Arista claims latency lead with new data center switch

15.03.2011
Arista Networks this week unveiled a data center switch boasting sub-500-nanosecond latency for financial market trading applications.

The Arista 7124SX is a wire-speed, 24-port, one-rack-unit Layer 2/3 switch supporting 100Mbps, Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ optics and cables. It can serve as a leaf or access top-of-rack 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch in data centers, Arista says.  

The 7124SX lacks uplink ports, but any number of those 24 ports can be used as uplinks, Arista says.

Arista also rolled out a feature for the switch called Latency Analyzer (LANZ). LANZ allows 7124SX users to monitor and analyze network latency and, with an optional storage feature, store packet captures and LANZ network latency data.

The 7124SX comes at a time of increasing competition in low-latency data center switching, especially for financial market trading environments. Juniper just announced its , the first piece of its Project Stratus-based QFabric line for flattening data center and cloud infrastructures.

Cisco is expected to soon announce , a low-latency, high-density 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch specifically designed for market trading. Cisco is also said to be developing a fabric line to compete with Juniper’s QFabric, under the code-name “.”