Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:54:10 GMT - High Frequency Trading Review
Many network engineers might dismiss Arista Networks' new field-programmable gate array (FPGA) switch as a cool, niche product, but it has the potential to turn the Layer 4-7 network services industry on its head.
Yes, Arista's 7124FX FPGA switch, also known as Arista's "application switch," will have limited appeal for now. Its target customers will be the financial services firms and government agencies that require ultra-low latency application performance, particularly for unstructured data. But if Arista partners with the right companies and builds a developer ecosystem, its switch could serve as the underlying hardware platform upon which third-party vendors build server load balancers, intrusion prevention systems, firewalls and other Layer 4-7 services.
