Arista DCS-7280SR3K-48YC8A-FLX-R | 7280R3 48-Port 25G Switch, 8x 100G QSFP28

Q: What is the difference between the FLX license and standard licensing?
A: The FLX license provides full routing up to 2 million routes with advanced features including EVPN, VXLAN, Segment Routing, and advanced MPLS LER/LSR with traffic engineering and link/node protection. This makes it ideal for service provider and large-scale enterprise deployments requiring carrier-grade routing capabilities.

Q: What deployment scenarios is this switch best suited for?
A: The DCS-7280SR3K-48YC8A-FLX-R is ideal for data center leaf-spine architectures, cloud provider networks, service provider edge and aggregation layers, and high-performance computing environments. The 25G server connectivity combined with 100G uplinks and massive routing scale makes it perfect for modern data center fabrics requiring east-west traffic optimization.

Q: What does the K variant designation indicate?
A: The K variant provides enhanced hardware resources including 64GB DRAM and 120GB SSD, enabling FlexRoute support for over 5 million IPv4 routes. This makes it suitable for internet-scale routing tables and large service provider deployments requiring expanded routing capacity beyond standard platforms.

Q: Can this switch be used in spine-and-leaf fabric designs?
A: Yes, the DCS-7280SR3K-48YC8A-FLX-R is specifically designed for modern leaf-spine data center architectures. It excels as a leaf switch providing high-density 25G server connectivity with 100G uplinks to spine switches, supporting full Layer 3 ECMP routing, EVPN, and VXLAN overlay networks.

Q: What is the significance of the rear-to-front airflow designation?
A: The -R suffix indicates rear-to-front (port-side intake) airflow, where cool air enters through the port side and exhausts from the non-port side. This airflow direction must match your data center hot-aisle/cold-aisle design. For front-to-rear airflow, the -F variant is available.