Today, the buzz in networking is all around software-defined networks -- and nothing could make Arista Networks CEO Jayshree Ullal happier. Ullal spent 15 years at Cisco, where she ran the network giant's core switching and data center businesses, before joining Arista, which was founded by Sun Microsystems co-founder and Chief System Architect Andy Bechtolsheim and David Cheriton, a Stanford University professor of computer science and electrical engineering (and fellow Cisco alumnus). Ullal says Arista's data center switches were born to support SDN and provide both the power and flexibility required for today's highly virtualized corporate and cloud data centers. In this installment of the IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series, Ullal spoke with Chief Content Officer John Gallant about the reality and hype around SDN, and why the data center requires a different network than your father's general-purpose Cisco net. She also explored how her work at Cisco shaped Arista's strategy, and shared insights on how Arista's partnerships with VMware and Cloudera are making it easier to move to cloud and embrace big data, respectively.
There are a lot of networking alternatives out there. Why should someone buy from Arista?