Arista Networks, Inc. - Experts & Thought Leaders

Arista Networks, a pioneer in networking for cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) fabrics, announces the launch of its new AI-driven Edge Threat Management (ETM) for VeloCloud SD-WAN, delivering integrated zero trust security for enterprise branch offices. Customers can leverage this integration to simplify the branch, collapsing multiple disparate boxes into a single unified secure SD-WAN edge platform. Integrated ETM provides perimeter protection at the WAN edge as an ideal software upgrade option to VeloCloud SD-WAN, enabling customers to unify zero trust branch office security with SD-WAN connectivity in a single platform. This platform helps simplify the branch with a common operating system, a uniform enforcement engine, and common end-to-end security policies, all with cognitive management via a single pane of glass in the VeloCloud Orchestrator. AI-powered policy insights Key features include advanced firewalling and threat prevention capabilities, zone-based segmentation, Geo-IP filtering, DNS filtering, and AI-powered policy insights, all delivered locally at the branch WAN edge. This unified approach provides fine-grained policy control and strengthens the security posture for branch networks. “The new ETM functionality allows us to offer requested security services on top of the existing SD-WAN infrastructure managed within the same GUI. This eliminates the need to deploy a separate firewall box managed from a separate GUI, especially for small branches,” said Till Bockenheimer from T&A SYSTEME GmbH, a German MSP managing 7500+ sites in 98 countries for 10+ years within VeloCloud SD-WAN for its customers. Complex security policies "The network edge must evolve to be smarter and more autonomous as our clients expand their AI-driven operations from reactive troubleshooting to predictive management," states Edward Fox III, Chief Technology Officer at MetTel. The new Edge Threat Management solution leverages Arista AVAⓇ (Autonomous Virtual Assist) for AI-driven policy intelligence. Features like 'Policy Explainer' and 'Traffic Simulation' use Ask AVA to translate complex security policies into simple language. This helps security administrators reduce errors and quickly understand the impact and outcomes of security policies, especially in scenarios where policies may be contributed by multiple administrators. Virtual edge platforms “The new zero trust integrated security with ETM, developed organically by Arista, showcases the power of the combined Arista and VeloCloud teams on the anniversary of the VeloCloud acquisition. Customers can now simplify and unify the branch, extending enterprise-grade zero trust security to the branch office WAN edge,” said John McCool, Senior Vice President at Arista Networks. The introduction of Edge Threat Management in VeloCloud SD-WAN edge platforms underscores Arista’s commitment to providing end-to-end secure networking infrastructure from client to cloud, making the enterprise network simpler, more secure, and ready for AI-driven operations. Availability ETM for VeloCloud SD-WAN will be generally available in Q4 of 2026. ETM will be available for all current VeloCloud hardware and virtual edge platforms.

Arista Networks, a pioneer in data-driven networking announced that its 720XP series of switches for campus deliver embedded security and packet analysis. By embedding NDR (Network Detection and Response) capabilities into the Arista EOS-based switches themselves, customers derive broader visibility and threat hunting across the modern cognitive campus. The secure infrastructure optimizes existing human workflows and drives automated risk mitigation without the need to deploy additional and external network security products. Network infrastructure “As a highly respected network infrastructure provider, Arista is well-positioned to bake security into the core of the network. Bringing artificial intelligence techniques such as deep learning, belief propagation, and natural language processing to data captured directly off the switch has the potential to grossly simplify network security for customers,” said Dr. Edward Amoroso, Chief Executive Officer, TAG Cyber and Research Professor, New York University. “Being a former security practitioner myself, the ability to avoid the operational burdens of bolting security on is very appealing.” High fidelity NDR with Arista AVA AVA Sensors support a variety of form factors from stand-alone appliances and virtual to cloud workloads Powered by AVA™ (Autonomous Virtual Assist), this AI-driven function has two key components: AVA Sensors and the AVA Nucleus. AVA Sensors support a variety of form factors from stand-alone appliances and virtual to cloud workloads and now, within campus power over ethernet (PoE) switches. These sensors curate and transfer the “just right” deep-packet data to the AVA Nucleus, which is offered as both on-premises and SaaS. With a simple switch software upgrade and minimal impact on switch performance or reliability, the Arista NDR platform delivers:        Enhanced visibility: Identify mal-intent, profile, and track all users, apps, and devices whether managed desktops and workstations or unmanaged contractors, supply chain, cloud, and IoT workloads. Correlate these entities based on behavioral analysis to build an entity-centric view and declutter a security analyst’s threat hunting workflow. Real-time Situational Awareness: Understand the entire threat landscape and scope of any attack so that security analysts can make intelligent and risk-based decisions. AI-Driven Threat Detection: Automate threat detection and response on the network with a platform that identifies underlying attacker tactics, techniques, and procedures rather than just known indicators of compromise. Managed NDR: Leverage the power of the Arista NDR platform coupled with skilled resources from Awake Labs that bring decades of experience to enhance the customer’s 24x7 security operations, threat hunting, and incident response programs. Network security  Arista enables a built-in, secure network that reduces organizational risk by speeding up both time to detection and remediation" “Network security has been an ongoing challenge for most organizations due to hardware deployments and configuration changes needed at the network infrastructure level. While organizations acknowledge that the network presents a unique vantage point, security teams have been forced to trade off-network visibility and ongoing operational costs,” said Rahul Kashyap, Vice President and General Manager of Cybersecurity CISO at Arista Networks. “By building NDR capabilities into the switching infrastructure itself, Arista enables a built-in, secure network that reduces organizational risk by speeding up both time to detection and time to remediation.” NetFlow-based solutions Legacy NetFlow-based solutions are limited in their depth of visibility (port, IP address, and basic protocol information) and lack the context to identify modern devices or threats. In stark contrast, AVA Sensors analyze the full packet, including application layer data which sets the stage for automated and manual threat hunting. Innovations like this have led Arista NDR to be recognized as a leader in the KuppingerCole Network Detection & Response Leadership Compass 2021 Report. The platform also received the AI Breakthrough award for the Best AI-based Solution for CyberSecurity. AVA availability The new capabilities are expected to be generally available in Q2, 2022, with early trials in March 2022.

Arista’s partner ecosystem can leverage many benefits of this new telemetry solution Arista Networks announced next-generation telemetry and analytics capabilities designed for modern cloud networks. The new Arista EOS® (Extensible Operating System) and CloudVision® features provide customers with deep visibility into today’s network workloads, workflows, and workstreams on a network-wide basis, accelerating completion of day-to-day tasks and reducing operational costs. “The automated network operations in today’s cloud networks are dependent on both a highly programmable software infrastructure as well as deeper visibility into what the network is doing. Legacy approaches to visibility fall short of these cloud requirements,” said Ken Duda, CTO and Senior Vice President, Software Engineering for Arista Networks. “The Arista state-streaming approach provides an open framework with unprecedented levels of completeness and granularity for network state information. Our CloudVision platform harnesses streamed network state to provide customers of all types with clearer real-time and historical visibility into their network.” State-Based Streaming Approach To Telemetry Arista EOS is a state-based software architecture built on a foundation called NetDB™ (Network Database). With NetDB, Arista EOS devices store all real-time state in one common database and then aggregate that state from all devices into a network-wide view. By collecting every state change on the network, Arista customers will have access to both real-time and historic views of the network in one place and at a level of granularity never before achievable. To leverage this rich network data, the CloudVision platform’s analytics engine provides telemetry visualization for this network-wide state. This approach includes the following capabilities and benefits: Instantaneous event-driven streaming of every state change, providing a dramatic improvement in granularity compared to traditional polling models. Complete state visibility from all devices in the network, including configuration, counters, errors, statistics, tables, environmentals, buffer utilization, flow data, and much more. CloudVision Analytics Engine for storing state history and performing trend analysis, event correlation, and automated alerts. The basis for both real-time monitoring and historical forensic event investigation. New Telemetry Apps for the CloudVision Portal, including the Workstream Analytics Viewer, providing simplified visualization of network-wide state for faster time to resolution. An open framework, built on standard RESTful APIs as well as OpenConfig-based infrastructure, providing a point for integration into a variety of partner solutions and customer-specific infrastructure. Expansion of existing EOS Telemetry Tracer capabilities across device, topology, virtual machine, container, and application components. Arista Partner Ecosystem Benefits Arista’s partner ecosystem can leverage many benefits of this new telemetry solution. With real-time state streaming, Arista partner solutions receive more granular data compared to the traditional polling mechanisms. This provides deeper integration and ultimately, more visibility into the network for the partner’s solution. With access to the network-wide state through common API’s at multiple integration points, Arista’s partners can access the network state either streamed directly from the devices or from the central state repository within CloudVision. Arista’s CloudVision Telemetry solution is endorsed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, SAP, Veriflow and VMware. Arista EOS Availability Across Networks Arista EOS supports a wide variety of telemetry-focused capabilities for network visibility. The latest additions to the Arista Telemetry solution will be available as follows: EOS NetDB Streaming is available in EOS today. CloudVision Telemetry will be available in Q4, 2016. Ecosystem integration with Arista Telemetry is available on a partner-by-partner basis.