Being first to market often has benefits, and it can take a special kind of vision to be the initial investor before others join the bandwagon. Which is why when Andy Bechtolsheim (pictured), founder, chief development officer and chairman of Arista Networks Inc., gets excited about an evolving technology, it’s probably a good time to sit up and pay close attention.

Bechtolsheim, who co-founded Sun Microsystems Inc., was an early investor in Google and one of only two people who saw enough potential in VMware Inc. to open his wallet. He likes VMware’s NSX network virtualization and security platform. He likes it a lot.

“It allows you to integrate a cloud on-premises with Amazon or IBM or Google in a way that you can have full visibility,” Bechtolsheim said. “VMware NSX is the best solution that’s available today that I can see for the use case which is going to be very important to a large number of enterprises. There isn’t anything even close.”

Bechtolsheim spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the VMworld conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. They discussed Arista’s evolving partnership with VMware and the planned deployment of faster Ethernet speeds. (* Disclosure below.)

CloudVision boosts network security

Arista, a provider of multi-layer switches to deliver software-defined networking solutions for data centers, has recently partnered with VMware to boost interoperability between Arista’s CloudVision network management product and VMware’s NSX. Security policies can now be enforced natively on Arista switches.

“It’s the natural way to do network security because you really want to be as close to the application as you can physically or virtually be,” Bechtolsheim said. “VMware clearly has the best position in the industry to provide that level of security.”

The Arista chairman has also been involved in the development of Ethernet technology as the former chief executive officer and founder of Granite Systems Inc. One hundred gigabit Ethernet speeds are now in deployment, and even faster rates are on the way, an important element as cloud service providers continue to build out massive data centers to meet enterprise demand.

“One hundred gigabit Ethernet is still the fastest-growing thing that the industry has ever seen,” Bechtolsheim said. “I’m not sure too many enterprises need 400 gigabit, but the cloud is ready to get going as soon as it’s cost effective.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the VMworld conference. (* Disclosure: Arista Networks Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Arista nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE