Important note - Arista has 2 BGP implementations in the routing stack, old (NH/ribd) that has been there since day 1 and newly written (I believe mostly driven by EVPN development), when compared to other vendors - make sure to compare with the new (modern code, highly multithreaded, cache optimized) implementation.
Cheers, Jeff > On Apr 1, 2022, at 11:10, Adam Thompson <athomp...@merlin.mb.ca> wrote: > > > TL;DR: Yes, go ahead, they’re good, we like them. > > I won’t say they’re perfect, but we’re using them at the edge (two of them in > a hybrid core/edge model right now, even!) and I would happily endorse them > for edge routers. Their BGP stack hasn’t put up any major roadblocks for us > so far (at least, that weren’t, ahem, self-inflicted). We’ve had 1 incident > in the last ~2 years where a stuck route on one router needed a full reboot > to clear out, following a partial outage - that’s the worst thing I can > remember right now. > > Don’t know if you know this already or not, so making it clear: the one > thing to beware of IMO, compared to e.g. a high-end Juniper MX960-style > system where you can turn every single feature on without caring, is that the > Aristas can do almost anything you can dream of… but not necessarily all at > the same time on the same box, no matter which model you’re looking at. > So if you use it as an edge router? Fine. As a VXLAN gateway? Fine. As a > core router or switch with every kind of accounting turned on? Fine. All of > those things simultaneously? Maaaaaybe. It’ll be decision time for which > specific, individual sub-features you can live without. But you’re paying > 1/10th (probably less!) of what you would for an MX960, so there you go. > > If this helps, they’re similar to the Cisco Nexus platform in this regard, > e.g. if you enable and use every single “Feature” on the fixed-configuration > Nexuses you’ll start running out of hardware configuration resources to > enable them long before you can finish configuring or using all those > features. > > This is something your Arista SE can go through with you in excruciating > detail (keyword: “TCAM Profile”), if you think you might be veering into that > territory. After lots of iterations, and a new software release or two, our > all-in-one boxes (7280SR2K) do more or less everything we want them to. > (Apparently we aren’t typical Arista customers. Go figure.) If you want to > do BGP and MLAG at the same time on the same box, get your SE involved from > the start. > > For anyone not trying to overload the platform or do too much “weird” stuff, > it should be a quick and easy deployment producing much happiness. > > -Adam > > > Adam Thompson > Consultant, Infrastructure Services > > 100 - 135 Innovation Drive > Winnipeg, MB, R3T 6A8 > (204) 977-6824 or 1-800-430-6404 (MB only) > athomp...@merlin.mb.ca > www.merlin.mb.ca > > From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+athompson=merlin.mb...@nanog.org> On Behalf Of > David Hubbard > Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2022 8:10 AM > To: nanog@nanog.org > Subject: Opinions on Arista for BGP? > > Hi all, would love to get any current opinions (on or off list) on the > stability of Arista’s BGP implementation these days. Been many years since I > last looked into it and wasn’t ready for a change yet. Past many years have > been IOS XR on NCS5500 platform and Arista everywhere but the edge. I’ve > been really happy with them in the other roles, so am thinking about edge > now. I do like and use XR’s RPL, and prefix/as/community/object sets, but we > can live without via our own config management if there aren’t easy > equivalents. No fancy needs at all, just small web server networks, so just > need reliable eBGP and internal OSPF/OSPFv3. > > Thanks, > > David
