Arista acquires VMware’s VeloCloud SD-WAN outfit from Broadcom Broadcom has sold VeloCloud, the software-defined WAN business VMware acquired in 2017, to Arista. A post about the acquisition written by Arista CEO Jayshree Ullal opened by revisiting the reason software-defined (SD) WAN was hot back in 2017 when VMware acquired VeloCloud – people were tired of paying for expensive dedicated …
AI agents roaming WANs? Finally. I always found it unsettling how network packets just zoomed past each other in silence, like strangers on a bus. No eye contact, no banter - just cold binary efficiency.
But now? Picture packets exchanging pleasantries as they route through edge nodes:
"Hey Alice, off to Twitch again?"
"Nah Bob, OnlyFans today. Got a payload full of pick pics."
"Classic. Guitarists really know the grind."
"These days, WANs likely connect to many sources of data "
Translation : you have one ginormous single point of failure where any one element can introduce a miscreant to your entire network.
"AI agents will bring more change to WANs as they roam around networks looking for data in many locations "
Oh that they will, especially when a state-sponsored miscreant finds a way to subvert the agents and make tyhem cause havoc.
It'll be blast to read the forensics on an AIagent-caused wipeout of a company's entire network.
"Apparently, for some reason the AI agents decided to reconfigure all the working addresses of every electronics equipment on the network to 127.0.0.1
We now have about 36,000 PCs, laptops, servers, phones and edge servers to manually analyze in order to find out where the change came from and revert it.
Best case scenario is we rebuild a proper network within two years, at the condition of hiring at 400 security experts working 8h shifts 24/7."
Arista shareholders probably didn't like such a huge chunk of their revenue coming from just data center & AI fabrics. Arista now has the capital to spend on this diversifation from the AI bubble. When the bubble settles down (not bursts) their shareholders will be happy with this type of revenue safety net.
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