Cloud Computing News – Running Clouds, Chasing Cisco
Arista’s switch opens new chapter in building out cloud computing.
MENLO PARK, Calif. — A small cohort of Silicon Valley luminaries is reinventing the hottest trend in computing–and in the process giving the likes of Cisco, HP and Juniper Networks something to think about.
Arista Networks is announcing on Monday its first chassis-based switch, capable of running 10,000 computer servers in a so-called “cloud” data center, the core of the growing business of remote access to high-speed supercomputing via a Web browser. The company says the product, which lists for $140,000, offers five times the performance of existing machines, while consuming one-tenth the power and occupying half the space.
As much as those specs, however, what is deep inside the machine and who stands behind it are likely to attract the most attention.
Arista was founded in 2005 by Andreas Bechtolsheim, the cofounder of Sun Microsystems ( JAVA – news – people ) who also did important work at Cisco ( CSCO – news – people ) and funded Google ( GOOG – news – people ); and longtime collaborator David Cheriton, a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University and another early Google champion. Cheriton is known for his software architecture, while Bechtolsheim is renowned for innovations in semiconductor design and use.
Funded by the two men with about $100 million, Arista’s chief executive is Jayshree Ullal, formerly head of network switching and services at Cisco. Ullal expects the company to be cash flow positive this year, thanks in part to the new switch, called the 7500.
The 7500, she says, will be “our flagship–what puts us in the big league.” Last year the company came out with its first product, called the 7100, which was smaller and had somewhat less performance. That product attracted about 300 initial customers, largely in finance, business computing and cloud data centers. Financial firms like Arista for its speed, useful for capturing small changes in price. Arista boasts thatthe 7500 can handle 5.76 billion data packets a second.
Full Source: Forbes
