Arista 7280R User Manual
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Arista 7280R Switch Architecture (‘A day in the life of a packet’)
The Arista Networks 7280R Series is a series of purpose built high performance xed conguration 1RU and 2RU form
factor Universal Leaf switches with a deep buer, virtual output queue architecture combined with rich features, and
support for 10/25/40/100G ports and standards-based 25G and 50G for long term investment protection. The 7280R
Series includes all models in 7280R, 7280RA, 7280R2, 7280R2K and 7280R2A.
The 7280R capabilities address the demands of modern networking and rich multimedia content delivery, requiring a
lossless forwarding solution. They are ideal for Universal Cloud Networks, where deep buers and wire speed L2 and L3
forwarding are combined with advanced features for network virtualization, open and programmable monitoring and
network analysis, resiliency and architectural exibility.
Additionally, the deep packet buers and 7280R series’ support for highly scalable IPv4 and IPv6 tables allow for a wide
range of open networking solutions, including Cloud WAN aggregation, Service Provider NFV, Internet Peering and
Peering Exchanges, Overlay Networks, Content Delivery and evolution of the network edge, in addition to exible scale
out of the Arista UCN.
The broad range of interfaces and density choices provide comprehensive deployment choices.
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Figure 1: Arista 7280R Universal Leaf Platform
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The 7280R has a number of dierentiators compared to other xed conguration systems. The major advantages come from the VoQ
and deep buer architecture (up to 32GB per system) combined with the rich EOS feature set.
• Standards-based high density 100G switch ideal for future proof designs and high bandwidth needs, such as in High
Performance Storage or Content Delivery Networks (CDNs).
• Ultra-deep buers in a xed form factor makes for an ideal top-of-rack switch where lossless performance and in-cast problems
are expected, such as in big data analytics, search and IP storage.
• Directly connected 25GbE, 40GbE and 50GbE attached storage systems, requiring high performance and predictable latency.
• Streaming network state for advanced analytics with Arista CloudVision®
• Network–wide virtualization platform for next generation cloud bursting with wire-speed VXLAN routing.
• Hardware-assisted PTP enables accurate timing solutions across Ethernet-based networks, without costly investment in
separate timing networks.
• Unique monitoring and provisioning features – LANZ, DANZ, AEM, IEEE 1588 PTP, ZTP, VM Tracer, VXLAN, and eAPI
• Comprehensive L2 and L3 feature set for open multi-vendor networks with no proprietary lock-in
• Large scale L2 and L3 table resources allow deployment exibility in both large L2 and L3 environments with any-workload
suitability.
• NEBS compliance and DC power supplies designed for service provider environments
• MACsec encryption for simple, reliable and scalable datacenter interconnect and for securing links between tiers in leaf and
spine datacenter designs.
The 7280R platform is designed for lossless behavior, in environments where large scale routing, VXLAN Routing, DANZ and
enhanced LANZ are needed. It is ideal for networks where 100G uplinks are planned, for investment protection, and any place where
system scalability is a concern. In addition, all members of the 7280R Series support full internet scale peering and have advanced
features such as Precision Time Protocol (PTP) and Audio Video Bridging (AVB).
• DANZ TAP Aggregation - 10/25/40/100G TAP Aggregation with best-in-class performance and high density up to 60 ports of
100G TAP/Tool ports
• Latency Analyzer (LANZ) - Microsecond granularity on port utilization using buering watermarks to provide immediate
feedback and precision monitoring
• Wirespeed VXLAN Routing - Seamless integration between VXLAN and L2/L3 environments, physical and virtualized networks
• IEEE 1588 PTP - Build and scale accurate timing solutions with sub-microsecond accuracy
• Network Wide Virtualization - Multi-vendor API Support with eAPI, VXLAN and NSX, and other encapsulation techniques
• AlgoMatch™ – Ecient packet matching algorithm that enables ow matching for access control, policy and visibility
• sFlow Acceleration - Advanced network telemetry, capacity planning, security analysis and quality of experience monitoring
• The 100G QSFP interfaces on the 7280R can be used for various port speed options, depending on the transceivers used, where
the 100G ports can be used to break out into 4 x 25G or 2 x 50G. The use of 40G QSFP+ optics can provide 4 x 10G ports.
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System Specications
The tables below provide system specications for all the 7280R platforms.
Table 1: Arista 7280R and 7280RA Port Combinations and Forwarding Metrics
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7280R &
7280RA Series
Max 100GbE
Ports
Max 50GbE Ports 96 32 24 12 12 24 12 - 12
Max 40GbE Ports 56 72 36 6 6 36 6 6 6
Max 25GbE Ports 192 64 48 24 24 48 24 - 24
Max 10GbE Ports 224 160 144 72 72 120 72 48 72
L2/3 Throughput 10.24 Tbps 6.4 Tbps 4.32 Tbps 2.16 Tbps 2.16 Tbps 3.84 Tbps 2.16 Tbps 2.16 Tbps 2.16 Tbps
L2/3 PPS 5.76 Bpps 2.88 Bpps 1.44 Bpps 720 Mpps 720 Mpps 1.44 Bpps 720 Mpps 720 Mpps 720 Mpps
Latency From 3.8 us
Typical Power
Draw
Total System
Buer
Rack Units 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Airow F/R F/R or R/F F/R or R/F F/R or R/F F/R or R/F F/R or R/F F/R or R/F F/R or R/F F/R or R/F
Power Supplies 1900W AC
Table 2: Arista 7280R2 and 7280R2A Port Combinations and Forwarding Metrics
7280CR-48 7280QR-
48 16 12 6 6 12 6 6 6
1363W 725W 324W 263W 290W 419W 313W 382W 290W
32GB 16GB 8GB 4GB 4GB 8GB 4GB 4GB 4GB
1900W DC
C72
1900W AC
1900W DC
7280QRC36
745W AC
1900W DC
7280SR48C6
500W AC
500W DC
7280TR48C6
500W AC
500W DC
7280QRAC36S
747W AC
1900W DC
7280SRA48C6
500W AC
500W DC
7280SRAM48C6
500W AC
500W DC
7280TRA48C6
500W AC
500W DC
7280R2 &
7280R2A Series
Max 100GbE
Ports
Max 50GbE Ports 120 120 120 60 60 12 12
Max 40GbE Ports 60 60 60 30 30 6 6
Max 25GbE Ports 240 240 240 120 120 72 72
Max 10GbE Ports 240 240 240 120 120 72 72
L2/3 Throughput 12 Tbps 12 Tbps 12 Tbps 6 Tbps 6 Tbps 3.6 Tbps 3.6 Tbps
L2/3 PPS 5.02 Bpps 5.02 Bpps 5.02 Bpps 2.51 Bpps 2.51 Bpps 1.67 Bpps 1.67 Bpps
Latency From 3.8 us
Typical Power
Draw
Total System
Buer
Rack Units 2 2 2 1 1 1 1
Airow F/R F/R F/R F/R F/R F/R or R/F F/R or R/F
Power Supplies 1900W AC
7280CR2-60 7280CR2A-60 7280CR2K-60 7280CR2K-30 7280CR2A-30 7280SR2-
60 60 60 30 30 6 6
1660W 1760W 1760W TBD TBD 425W 450W
24GB 24GB 24GB 12GB 12GB 8GB 8GB
1900W DC
1900W AC
1900W DC
1900W AC
1900W DC
1600W AC
1600W DC
1600W AC
1600W DC
48YC6
747W AC
1900W DC
7280SR2A48C6
747W AC
1900W DC
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Arista 7280R - Router Table Scale, Features and Functionality
In addition to increasing port numbers and system performance, forwarding table sizes have continued to grow. Arista’s innovative
FlexRoute™ Engine enables more than a million IPv4 and IPv6 route prexes in hardware, signicantly beyond what merchant silicon
enables natively. Arista EOS NetDB™ evolution of SysDB allows for increased scale and performance with industry leading routing
convergence, creating the rst xed switch system to truly be called a router. Extensions to FlexRoute for switches with larger on-
chip tables increases the capability to over 2M routes, of both IPv4 and IPv6, with the ability to contain multiple full-route table
copies and ensure many years of investment protection.
The table below shows the key scale metrics of the 7280R, 7280RA, 7280R2, 7280R2A and 7280R2K Series.
Table 3: Arista 7280R Key L2, L3 Scale Metrics
7280R Series
(Jericho)
MAC Table Size 768K 768K 768K 768K 768K
v4/v6 Host Routes 768K 768K 768K 768K 768K
IPv4 Route Prexes Up to 1.2M Up to 1.2M Up to 1.3M Up to 1.3M 2M+
IPv6 Route Prexes 928K 928K Up to 1M Up to 1M 1.4M+
Multicast Groups 928K Up to 768K Up to 768K Up to 768K Up to 768K
LAG Groups Up to 1M 1152 1152 1152 1152
LAG Members Up to 1M 64 Ports 64 Ports 64 Ports 64 Ports
ECMP Fanout 1.4M+ 128-way 128-way 128-way 128-way
ACL Entries 24K 24K 24K 24K 24K
7280RA Series
(Jericho)
7280R2 Series
(Jericho+)
7280R2A Series
(Jericho+)
7280R2K Series
(Jericho+)
Airow
The 7280R Series oers a choice of airow direction (front-to-rear or rear-to-front). Power and fan modules are color-coded to show
the airow direction through the switch, making it easy to identify how the switch should be installed in a rack where Hot/Cold aisle
separation is required.
Red handles shown below denote hot aisle placement with Airow exit from the switch.
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Figure 2: 7280R 1RU & 2RU Switch Chassis Rear View
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Blue handles shown below denote cold aisle placement with Airow intake to the switch.
Figure 3: 7280R 1RU & 2RU Switch Chassis Rear View
Arista 7280R Universal Leaf Platform Architecture
All 7280R Series switches share a common system design built around a high performance x86 CPU for the control plane. The CPU is
connected to system memory, internal ash, SSD, bootash, power supplies, fans, management I/O and peripherals, as shown below.
Figure 4: 7280R High Level Architecture
The Arista 7280R switches were designed for continuous operations with system wide monitoring of both hardware and software
components, simple serviceability and provisioning to prevent single points of failure.
Key high availability features include:
• 1+1 hot-swappable power supplies and four hot-swap fans provide dynamic temperature control combined with N+1
redundancy
• Color coded PSU’s and fans that deliver platinum level power eciency
• Live software patching
• Self healing software with Stateful Fault Repair (SFR)
• Smart System Upgrade (SSU)
The x86 CPU is also connected over PCIe to the 7280R Packet Processor(s) that run all the data plane forwarding and have all the
directly connected front panel ports.
All stages associated with packet forwarding are performed in integrated system on chip (SoC) packet processors. The packet
processor provides both the ingress and egress packet forwarding pipeline stages for packets that arrive or are destined to ports
serviced by that packet processor. Each packet processor can perform local switching for trac between ports on the same packet
processor.
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The architecture of a switch (in this case, the 48 port SFP25 w/ 6 port QSFP100 switch 7280SR2-48YC6) is shown in the gure below. Each of
the packet processors on the switch services a group of 24 x 10/25G SFP and 3x 100G QSFP100 front panel ports.
Figure 5: Arista 7280SR2-48YC6/7280SR2A-48YC6 switch architecture
In the case of the 7280SR2-48YC6, each of the 48 ports supports 1G SFP, 10G SFP+ or 25G SFP transceivers. The 6 QSFP ports can operate as
either 1 x 100G or breakout to 2 x 50G or 4 x 25G when populated with a 100G QSFP transceiver. If populated with a 40G QSFP+ transceiver,
each port can operate as either 1 x 40G or breakout to 4 x 10G. All port speed conguration changes are hitless and no ports are disabled or
unavailable.
In order to operate a port in breakout mode (e.g. run a 100G port as 4 x 25G or 2 x 50G, or a 40G port as 4 x 10G), the underlying transceiver
must enable this. In the case of 25G/50G, SR4 and PSM4 optics support breakout (as they are optically 4x25G in parallel). Similarly, Direct
Attach Copper (DAC) QSFP100 to 4xSFP25 cables provide breakout support. The same holds true for 4x10G breakout of a 40G port, which is
available for transceivers and cables that are based on 4x10G parallel signaling.
Port Identication
The 40GbE QSFP+ and 100GbE QSFP100 transceivers are the same physical size and can be inserted into any QSFP based ports. It’s
important that switches indicate the port capabilities on the front panel so that an engineer installing transceivers inserts them into the
correct port types.
The gure below shows the two types of QSFP ports. Ports on the right are highlighted
with a lilac line to identify they are QSFP100 capable; these ports will support either
QSFP+ or QSFP100 transceivers. The ports on the left without the lilac decal are QSFP+
only and will not support QSFP100. The LED indicators below the ports are grouped in
sets of four. The left set are for the top port and the right for the lower port. When ports
are congured for either 40G or 100G, the leftmost LED indicator will show green when
connected, with the others indicating orange. When the ports are congured for 10G
or 25G, each of the 4 LEDs will be green when the associated link is connected. For 50G
connectivity on the QSFP100 ports, LEDs 1 and 3 will indicate the link state with 2 and 4
remaining orange.
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Figure 6: QSFP+ & QSFP100 Ports
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The pluggable transceiver used for 25GbE is an SFP28 and is the same size as
both the 1GbE SFP and 10GbE SFP+. To facilitate easy identication of 25GbE
capable ports a green color outline is used to indicate 25GbE capable SFP
ports as shown below.
Figure 7: SFP28 25GbE Ports
Arista 7280R Universal Leaf Platform Layout
Arista 7280R series switches utilize high performance packet processors, with the number of packet processors varied, based on the number
and type of ports on the system. The packet forwarding architecture of each of these systems is essentially the same: a group of front-panel
ports (dierent transceiver/port/speed options) are connected to the packet processor. The following diagrams show the layout of each
7280R system.
Figure 8: 7280SR-48C6 & 7280SRA-48C6
As shown above, the 7280SR-48C6 and 7280SRA-48C6 use a single packet processor and provide customers with 48 x 10G SFP+ ports
allowing for 1/10G on each port and 6 x QSFP100, for connection to spine switches, located in the center of the front panel. The QSFP
ports will accept either QSFP100 or QSFP+ optics and cables and can be congured for a choice of 10/25/40/50/100G depending on the
transceiver. Out of band management of the switch is available through the use of either a 100M/1G RJ45 Ethernet interface or a Serial port
on the rear of the switch. Two USB ports are also available, one on the rear and another on the front. Each system has a choice of 8GB or
32GB of DRAM, and the larger memory comes with an SSD for local storage. AlgoMatch is provided on the 7280SRA model.
The 7280TR-48C6 and 7280TRA-48C6 also use a single packet processor and provide customers with a 10GBASE-T solution with 48 x
100/1000/10GbE RJ45 ports and 6 x QSFP100 ports for connection to spine switches, located in the center of the front panel. The QSFP
ports will accept either QSFP100 or QSFP+ optics and cables and can be congured for a choice of 10/25/40/50/100G, depending on the
transceiver. Out of band management of the switch is available through the use of either a 100M/1G RJ45 Ethernet interface or a Serial port
on the rear of the switch. Two USB ports are also available, one on the rear and another on the front. Each system has a choice of 8GB or
32GB of DRAM, and the larger memory comes with an SSD for local storage. AlgoMatch is provided on the 7280SRA model.
Figure 9: 7280TR-48C6 and 7280TRA-48C6
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