Arista and HPE take aim at Cisco

Gemma Skelley
Head of Marketing

July 31, 2017

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has named Arista as their preferred partner for software defined networking. This is bad news for Cisco. Prior to the announcement of the collaboration, Arista was already the fastest growing vendor in the high-speed data centre networking segment and with HPE on board, the damage to common competitor Cisco is becoming apparent.

Arista has gained data centre switching market share at the expense of Cisco, whose share has fallen from 73% in 2011 to a low of 55% in Q1 2016. Arista’s product offering is extremely strong and with the backing of technology giant HPE, it now has the global presence it needs to truly compete.

  • Arista is a leading software defined networking vendor, providing a range of switches and network operating systems to organisations across the world. Gartner named the company a networking leader, in part due to their SDN solutions but also for the provision of flexible software, high growth and powerful technology solutions. Founded in, 2004, Arista set out to lead the way in software-driven cloud networking, and having recently been named preferred partner by HPE, they’re proving they can do just that.

  • The deal means big things for HPE too. The closer ties will be beneficial to HPE’s Hybrid IT strategy as software defined networking goes hand in hand with their transformative approach. HPE are in a powerful position to deliver economic savings to their customers and provide a much better ROI than the likes of Cisco and other competitors.

“We run into some Cisco customers and one of the reasons they like Cisco is because Cisco has such a large global presence and they probably feel safer from a support standpoint – and so you can now mitigate that objection with the [HPE-Arista] partnership,” said Chris Becerra, president and CEO of Terrapin Systems, a San Jose, Calif.-based solution provider and Arista partner.

Moving forward, the partnership will likely focus on driving transformation and creating change across data centres worldwide. Together, HPE and Arista are uniquely positioned to help organisations transition to a software defined data centre through innovations that enable network automation. Both companies share a vision around the need to deliver secure solutions and experiences, built on a basis of software defined infrastructure.


If you’re considering an Arista solution, or interested in software defined networking options, our experts are available to give comprehensive advice and recommendations. Why not get in touch and see what we can achieve together?