One of the great changes that Arista made from the days of the first
edition of Arista Warrior is that you can now get a copy of vEOS or
cEOS simply by registering a guest account on the Arista website.
This is a positively huge development for those of us who want to
get certified or just want to learn more about Extensible Operating
System (EOS).
Lastly, I’d like to explain why I wrote this book. When I wrote the first edition of this
book, I didn’t work for Arista, I didn’t sell Arista gear, and Arista had not paid me to
write this book. I now work for Arista as an instructor and course developer. Arista
did not dictate the contents of this book, and I even went so far as to insist that I con‐
tinue to have some autonomy in my writing career when hired. If I see something
that I don’t like, I’ll write about it, but to be completely up front, because I work for
Arista, I am likely to present the issue to them for correction before publishing any‐
thing negative. The only restriction I have is that I cannot post any trade or company
secrets. Telling you things like, “Mark Berly is a robot sent from the future to destroy
us all,” would be similarly unethical, and I just won’t do it. Much.
For those not in on the joke, Mark Berly is one of the very early
employees at Arista and was the one who recommended me for the
job. He’s an all-around great guy and is part of what makes Arista
great. He also said, “Holy crap, you got old!” the last time I saw
him, so he deserves a light-hearted jab. In print. Forever.
Some time ago, before my tenure at Arista began, a client had me do a sort of bake-off
between major networking equipment vendors (Mark Berly was my Arista systems
engineer). We brought in all the big names, all of whom said something to the effect
of, “We’re usually up against Arista in this space!” Because every one of the other ven‐
dors inadvertently recommended Arista, we contacted the company, got some test
gear, and went out to visit its California office.
I’ve been in IT for more than 30 years, and I’ve been doing networking for more than
25. I’m jaded, I’m grouchy, and I distrust everything I read. I’ve seen countless new
ideas reveal themselves as a simple rehashing of something we did with mainframes.
I’ve seen countless IT companies come and go, and I’ve been disappointed by more
pieces of crappy hardware with crappy operating systems than most people can
name. I’ve been given job offers by the biggest names in the business and turned
them all down. Why? Because big names mean nothing to me aside from the possibil‐
ity of another bullet added to my résumé.
Nothing impresses me, nothing surprises me, and nothing gets past me. But when I
walked out of Arista after three days of meeting with everyone from the guys who
write the code to the CEO and founders themselves, I was impressed. Not only
impressed, but excited! I’m not easily sold, but I walked out of there a believer, and in
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