Arista Lands Sun’s Bechtolsheim
October 27, 2008
TheStreet.com reported on October 23, 2008, Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder and chief architect, will reduce his role at Sun Microsystems “to help build network switch startup Arista Networks.” You can read the full story here. Sun Microsystems has fallen on hard times. Tech wizards can engineer the pants off the Bach statue in Eisenach, but so far the Stanford University Network crowd has not been able to pump revenue into the company. The deal, if I understand the news reports, is that Mr. Bechtolsheim will become Arista’s chairman and chief development officer. In addition, he will continue to contribute to Sun.
What’s an Arista Networks? According to TheStreet:
“Arista is touting high-speed 10-Gigabit Ethernet switches and is clearly aiming to challenge Cisco in the data center networking niche.”
The problem with high speed switches is that these gizmos are like potato chips. You can’t get by with just one. Unlike the Dlink and Netgear devices, wavelength and optical solutions are exotic, expensive, and in demand. Outfits like Microsoft and Yahoo are building data centers designed to handles 50,000, 100,000, or more servers. Servers are useless unless telecommunication pipes can get data into the data center and from the data center to the servers. Arista Networks wants to play in this fast growing segment. Mr. Bechtolsheim is a savvy technology wizards, and he knows an opportunity for an upside when he sees one. The Arista play is not without risk which may explain that Mr. Bechtolsheim is working two jobs at least for now.
Arista gizmos. The 7124s is a 24-port 10GbE switch with 480 Gbps of bandwidth costs about $150 per port or about $3,600. Pricing data are hard to get, so if you want to buy a couple dozen of these gizmos, contact the company.
Arista’s angle, based on information available to me, is to offer high throughput at a more compelling per port price than other vendors such as Cisco. The Arista secret sauce is a combination of smart software and less expensive components. The combination of computational intelligence and more commoditized pieces translates to a high performance device at a price the Microsofts, Yahoos, Amazons, and Equinixes of the world will find attractive.
Keep in mind that Arista has been in business for eight years. Arista was previously known as Arastra. The smart software is modular and easier to tweak than more traditional high speed optical gear. The buzzword for this approach is “an Extensible Operating System”.
Will the Arista play work? I think the odds are reasonably good. The era of the big honking data center is upon us. If Arista can deliver the right mix of reduced administrative cost, throughput, and price, Arista could deliver to its investors and stakeholders. A misstep creates another 2008 financial meltdown victim. With two jobs, Mr. Bechtolsheim has prudently reduced his risk. Smart and conservative. A good combination in Santa Clara these days.
Stephen Arnold, October 27, 2008
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