB: the EOS system database that holds state, statuses, and variables
• Multichassis Link Aggregation (MLAG): for linking a port-channel to multiple switches instead of just one
• Latency Analyzer (LANZ): the interface-buffer troubleshooting tool with a reporting granularity of one millisecond
• VM Tracer: for adding, changing, and removing VLANs without human interaction
• Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP): for remote switch configuration
• Hardware advantages: including merchant silicon, low-latency networking, and power consumption
• Gotchas: issues with Arista switches or systems

About the author

Gary A. Donahue is a working consultant who has been in the computer industry for 28 years. Gary has worked as a programmer, mainframe administrator, Technical Assistance Center engineer, network administrator, network designer, and consultant. Gary has worked as the Director of Network Infrastructure for a national consulting company and has been the president of his own New Jersey consulting company; GAD Technologies.