If you have a large network, it's one of the easiest solutions to deploy and manage.
The best part is the single operating system that they have. Regardless of your model, it's the same operating system functioning across the board, which means you don't have to worry about backward compatibilities between your older switches and the new ones that you deploy, which is a big plus when compared to maybe Cisco, HP, or Juniper, where you get into these different operating systems based on the model.
Against that, if you look at the competitors, you always have to worry about the operating system that the older units are running on, and the integration between the old and new, and what are the limitations and stuff like that. All those questions you simply don't have to worry about when you talk about Arista. Therefore, the deployment becomes pretty easy.
The solution is very stable.
Technical support is extremely responsive and helpful.
The solution is quite expensive. One of the negative aspects of it is the pricing.
I've used the solution for a while. I was an employee at Arista for a couple of years. In addition to that, I have almost four customers who have been using Arista.
The solution is absolutely stable. If you look at the customer base, that itself is a testimony. They have a very, very good customer base, and it's a pretty stable solution. Rarely we have encountered any challenges with Arista.
The solution works well for large-scale organizations.
The nice thing about technical support from Arista is you don't have to go through multiple levels of check-ups where there is someone who collects your information and stuff and then passes on the baton to someone else. That's not how they work. It's an engineer on the call who would directly help you out, which saves a lot of time and headache. The whole time with the technical support of Arista is significantly lower than others. My experience has been that when you call Arista tech support, your call is answered within a couple of minutes. Compared to the rest, where it could be 15 to 20 minutes at least, it's great. Arista is very quick on the response time when it comes to assistance.
I also have an understanding of Cisco, HP, and Juniper.
The initial setup is pretty straightforward and simple. For roughly around 50 switches, you could deploy them in a day with the manpower of maybe two people.
Even for probably a network which is moderately sized, a couple of admins would do the job in terms of maintenance. They could deploy and just hold it. If you have a lot of changes to make every now and then they can handle it. That part would completely depend upon the operations that are carried out.
The product is fairly expensive. It's not a cheap option. Clients need to be ready to pay.
There's an annual license with Arista. Though the unit of calculation is monthly, the license has to be procured on an annual basis. It's an annual license, and again, it's pricy.
I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten. The only negative that applies to them is the price.
I would recommend Arista for enterprises considering their price point, however, I would not recommend it for the SME/SMB market. Although it's a wonderful product, the price is something that an SME or SMB cannot afford.