In a word: Wow
Just read an article from our friends at The Register on a new 384-port chassis 10GbE switch that Arista is launching. From a hardware perspective the numbers are just draw dropping.
A base Arista 7500 costs $140,000, and a fully configured machine with all 384 ports and other bells and whistles runs to $460,800, or $1,200 per port. This machine will draw 5,072 watts of juice and take up a little more than quarter of a rack.
Compare this to a Cisco Nexus 7010 setup to get 384 wirespeed ports and deliver the same 5.76 Bpps of L3 throughput, and you need to get 18 of the units at a cost of $13.7m. Such a configuration will draw 160 kilowatts and take up 378 rack units of space – nine full racks. Arista can do the 384 ports in 1/34th the space and 1/30th the price.
I love the innovation that comes from these smaller players, really inspiring.