I wrote a (incendiary?) blog a few weeks ago about using vendor competition in your network to save money. But, to make this work, you first need to have viable vendors to compete.
Cisco has not had a viable competitor to its Nexus 1000V switch since its introduction last year. Start-up Arista Networks, with a few ex-Cisco people on their team, is now ready to compete with vEOS - Virtualized Extensible Operating System.
New Arista VP Doug Gourlay took some time with me earlier this week to go over vEOS and I was impressed. vEOS is simply a virtual version of Arista's EOS software which runs their line of 10Gbe switches. vEOS runs as just another VM inside your VMware environment, just as Cisco's Nexus 1000V's Virtual Supervisor Module (VSM) does. However, vEOS has a major difference from 1000V. vEOS does not replace VMware's virtual software switch as the 1000V does with Virtual Ethernet Modules (VEMs). vEOS simply provides a better management and configuration environment for the VMware vDS (virtual distributed switch).
Currently, management of the VMware virtual switch has been left to server admins since access to vCenter was required. Then Cisco came along with 1000V and replaced all network components, including the VMware virtual switch software itself. But why add extra software if it's not needed? Thus, vEOS leaves the virtual switch in place and allows VMware to naturally enhance and tie the vSwitch capabilities to ESX. vEOS simply provides network engineers a common CLI (that means Cisco IOS CLI if you were wondering) access to the vSwitch.
A single instance of vEOS can manage 64 ESX hosts and provides almost all the features 1000V does (and a few 1000V doesn't). Plus, vEOS is setup to provide easy migration of network attributes to cloud computing via VMware's OVF architecture. With OVF and vEOS, a VM could be moved to a cloud with all its network configurations intact.
With this architecture in mind, vEOS provides a few other nice features. First, and definitely on my Christmas list each year, is EOS (and thus, vEOS) is a single binary image. One file to do it all. No feature sets or versioning or T-train. Simple.
Second, EOS is built on an open Linux platform so it is, by its own name, extensible. You can run native Linux apps right in vEOS. Snort, DNS, DHCP, tftp, MRTG, etc. Nice extra feature to add. What Cisco has attempted to do with Application Extension Platform and extra hardware comes native in EOS.
vEOS also implements object-oriented port profiles. Essentially, you configure a port template and then apply that template to individual ports. vEOS moves the port profile as VM's move around the VMware cluster (Vmotion, DRS, etc) maintaining network configuration, security, and accounting data.
But, the best feature of vEOS may be its price. vEOS comes in two easy prices. First, the license for monitoring and management of 64 ESX hosts is $0.00. Right, free! So, if you are satisfied with vCenter for configuration, but want your network engineers to have a Cisco CLI view of the virtual network, you can just download vEOS and use it. Nice!
If you want to also use vEOS for configuring the virtual switches, the cost is $5000 for a 64-node license. According to Arista, this is significantly cheaper than Nexus 1000V (I'll leave that to the marketing experts to fight out). Still, seems like a heck of deal to me. Being able to manage and configure 64 ESX virtual switches for only $5,000 would be a simple, quick investment.
The beta for vEOS starts soon and Arista is looking for participants. As I wrote last year, I am very impressed by the Nexus 1000V. But, at this point, I am also impressed with vEOS. Arista is positioning its technology slightly differently, with a simple software model, and aggressive pricing.
Let the competition begin!
More >From the Field blog entries:
It's One of Those Opinionated Days Again
A Private Extranet for Cloud Computing
It's Really Only Partly Cloudy Out There
Networking in the (Thunder) Clouds
Networking in the (Storm) Clouds
How to Save Some $$$s - Keep Competition in Your Network
Go to Cisco Subnet for more Cisco news, blogs, discussion forums, security alerts, book giveaways, and more.
Michael Morris is a communications engineering manager at a $3-billion high-tech company. His background is in enterprise WANs working with telcos and developing large-scale routing designs. He has worked on networks at government and corporate organizations, including networks at two Fortune 10 companies. In his current role, he leads a team of 10 engineers responsible for large-scale IT networking projects and architectural standards for data networks, storage area networks, IP telephony, contact centers, and security. Michael is CCIE #11733 and recently became one of the first three Cisco Certified Design Experts (CCDE) ever (#20080002). He has 11 years experience in networking and communications, including four years as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army. He has a bachelor's degree in MIS from the University at Buffalo and is working on his MBA from NC State University. In 2008, he was awarded the Network Professional Association (NPA) Professional Excellence and Innovation Award for his work on network architecture, templates and enterprise MPLS design.
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Funny You Should Ask...
Michael:
I actually enjoyed your earlier post. Competition is good it keeps us on our toes and that is at least as important internally as it is externally for our customers.
So, you posed an interesting question: "...why add extra software if it's not needed? " If you look at the user experience from the server admin perspective, it pretty much looks the same. From the network side of things, however, that "extra software" comes in handy for the features and management capabilities that network admins depend upon--things like ACLs, QoS, ERSPAN, NetFlow v9--delivered with VM-level granularity and designed so network and security policy follow the VM as it moves. VMware's vSwitch is a solid product, but Steve Herrod, VMware CTO, has been very upfront that the N1KV is a better switch. Solutions that wrap around the vSwitch will ultimately be bound to the feature set that VMware offers in the vSwitch. To help customers make more educated decisions, VMware and Cisco have jointly published a document that outlines the feature set differences between the two solutions. On our site, it can be found at http://bit.ly/t7aHr.
Regards,
Omar Sultan
Cisco
blogs.cisco.com/datacenter
Being bound by the feature set of VSwitch
Interesting comment.. So instead of being bound by the Vswitch features, you would be bound by the features of Cisco Nexus 1000V... Sorry Mr. Sultan, I would rather trust a software company like VMWare with enhancement to their system than trust Cisco to do the same... Lets see... IOS, NX-OS, ect, ect, ect.......
missing features in vmware
the vSwitch is pretty limited, you cannot even do something simple like "switchport trunk allowed vlans"... so you just have the choice to send one vlan to a server or all :( no ACLs either... and since that is a vswitch limitation a new management plane doesn't really help.
Virtual Networking Feature Comparison
Virtual Networking Feature Comparison:
Sincerely,
Brad Reese on Cisco
Network World Cisco Subnet
BradReese.Com Cisco Refurbished
vEOS compares well
vEOS Feature Comparison Matrix
www.aristanetworks.com/vEOS
Arista Networks vEOS Feature Comparison
Arista Networks vEOS Feature Comparison:
Sincerely,
Brad Reese on Cisco
Network World Cisco Subnet
BradReese.Com Cisco Refurbished
Are they Complemetary than Competing?
I view this as two different markets and two different solutions
Nexus 1000V is the full enterprise edition solution for high end
Arista vEOS is for existing VMWare environments looking to bridge the virtual and physical servers and networks
I agree. Great concept, and
I agree. Great concept, and it's nice to finally see some competition in the market but without features such as VACLs, RSPAN, and ERSPAN available I just don't see widespread adoption in large commercial datacenters.
Most Datacenters run VMWare VSwitch
99% of Data centers run VMWare Virtual switches today
Which must mean they do just fine without VACLS, and x-SPANS
Heavilly featured doesnt mean they are heavilly deployed in data centers
VEPA will soon make virtual switching obsolete
It makes little sense to load a general purpose CPU with tasks that can be better executed in dedicated hardware rather than competing for server CPU cycles with the hypervisor.
It makes much more sense to uses existing physical switches with their dedicated silicon to implement these functions.
An open tagging standard like VEPA will allow that to happen. Not only does VEPA solve the problems addressed by the 1000V and vEOS it also provides visibility to individual flows required to provide statefull security between VMs.
Cisco will talk about VN-Link to do something similar but in typical Cisco fashion VN-Link is closed and proprietary and will require new TOR switches (only available from CIsco) to implement.
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