Arista Southwest Region Newsletter¶
Welcome to the April 2026 Newsletter for Arista customers in the U.S. Southwest Region!
We welcome your feedback on the newsletter. If you have any ideas or suggestions on how to improve the newsletter, please reach out to southwest@arista.com.
Leadership Perspectives — Recent Blogs from Arista Leadership¶
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AI Datacenters are Reshaping the Optics Industry --- Mar 11, 2026: Andy Bechtolsheim and Vijay Vusirikala introduce XPO (eXtra-dense Pluggable Optics), a revolutionary 12.8 Tbps liquid-cooled module.*
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Powering AI Centers with AI Spines --- Feb 12, 2026: Arista is pioneering the new era of AI Centers with the 7800R4. Hear from Arista CEO Jayshree Ullal about how a centralized AI Spine simplifies operations across massive 400G/800G/1.6T Etherlink fabrics.
Southwest Region Tech Tip of the Month¶
Your new network colleague: Ask AVA
Meet Ask AVA, your new CloudVision AI colleague that allows you to interact with your network using natural language.
Why it matters: Ask AVA leverages your high-quality data in Arista's Network Data Lake (NetDL) to answer specific questions about your network. Instead of manually correlating MAC addresses and routing tables across different screens, you can simply ask AVA to summarize active network events, generate CPU and memory visualizations, or even run ping and traceroute commands directly from impacted devices.
Pro Tip: You can enable Ask AVA (currently in Beta) by navigating to the Settings > Features tab in your CVaaS tenant. Once enabled, click the "A" icon in the top right corner of any CloudVision screen to open the chat interface. If you are logging in after a long weekend, try starting with: "Create a list of Events that have occured over the last 24 hours and recommend which events I should address first."
Check out last months Newsletter to learn more about Ask AVA! To view, select "March 2026" in the top left navigation menu.
Featured Articles¶
Level Up Your Networking Skills with Arista Academy¶
By: Frough Tahiry, Advisory Systems Engineer
Are you growing tired of studying months for a certification, only to be assessed with a mundane multiple choice exam? Do you wish certification training content and exams were tailored towards what you will actually see in the field, instead of simply testing your ability to memorize terms and functions?
Introducing Arista Academy, a platform designed to help you achieve networking expertise by building practical skills that are directly applicable to your day to day tasks. Arista Academy has offered new content and courses earlier this year, with new certifications. The new Arista Academy offers various tracks from fundamentals of networking to advanced concepts of MPLS and automation, so no matter where in your networking career you are, you can find relevant courses and hands-on labs in Arista academy.
Additionally, Arista Academy offers free classes in the Arista Academy Channels, where you can have access to hundreds of videos on networking. You can navigate to the Arista Academy Channels on the Academy’s website linked below.
Moreover, Arista Academy also offers live classes with instructor leads and self paced classes. The courses are five days long with digital content 40 hours of hands-on-lab per sub-track and 60 hours lab time for the live classes experience included, which provides users with practical lab guides to complete as part of preparing for the lab based exam. A comprehensive datasheet for each track is available on the academy website.
Below, we will cover the four main tracks of Arista Academy in addition to the Foundations introduction level, and elaborate on the topics covered in each track.
Foundations
As the name suggests it is an essential point for building your arista expertise. This track starts from core switching all the way to automation, and introduces Arista CloudVision as well as essential security best practices.. This track offers an opportunity to learn about Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding , as well as Arista EOS (Extensible Operating System) Architecture with real life examples.
Data Center
The Data Center track covers all the design, configuration, and troubleshooting, from basic layer two and three protocols to advanced technologies and tools that keeps a Data Center running.
The Data Center track is divided into two sub-tracks:
- Data Center Engineering: Covers Layer 2 and Layer 3 configuration via the CLI or CloudVision Studios.
- Data Center Operations: Focuses on Day 2 operations, such as network monitoring and troubleshooting through CloudVision.
Note: In the self-paced section of the Academy, you will find supplemental content covering advanced topics such as VXLAN, EVPN, and Data Center Interconnection (DCI).
Campus
This track provides a solid understanding of Arista campus technologies and both wired and wireless architecture. The Campus track is divided into two sub-tracks:
- Campus Engineering: This sub-track sheds light on Layer 2 and Layer 3 protocols for wired campuses and the fundamentals of wireless. You will also learn about Arista security solutions and approaches, and how to secure a network end-to-end via the CLI or CloudVision.
- Campus Operations: You will learn all Day 2 operations for wireless networks on CV-CUE and wired networks on CloudVision.
MPLS WAN
MPLS WAN, also known as Routing, is a track designed for mid - advanced networking engineers. This track covers advanced concepts of MPLS and Arista's routing technologies and architectures applicable to Data Center, service provider, and edge networks.
Automation
The Automation Track is designed for network engineers, administrators, and automation-focused IT professionals who want hands-on experience with Arista automation. This track discusses the onboarding day 0 to day 2 operations and monitoring. This track provides students with tools like Git, Jinja, CVP, Python, Ansible, and CloudVision to gain practical skills on building practical automation workflow and learn more about advanced EOS features.
Lastly, you can enhance a valid certification by passing exams associated with each track. You can take exams for each sub-track and get a specialist certificate or you can take a test for each track and get a professional certificate. The exam is an assessment of all the concepts covered in each track, and a test of your practical skills. The exams are a hands-on lab exam for each certification and open book in a virtual environment, showing how Arista values real hands-on learning as opposed to a multiple choice based assessment.
To learn more about Arista Academy, click on the link below.
Using AVD-Generated CloudVision Campus Tags with Static Studios¶
By: Nick D'ambrosio, Advisory Systems Engineer
Audience: Campus Network Operators & Automation Engineers
Scope: Day-1 (AVD) + Day-2 (CloudVision Operations)
Validated on: CVaaS / CloudVision 2024.3+TL;DR
This repository documents a practical Campus workflow where AVD-generated CloudVision Campus tags act as the integration point between Day-1 automation and Day-2 operations.AVD builds and maintains the campus fabric, while CloudVision consumes those tags to drive Campus topology, Network Hierarchy, Static Studios, and Quick Actions, enabling operators to safely manage port profiles and operational changes through the UI without breaking automation intent.
When deploying Campus fabrics with Arista AVD, a common challenge is determining how to cleanly integrate...
This repository documents a real-world, customer-inspired workflow that uses AVD-generated CloudVision Campus tags as the contract between these two domains.
By generating and applying Campus tags directly from AVD, CloudVision can:
- Render accurate Campus topology views
- Dynamically place devices into Studio container hierarchies
- Enable clean configlet inheritance without device-level assignments
- Support a hybrid operational model where AVD and Studios coexist
In this model:
- AVD is responsible for building and maintaining the Campus fabric and infrastructure
- CloudVision Studios are leveraged for topology visualization, container-based configuration, and ongoing day-2 operations
This guide walks through the architecture, tag generation, Studio container hierarchy, and configlet inheritance model using screenshots from a working lab environment.
High-Level Architecture
Figure 1 – Campus fabric topology generated and tagged by AVD
Overview
The arista.avd.eos_designs role can generate CloudVision Tags that are applied to devices and interfaces during fabric deployment. These tags are used by CloudVision to:
- Render accurate Campus Topology views
- Enable tag-based searches and filters
- Dynamically place devices into Studio container hierarchies
- Support hybrid AVD + Studios workflows
This functionality is supported on:
- CloudVision as a Service (CVaaS)
- On-prem CloudVision 2024.3.0 or later
Documentation References
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CloudVision Tags (AVD):
https://avd.arista.com/5.7/ansible_collections/arista/avd/roles/eos_designs/docs/how-to/cloudvision-tags.html -
Static Configuration Studio Deployment:
https://avd.arista.com/5.7/ansible_collections/arista/avd/roles/cv_deploy/index.html#static-configuration-studio-deployment -
Access Interface Configuration Studio (Quick Actions):
https://www.arista.io/help/articles/provisioning-studios-built-in-access-interface#access-interface-configuration-studio
Enabling CloudVision Tag Generation
To globally enable CloudVision tag generation for Campus fabrics, both of the following settings must be enabled:
generate_cv_tags:
topology_hints: true
campus_fabric: true
These options allow AVD to generate the metadata required for:
- Campus topology rendering
- CloudVision Network Hierarchy UI activation
- Studio-based workflows
CloudVision Network Hierarchy
Figure 2 – CloudVision Network Hierarchy UI activated by Campus tags
Campus Tag Variables
AVD assigns CloudVision tags using fabric variables or node_type_keys. The following variables are supported for Campus deployments:
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
campus |
Logical campus name |
campus_pod |
Building or campus pod |
campus_access_pod |
Access pod / IDF (not assigned to spines) |
cv_tags_topology_type |
Campus node type (spine, leaf, member-leaf) |
Example: Fabric Tag Assignment
L3 Spine Configuration
l3spine:
defaults:
campus: AVD_CAMPUS
campus_pod: BUILDING_A
node_groups:
- group: SPINES
cv_tags_topology_type: spine
L2 Leaf Configuration
l2leaf:
defaults:
campus: AVD_CAMPUS
campus_pod: BUILDING_A
node_groups:
- group: IDF1
cv_tags_topology_type: leaf
campus_access_pod: IDF1
- group: IDF2
cv_tags_topology_type: leaf
campus_access_pod: IDF2
- group: IDF3
cv_tags_topology_type: leaf
campus_access_pod: IDF3
- group: IDF3_3C
cv_tags_topology_type: member-leaf
campus_access_pod: IDF3
CloudVision Tags Applied to Devices
Figure 3 – CloudVision device view showing AVD-generated Campus tags
Static Configuration Studio Using a Config Manifest
A Static Configuration Studio can consume the CloudVision tags generated by AVD using a cv_static_config_manifest.
The manifest:
- Reads tags applied by arista.avd.eos_designs
- Uses tag_query expressions to dynamically place devices
- Builds a container hierarchy based on Campus structure
- Applies configlets to containers and inherited devices
Example Static Config Manifest
cv_static_config_manifest:
configlets:
- name: Building_A_Banner
file: configlets/Building_A_Banner.cfg
containers:
- name: ZZZ_AVD_CAMPUS
description: AVD generated Campus Tag Hierarchy
tag_query: "Campus:AVD_CAMPUS"
match_policy: match_all
sub_containers:
- name: BUILDING_A
description: Building A
tag_query: "Campus-Pod:BUILDING_A"
match_policy: match_all
configlets:
- name: Building_A_Banner
sub_containers:
- name: IDF1
description: IDF 1
tag_query: "Access-Pod:IDF1"
match_policy: match_all
- name: IDF2
description: IDF 2
tag_query: "Access-Pod:IDF2"
match_policy: match_all
- name: IDF3
description: IDF 3
tag_query: "Access-Pod:IDF3"
match_policy: match_all
Static Studio Container Hierarchy
Figure 4 – Static Configuration Studio containers built from tag queries
Deploying the Manifest with cv_deploy
tasks:
- name: Deploy CloudVision configuration
ansible.builtin.import_role:
name: arista.avd.cv_deploy
vars:
## Deploy full hierarchy of containers and configlets into CloudVision “Static Configuration Studio”
cv_static_config_manifest:
configlets:
- name: "Building_A_Banner"
file: configlets/Building_A_Banner.cfg
containers:
- name: ZZZ_AVD_CAMPUS
description: "AVD generated Campus Tag Heiarchy"
tag_query: "Campus:AVD_CAMPUS"
match_policy: "match_all"
sub_containers:
- name: BUILDING_A
description: "Build A"
tag_query: "Campus-Pod:BUILDING_A"
match_policy: "match_all"
configlets:
- name: "Building_A_Banner"
sub_containers:
- name: IDF1
description: "IDF 1"
tag_query: "Access-Pod:IDF1"
match_policy: "match_all"
- name: IDF2
description: "IDF 2"
tag_query: "Access-Pod:IDF1"
match_policy: "match_all"
- name: IDF3
description: "IDF 3"
tag_query: "Access-Pod:IDF1"
match_policy: "match_all"
AVD performs the following actions:
- Uploads configlets into the Configlet Library
- Creates the Studio container hierarchy
- Places devices based on tag queries
- Applies configlets to all matching devices
Root Container Ordering Behavior
When deploying or adding new root containers, the cv_deploy role places all AVD-managed root containers at the top of the Studio container tree.
Note This automated behavior may reorder containers that were manually arranged in the UI.
Configlet Inheritance Example
This section illustrates how AVD manages configlets and how those configlets are inherited by devices through a Static Configuration Studio container hierarchy.
The workflow is as follows:
- AVD references a raw
.cfgconfiglet file from the repository. - The configlet is declared in the
configletssection of the Static Studio manifest. - The configlet is associated with the appropriate container in the manifest hierarchy.
- CloudVision applies the configlet to all devices that match the container’s tag query.
AVD Configlet Declaration in the Manifest
AVD references the raw configuration file and includes it in the manifest so it can be managed by CloudVision.
Configlet Deployed to the CloudVision Library
During the cv_deploy phase, AVD uploads the configlet into the CloudVision Configlet Library.
Configlet Associated with the Studio Container
The configlet is attached to a Static Studio container.
All devices assigned to this container automatically inherit the configlet.
Summary
By combining:
- AVD-generated CloudVision Campus tags
- Static Studio manifests
- Tag-based container placement
You gain a scalable, deterministic, and supportable integration between AVD and CloudVision Studios, while maintaining clear ownership boundaries between build-time automation and day-2 operations.
Day-2 Operations (CloudVision Campus)
This section focuses on Day-2 operational workflows using the CloudVision Campus UI, with emphasis on how network operators interact with the platform after Day-1 provisioning has been completed by AVD.
Unlike Day-1 automation, where AVD is the source of truth, Day-2 operations leverage CloudVision Studios, Network Hierarchy, and Quick Actions to safely make operational changes at scale.
- Access Interface Configuration Studio (Quick Actions):
https://www.arista.io/help/articles/provisioning-studios-built-in-access-interface#access-interface-configuration-studio
Entry Point: Campus Health Overview
For network operators assigned a Campus profile, the default landing page after logging into CloudVision is the Campus Health Overview dashboard.
This dashboard provides:
- High-level campus health status
- Visibility into wired and wireless domains
- Direct navigation into Campus-specific operational workflows
From this view, operators can quickly pivot from monitoring to action without navigating away from the Campus workflow context.
Navigating the Network Hierarchy
From the Campus Health Overview, operators can navigate to the Network Hierarchy UI, which represents the logical campus structure built using AVD-generated CloudVision Campus tags and containers.
The Network Hierarchy enables operators to:
- View sites, buildings, floors, and other logical groupings
- Understand configuration and policy inheritance scopes
- Target operational changes with precision and confidence
Quick Actions menus are accessible per container, directly reflecting the underlying tag-based hierarchy created during Day-1 deployment.
Within the Quick Actions workflow, the UI presents a front-panel view of the switch, allowing operators to single-select or multi-select switchports and assign them to predefined port profiles.
Because configuration and policies are associated at the container level, hierarchy placement directly determines what devices inherit.
Quick Actions: Operational Changes at Scale
Within the Campus workflow, operators can launch Quick Actions directly from the Campus dashboards or Network Hierarchy views.
One of the most common Day-2 use cases is setting or updating switch port profiles.
Quick Actions allow operators to:
- Select one or more devices or ports
- Apply predefined port profiles
- Execute changes without modifying AVD source files
Example: Applying Switch Port Profiles
Using Quick Actions, an operator can:
- Select a container, device, or specific interfaces
- Choose the appropriate Switch Port Profile
- Review the proposed change
- Execute the action through CloudVision
This workflow ensures:
- Consistency across the campus
- Reduced operational risk
- Fast response to Day-2 requirements
Key Takeaways for Day-2 Operations
- AVD remains the Day-1 source of truth
- CloudVision enables controlled Day-2 changes
- Network Hierarchy and tags define operational scope
- Quick Actions provide safe, repeatable workflows for operators
This separation allows infrastructure teams to maintain strong automation discipline while empowering operations teams with the flexibility required for daily campus management.
About This Repository
This repository contains personal lab work and reference material created to explore hybrid AVD and CloudVision Campus workflows.
It is not official Arista documentation or a supported design guide.
Upcoming Events¶
Arista hosts various events throughout the year for you! Members of our team organize these informative events to showcase Arista's ability to not only help improve your network, but to also assist by providing a set of tools to improve your operations!
Click on the boxes below to be directed to Arista's website for additional lists of Webinars and Events.
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Webinars
We make it easy for you to view products that are of interest, all virtually! Technical members of the team showcase outstanding explanations of the products. Click below to see our list of Webinars.
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Events
Join us in person to get a closer look at our list of products and solutions, as well as get the chance to meet members of the team. Click below to see our list of upcoming Events.
Software Updates¶
Stay informed on the latest software updates across all Arista products and services.
| Software | Version | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
| EOS | 4.36.0F 4.35.3.1F 4.35.3F 4.23.10M |
April 9th, 2026 April 8th, 2026 March 20th, 2026 March 2nd, 2026 |
| CVP | Portal 2026.1.0 Appliance 7.1.0 Sensor 1.3.0 |
March 30th, 2026 September 2nd, 2025 December 5th, 2025 |
| DMF | 8.6.3 | March 18th, 2026 |
| CV-CUE | 21.0.0 | January 16th, 2026 |
| Arista NDR | 5.3.5 | July 16th, 2025 |
| TerminAttr | 1.42.1 | February 4th, 2026 |
| VeloCloud SD-WAN Orchestrator/Gateway/Edge |
6.4.1 | December 19th, 2025 |
View All Latest Software Updates
Security Advisories and Field Notices¶
Stay informed on the latest platform security and field notice updates.
Security Advisories¶
- runC — Security Advisory 0135
(April 7th, 2026)
Field Notices¶
- CV-CUE Release Process — Field Notice 0125
(March 11th, 2026)
View All Latest Advisories & Notices
Product Updates¶
Stay up to date on all new Arista Product Releases, as well as End of Sale/End of Support Notices.
New Product Releases * Q1 2026 — Ask AVA - CloudVision as a Service (beta feature)¶
End of Sale / End of Software Support¶
- April 10th, 2026 — CloudVision Portal 2024.3 Release Train
- April 10th, 2026 — DCS-7280CR3K-36S Series Switches
- April 10th, 2026 — DCS-7280CR3K-48YC8 Series Switches
- April 10th, 2026 — DCS-7280CR3K-32P4, DCS-7280CR3K-32D4, DCS-7280CR3MK-32P4 Series Switches
- March 13th, 2026 — EOS-4.30 Release Train
View All Latest End of Sale & Support Notices
Don't Forget!¶
Arista has revamped their certifications! The new Arista Certified Engineer (ACE) program is now organized by specific tracks like Cloud Data Center, Campus, and Automation to better align with your job role.
Your Southwest Regional Team is Here to Support Your Success.¶
Let's Connect
Thanks for reading! Your local Arista team is here to help you navigate your evolving network needs. Reach out anytime to southwest@arista.com for more information or technical guidance. Until next month—stay connected!
Contact Your Local Team