Opscode and Arista Networks Extend IT Automation to Networking

SEATTLE, Aug. 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Opscode®, the foundation of the coded business, and Arista Networks, today announced the integration of Opscode Chef™ and Arista Extensible Operating System (EOS). Using Opscode Chef with Arista EOS, enterprise IT teams can automate the configuration of physical and virtual networking ports using Chef Cookbooks, coordinating change management between compute and networking resources to align core datacenter operations. By automating previously manual, repetitive networking management tasks, Opscode Chef and Arista EOS accelerate bandwidth provisioning, improve operational efficiency, and reduce the time and cost required to support scale-out data centers.

"The business imperative to continually increase development velocity in the race to market means using IT as a catalyst in rapidly delivering goods and services. This can only happen when compute, networking, and storage resources are fully aligned," said Ken Cheney, VP of Business Development, Opscode. "By combining Chef with EOS, we're automating compute and networking via the same systems integration platform, ensuring compute resources and applications always have the bandwidth they need, with minimal overhead."

"The enterprise shift to scale-out computing has created a massive management challenge for the networking layer, with IT operations teams often employing only one networking person for thousands of ports," said Doug Gourlay, vice president Systems Engineering and Technology Marketing at Arista Networks. "Eliminating manual port configuration is the first, and most critical, step in solving the networking dilemma in today's data centers. Combining Chef and Arista EOS provides a flexible solution for abstracting management into simple code commands that ensure bandwidth availability and consistency at any scale."

Opscode and Arista have integrated the Chef client onto Arista EOS and collaborated on a Chef Cookbook featuring rock-solid, easy-to-follow recipes for automating the following:

• Physical Networking Port – Provision physical networking ports on Arista EOS with pre-configured code commands, eliminating manual management and creating a shared repository of configuration code for networking resources.
• Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) – Build virtual networking resources on top of physical ports, extending networking scalability and improving consistency.
• Logical Layer Two and Three Interfaces – Create virtual networking interfaces for assigning, supporting, and managing services across different tiers to best align service delivery with resource bandwidth.
• Link Aggregation Interface – Bundle multiple physical ports into a single virtual port interface, supplying high performance applications with the aggregate bandwidth they need without additional cost.

The Chef Cookbook for automating Arista EOS can be found here. Opscode and Arista will continue to collaborate on simplifying networking management and better aligning compute and networking resources in the enterprise data center.

About Opscode Chef

Opscode's pioneering software, Chef, is an open-source automation platform built specifically for the coded business. Chef is based on one key insight: What can express users' knowledge of their IT infrastructure and also put that knowledge into action? Code can. With Chef, users model evolving IT infrastructure and applications as code. Chef makes no assumptions about environments or users' approach to infrastructure and process. The result? Infrastructure becomes testable, versioned and repeatable – all as part of an agile software delivery pipeline.

Open Source Chef is available for free and provides the basis for Enterprise Chef™, which is available as either on-premise software or a hosted service. For more information, please go here.

About Opscode

Opscode is the provider of Chef, the automation platform for the coded business. Opscode Chef provides the speed, flexibility, and efficiency to compete in the digital economy. By modeling IT infrastructure and application delivery, code can give you the power to easily scale to meet demand, eliminate down time, manage complexity, and accelerate time to market. www.opscode.com.

About Arista Networks

The company was founded to deliver software-defined cloud networking solutions for large data center and computing environments. Arista's award-winning 10/40/100 GbE switches redefine scalability, robustness, and price–performance, with 2000 customers and more than one million cloud networking ports being deployed worldwide. At the core of Arista's platform is EOS, the world's most advanced network operating system. Arista Networks products are available worldwide through distribution partners, systems integrators and resellers.

Additional information and resources on today's announcement can be found at: http://www.aristanetworks.com

Press Contact:
Lucas Welch
[email protected]
206-745-0000

SOURCE Opscode