Arista Ethernetlink Portfolio for AI Networking¶

By: Salman Zahid, Director of Systems Engineering

In the rapidly evolving world of Artificial Intelligence, network performance can make or break the success of AI initiatives. Arista Networks has stepped up to this challenge with its groundbreaking Etherlink AI platforms (a set of hardware platforms and a suite of software capabilities in Arista EOS and CloudVision), offering a comprehensive solution for high-performance AI networking.

Unparalleled Performance and Efficiency

Etherlink delivers up to 65% improved performance compared to traditional Ethernet systems, ensuring faster AI job completion times. This performance boost is achieved through lossless, low-latency platforms and innovative RDMA-aware load balancing and congestion avoidance features. Moreover, Etherlink shines in failure recovery scenarios, offering up to 30x faster convergence than InfiniBand. This rapid recovery is crucial in large-scale AI clusters where component failures are inevitable.

Scalability for AI Workloads of Any Size

Etherlink offers unmatched flexibility, supporting AI clusters ranging from just 32 XPUs to over 100,000 parallel XPUs. This scalability is made possible through a variety of deployment options:

Single systems: Up to 576 800G or 1,152 ports of 400G with a single modular 7800R4 series system.
Single-hop distributed Etherlink switching: Up to 4608 800G or 9216 ports of 400G (7700R4 series) in a single-stage cluster. 16k ports of 800G or 32k of 400G in multi-stage cluster.
Two- and three-tier leaf/spine or planar topologies: Supporting over 100k XPUs using modular 7800R4 series systems in leaf and spine roles.

Cutting-Edge Hardware Portfolio

Arista offers a range of AI-optimized platforms as part of the Etherlink portfolio:

7060X6 series: Fixed AI leaf switches with up to 64 800G or 128 ports of 400G.
7800R4 series: Modular AI spine systems with up to 576 ports of 800G or 1,152 ports of 400G.
7700R4 series: Innovative Distributed Etherlink Switch for single-hop, large-scale deployments.

Power Efficiency

Etherlink enables significant power reduction for AI clusters at both the system and optical interconnect levels:

Arista's Etherlink systems use best-in-class 5nm silicon, consuming at least 25% lower power per Gb than prior generations.
Support for Linear-drive Pluggable Optics (LPO - LPOs remove DSPs) further reduces net power consumption by 50% compared to traditional pluggable optics and Active Optical Cables (AOCs).

Intelligent Software Suite

Arista EOS (Extensible Operating System) provides advanced features tailored for AI workloads:

RDMA-aware dynamic load balancing
Advanced congestion control
Cluster Load Balancing, where congestion management is done end-to-end instead of on just a local hop
Support for Data Center Quantized Congestion Notification (DCQCN)

EOS-based AI Agent

Arista's EOS-based AI Agent optimizes coordinated performance between networking and compute domains. It provides:

Local configuration management of NICs
Streaming telemetry of NIC performance
Consistent application of QoS parameters from NIC to network

AI Observability

Arista's AI observability solution offers comprehensive insights into the AI ecosystem:

Streaming data from Arista EOS-based AI platforms and compute nodes
CV UNO (CloudVision Universal Network Observability) —an AI-driven, 360° network observability feature set within CloudVision—integrates AI job visibility with network and system data, providing real-time insights to optimize AI job performance and pinpoint bottlenecks and hardware issues with unmatched precision for rapid resolution

Future-Ready with Ultra Ethernet Consortium

As a founding Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) member, Arista is at the forefront of developing next-generation Ethernet technologies for AI and HPC workloads. Etherlink platforms are forward-compatible with future UEC specifications, ensuring long-term viability and performance improvements.

In conclusion, Arista's Etherlink solution stands at the forefront of networking innovation for AI workloads. By combining high-performance hardware, intelligent software, and a unified vision for AI infrastructure, Arista empowers organizations to build scalable, efficient, and powerful AI networks that drive the future of artificial intelligence.

For more information, check these resources:

AI Netoworking White Paper
ARISTA AI Ethernet Portfolio
Arista and NVIDIA Collaboration Press Release
AI Center Video

Managing Bug and Threat Compliance in the Modern Network¶

By: Alex Bojko, Advanced Services Engineer

Keeping a production network in compliance can prove to be a challenging task, especially when it comes to managing bugs and CVE's (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) on our network infrastructure. For starters, there can be a wide range of devices deployed in a network, many of which are running various versions of code. Bugs and Security Advisories are unpredictable, and keeping track of them across a wide range of devices and code can become cumbersome. Failing to bring devices into compliance can result in network downtime, outages, and a vulnerable network.

The Compliance Overview section of CloudVision makes managing and maintaining a secure production network simple and straightforward. Once EOS devices are onboarded into CloudVision, they are automatically included in the compliance overview section. CloudVisions Bug and Security Advisory database can be automatically updated by syncing with Arista's AlertBase server within the Settings > Compliance Update section of CloudVision. Once the AlertBase server is synced, you can view any new and existing Bugs and CVE's present on your EOS infrastructure. A table will be auto-populated:

The table will inform you of the following information:

The Bug/CVE identifier number
A brief summary of the Bug/CVE
The associated severity level
The total number of affected devices and the exact devices that are affected
The version of code that the Bug/CVE was introduced in as well as the version of code that it was fixed in

Levering this information makes monitoring and maintaining a secure and compliant network a seamless experience. By staying up to date on Bug and Security Advisories affecting devices in your production network, you can avoid network downtime all while ensuring your network is secure. Having one central location to view a list of all affected platforms and the remediation methods for them saves network operators time and energy.

Arista devices use a single operating system, EOS, across all network domains. This further adds to the simplicity of managing and remediating various Bugs and CVE's on our infrastructure, since they are limited to affecting one single operating system instead of many operating systems across devices in various network domains. EOS has historically been, and continues to be, an extremely high quality operating system, as illustrated in the image below.

To learn more about additional features of CloudVisions Compliance Overview section, like image and configuration compliance as well as End of Life information, click on the link below:

CloudVision Compliance Overview

Upcoming Events¶

Arista hosts various events throughout the year for you! Members of our team organize these informative events to showcase Arista's ability to not only help improve your network, but to also assist by providing a set of tools to improve your operations! Click on the boxes below to be directed to Arista's website for lists of Webinars and Events.

Webinars

We make is easy for you to view products that are of interest, all virtually! Technical memebers of the team showcase outstading explanation of the products. Click below to see our list of Webinars.

Arista Webinars
Events

Join us in person to get a closer look in our list of produts and solution, as well as get the chance to meet members of the team. Click below to see our list of ipcoming Events.

Upcoming Events

Software Updates¶

For new code releases, click here

Softwares	Versions	Release Date
EOS	4.32.4.1M 4.33.2F 4.32.4FM 4.28.13M 4.30.9M	February 25th, 2025 February 20th, 2025 January 29th, 2025 January 20th, 2025 January 13th, 2025
CVP	Portal 2024.3.1 Appliance 7.0.0 Sensor 1.0.0	December 13th, 2024 November 15th, 2024 October 16th, 2024
DMF	8.6.1 8.5.2	March 4th, 2025 November 1st, 2024
WLAN CV-CUE Wireless Manager	13.0.0-67 18.0.0	December 15th, 2022 December 2024
Arista NDR	5.2.4	August 2024
TerminAttr	1.35.1	November 5th, 2024

Software Advisories¶

Below is a list of advisories that are announced by Arista. To view more details on the specific advisories, please click the links in the middle boxes.

Name	Advisory Link	Date of Advisory Notice
BGP Agent Memory Leak	Security Advisory 0112	March 11th, 2025
OpenConfig gNOI Request	Security Advisory 0111	February 25th, 2025
CPU Monitor Sessions	Field Notice 0096	March 7th, 2025
Power Source Equipment (PSE)	Field Notice 0095	February 26th, 2025
Intermittent link flaps	Field Notice 0094	February 28th, 2025

For a list of the most current advisories and notices, click Here

Product Updates¶

End of Sale notices are listed below.

Device	Name	End Of Sale Date
Software	DMF and CCF Deployments on Accton/ Edgecore Switches EOS-4.34 and later no longer supported on select switches CloudVision Portal 2023.1 Train	January 31st, 2025 January 15th, 2025 December 20th, 2024
Module	7500R2 Series Linecards	December 20th, 2023
Access Points	AP Model W-118	November 20th, 2024
DMF	Recorder Node DCA-DM-RA3	January 14th, 2025
Switches	DCS-7020R Series	December 20th, 2024

New Releases of Arista's device are listed below

Device	More Information	Release Date
Arista SWAG	Modern Stacking for Campus	Q3 2025
Arista Multi-Domain Segmentaton Service	Arista MSS	Q3 2024
Arista CV UNO	CloudVision Universal Network Observability	Q1 2024

Feel Free to Reach Out To Us For Your Network Needs¶

We thank you for taking the time to read out newsletter today. Feel free to reach out to your SE or ASE for more information or questions regardsing your network operations. Until next month, have a good one!!

Arista Federal Newsletter March 2025¶