Arista Introduces Containerized Software for Cloud Networking

Containerized EOS

Arista cEOS introduces the containerized packaging of EOS software and its agents for deployment in cloud infrastructure with the same proven EOS software image that runs on all Arista products. These flexible deployment options empower cloud network operators that are customizing their operating environments to provide a uniform workflow for development, testing and deployment of differentiated services. It enables the provisioning of a robust and proven network operating system across production and development platforms with a uniform EOS distribution and single-image consistency.

The initial rollout of Arista cEOS is endorsed by several ecosystem partners including Broadcom, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Microsoft Azure Networking.

"We are pleased that Arista’s containerized EOS BGP offering is running on top of SONiC (software for open networking in the cloud), bolstering our community development efforts in open networking," said Yousef Khalidi, Corporate Vice President of Azure Networking. "Through our work with Arista and others in the industry, we are building a richer ecosystem of open source networking solutions in the cloud."

Arista EOS is now supported on a wide range of open hardware, including three form factors: Arista’s own merchant silicon-based platforms, bare metal switches and industry standard virtual machines or containers.

Extending Arista EOS for DevOps

Arista has extended the modern DevOps approach toward microservice architecture and containerization to support workloads, workflows and complex development and validation at massive scale. Since cEOS can execute as just another container, customers can run other containerized applications on the same platform, such as automation or monitoring tools. Arista cEOS also extends the core EOS architecture to provide a lightweight module for use in network modeling, development and validation in the cloud. As virtualization did in the prior decade, this allows developers to experience a seamless migration from development to production, for the entire operating environment with a consistent cloud network approach.

In addition to the introduction of cEOS running in container environments, Arista EOS now supports the container ecosystem in the following ways:

• EOS now runs in a container on a broad range of hardware and cloud operating platforms (NEW)
• EOS supports applications running concurrently within its workspace either in a VM, as native Linux apps or as a container
• EOS supports automated discovery and provisioning of services for container workloads running within EOS or in external containers with Container Tracer

EOS Disaggregation with White-Box Ecosystem

Arista customers can utilize cEOS in tandem with industry standard white box hardware and enable a wide array of tools and applications from the container ecosystem. This marks the first software offering of EOS for white box switches and servers. Arista cEOS is available and supported by Arista on disaggregated hardware from a broad vendor ecosystem.

Arista EOS is a purpose-built software stack that has been deployed and proven in most of the world’s largest data center and cloud-scale networks. The rich EOS software suite – including a resilient network wide state-driven NetDB architecture, CloudVision automation and analytics, and any cloud workflow, workload, and workstream – is fully supported across all modes of operation.

Availability