Arista Warrior, 2nd Edition

The long wait is over, and I’m happy to announce that the second edition of Arista Warrior is in the production phase. What does that mean? It means that the book is done and the only thing really left for me to do is approve copy-edits and quality control notes. So far as I’m aware, and if everything goes according to plan, the book should be hitting your favorite bookstore shelves, websites, and e-readers by mid to late June.

To give you a glimpse into the new edition, here are my notes from the preface about what’s changed. Remember, the first edition was published in October of 2012, so there’s over six years of advancement to cover which is part of why it took so damn long to finish. Well, that and having a job, family, dogs, guitars, and a life, all of which are excuses further compounded by my apparent compulsion to miss book deadlines.

My primary goals in writing the second edition were as follows: (more…)

Building a Virtual Lab with Arista vEOS and VirtualBox

It’s no secret that I love Arista switches. When I wrote Arista Warrior, I was lucky enough to have a loaner switch from Arista in my home lab, but sadly they made me give it back. Since Arista is a relative newcomer to the world of Networking, there isn’t a pile of used Arista gear on eBay, so I can’t build a killer lab at home without spending thousands of dollars. As much as I love Arista switches, I’d rather spend my spare cash on guitars my wife and kids.

Understanding the plight of cash-strapped networking guys the world over, Arista has released a virtual-machine-ready version of their fabulous switch operating system, EOS. Currently this is only available to existing Arista customers, so see your Arista sales rep to get a copy. Please don’t ask me for a copy, since I will not send you a copy no matter how much you beg. Arista has hinted that they may release this into the general population, in which case I may build a Virtual Box appliance to share. Until then, you’ll need to read on and build it yourself. (more…)

Arista Warrior

Arista Warrior Book
I am proud to report that I have finished the first draft of my new book, Arista Warrior. With the tagline, A real-world guide to understanding Arista switches and EOS, this will be the first published book about Arista switches that contains all original information. It should be available for purchase by November of 2012. (Edit: now available for pre-order from Amazon.com!)

If you’re not familiar with Arista switches, I urge you to give them a look. I discovered them while doing a vendor comparison study for a client, and believe it or not, I only found about them because the other vendors kept mentioning them. After visiting their headquarters and meeting the people behind the technology, I was impressed. I’ve been doing this for a long time and I’m not easily impressed, so I figured there was something special going on, but it seemed like the world hadn’t yet caught on. I immediately contacted my editor and proposed the idea that has become this book. Roughly a year later, here we are. (more…)