7050X4 Series | Features

Dynamic Bu er Allocation

In cut-through mode, the Arista 7050X4 switches forward packets with a consistent low latency of 900 nanoseconds. Upon congestion,

the packets are bu ered in an intelligent fully shared packet memory that has a total size of up to 132MB for superior burst absorption.

Unlike other architectures that have xed per-port packet memory, the 7050X4 Series use dynamic thresholds to allocate packet

memory based on tra c class, queue depth and quality of service policy ensuring a fair allocation to all ports of both lossy and lossless

classes. Bu er utilization, occupancy and thresholds are all visible with Arista LANZ and can be exported to monitoring tools to identify

hotspots and measure latency at the device and end to end.

Software Driven Cloud Networking

Arista Software Driven Cloud Networking (SDCN), combines the principles that have made cloud computing the unstoppable force

that it is: automation, self service provisioning, and linear scaling of both performance and economics coupled with the trend in

Software De ned Networking that delivers: network virtualization, custom programmability, simpli ed architectures, and lower capital

expenditure. This combination creates a best-in-class software foundation for maximizing the value of the network to both the

enterprise and service provider data center. A new architecture for the most mission-critical location within the IT infrastructure that

simpli es management and provisioning, speeds up service delivery, lowers costs and creates opportunities for competitive

di erentiation, while putting control and visibility back in the hands of the network and systems administrators.

Maximum Flexibility for Scale Out Network Designs

Scale out network designs enable solutions to start small and evolve over time. A simple two-way design can grow as far as 128-way

without signi cant changes to the architecture. The Arista 7050X4 include enhancements for exible scale-out designs:

• 128-way ECMP and 64-way MLAG to provide scalable designs and balance tra c evenly across large scale 2 tier leaf-spine designs

• Equal and Unequal Cost Multi-Pathing (UCMP) for exible tra c balancing in large scale multi-tier topologies

• Custom hash algorithms for e cient hashing, persistent hashing and custom lookups for tunneled protocols

• Flexible allocation of L2 and L3 forwarding table resources for more design choice

• Wide choice of dense 10G/25G/40G/50G/100G/200G/400G interfaces for multi-speed exibility

• Support for standards based IEEE 50GbE PAM4 for simple and cost e ective migration from 25G and 100G to 50G and 400G

• VXLAN routing, bridging and gateway capability for physical to virtualization communication in next generation data center designs

• DANZ, sFlow and multi-port mirroring to detect micro-burst congestion and provide network wide visibility and monitoring

• Hitless speed changes from 10G to 400G to eliminate down-time when implementing speed changes

Flexible Forwarding Table

Network scalability is directly impacted by the size of a switches forwarding tables. In many systems a 'one size ts all' approach is

adopted using discrete xed size tables for each of the common types of forwarding entry. The Arista 7050X4 leverage exible

forwarding tables for the L2 MAC, L3 Routing, L3 Host and IP Multicast forwarding entries, which can be exibly allocated per entry

type. The ideal size of each partition varies depending on the network deployment scenario. The exibility of the forwarding table

coupled with the range of pre-de ned pro les available on the 7050X4 ensures optimal resource allocation for all network topologies

and network virtualization technologies.

AI Analyzer *

Traditional software-based tra c counters do not lend themselves to examine AI/ML tra c patterns, which exhibit unique ramp up

behavior in very short intervals of time. The AI Analyzer is a hardware capability that enables the collection of ECMP member utilization

data, aggregated over extremely short periods of time. This allows the Arista 7050X4 series to e ectively analyze the tra c patterns,

with a time interval as granular as 100 microseconds. The results of such an analysis can then be applied to ne tune dynamic load

balancing workloads uniformly across the ECMP member links, which is a key requirement for AI/ML applications.

Smart System Upgrade *

Smart System Upgrade is a network application designed to address one of the most complicated and challenging tasks facing data

center administrators - network infrastructure maintenance. Changes to the underlying network infrastructure can a ect large numbers

of devices and cause signi cant outages. SSU provides a fully customizable suite of features that tightly couples data center

infrastructure to technology partners allowing for intelligent insertion and removal, programmable updates to software releases and

open integration with application and infrastructure elements.

* Not currently supported in EOS