Aug. 20, 2026
What makes a technology partnership valuable?
For Nysernet, it starts with listening to our members, understanding the challenges their teams are navigating and connecting them with resources, expertise and peers who can help.
That was the focus of our recent Nysernet inFocus: Arista Partnership Expands Member Value and Performance virtual session. Representatives from Nysernet and Arista were joined by network professionals from two Nysernet member institutions, the University of Rochester and Daemen University, to talk about the new member benefit and share what they have learned from deploying Arista technologies in their own environments.
The result was less of a product presentation and more of a conversation about what network teams need today: reliable infrastructure, simpler operations, better visibility, support for growing organizational demands and trusted people to turn to when making important technology decisions.
Watch the full recording now:
The Nysernet + Arista partnership began with a question: How can we use the collective strength of our community to create more value for members?
As Nysernet Chief Membership Officer Anna Walsh explained during the conversation:
“Our goal is to use the collective strength of the community to create opportunities that individual organizations might not have access to on their own.”
Through the partnership, Nysernet members receive exclusive added value on Arista purchases based on their membership tier:
But this isn't simply a discount program.
The partnership can also connect members with Arista expertise, product briefings and demonstrations, educational and training opportunities and peer engagement with organizations facing similar network challenges.
For members, that means another resource at your side as you evaluate technology, plan infrastructure investments and determine what's right for your organization.
For the University of Rochester, growing research demands are driving the need for greater network performance.
Amesh Shah of the University of Rochester shared how the institution is implementing Arista in its new data center while also exploring future campus and wireless applications.
“We've seen an increase of the need for high-speed bandwidth for the research communities, for all the faculty members working on projects,” Shah said. “Using the Arista platform helps us provide the higher speed and lower latency on the network for their research and AI projects.”
That's an important distinction.
Network performance isn't valuable simply because a network is faster. It's valuable because of what that infrastructure enables: researchers moving large datasets, faculty advancing new projects, students accessing resources and institutions preparing for emerging technologies and new ways of working.
Shah also emphasized the importance of understanding those needs before making a technology decision. His advice to other network teams considering a migration was to develop a clear picture of end-user requirements and anticipated growth before determining the right approach.
For organizations planning what's next, starting with the people and work the network needs to support can help create a stronger foundation for the technology decisions that follow.
For Daemen University, the impact has been easy to describe.
About a year ago, the university replaced its network core and fiber distribution switches with Arista. Network Engineer Marc Doull said the difference since the migration has been significant.
“Honestly, since we've moved to Arista, it has just worked.”
Doull described the new environment as “rock solid” and said the university has experienced no downtime from the new core.
Perhaps the best example came from the migration itself.
“After we did our cutover, I really had a couple of days just blocked off on my calendar to deal with any fallout,” Doull said. “And we had not one single user-facing problem whatsoever.”
For a network team, that outcome means more than reliability on a dashboard. It means fewer hours spent troubleshooting problems and responding to disruptions. It means more time available for improving infrastructure, supporting users and planning what comes next.
That theme came up throughout the virtual session.
Arista Regional Sales Manager Randy Longhenry discussed the company's emphasis on simplifying network operations through consistency, automation and visibility. Rather than maintaining numerous operating systems, software images and management tools across different parts of the network, Arista's approach is built around a consistent operating model across its networking portfolio.
The goal is straightforward: give network professionals better information and tools so they can spend less time finding problems and more time doing work that advances their organization's mission.
One of the strongest messages from the conversation wasn't about a particular technology. It was about having access to people who have already faced the decision you're making.
When Daemen University was evaluating its options, Nysernet connected its team with other member organizations already using Arista.
“The other factor that really pushed us toward Arista, Nysernet facilitated a discussion with some of our peer institutions that were already utilizing Arista switches,” Doull said.
That peer perspective helped Daemen make its decision with greater confidence.
Now, Shah sees an opportunity for the formal Nysernet + Arista partnership to create more of those conversations.
“I think the partnership is going to help us with peer engagement, bouncing ideas off other people and seeing what they're experiencing as they go through their environment and migration to Arista.”
That's an important part of the benefit Nysernet brings to the table.
You can research specifications and compare solutions on your own. Through Nysernet, you can also talk to people managing networks in environments like yours, learn what worked for them, understand what they would do differently and connect with expertise when you need it.
The new Arista benefit builds on that community by pairing exclusive added value for Nysernet members with greater access to Arista expertise, education and peer engagement.
The member panel also offered an important reminder: No two organizational networks are exactly alike.
Shah encouraged network teams to fully understand their requirements and end-user needs before beginning a migration. At the University of Rochester, that includes accounting for increasing research demands and planning infrastructure that can continue to evolve alongside them.
Doull highlighted another consideration familiar to many network professionals: interoperability.
Daemen operates a multivendor environment, and some of the challenges the team encountered involved getting technologies from different vendors to work together as expected.
Those experiences reinforce one of Nysernet's core beliefs: Technology decisions shouldn't be one size fits all.
Understanding your existing environment, future requirements, staff capabilities and institutional priorities matters. So does having access to peers and experts who can help you ask the right questions before you make a decision.
For network leaders, infrastructure decisions aren't only about hardware and software. They're also about the people responsible for managing them.
Both members discussed the learning experience associated with introducing Arista into their environments.
Shah pointed to the value of consistent management and learning tools for junior and developing engineers. Doull, meanwhile, said the transition to Arista's command-line interface required relatively little ramp-up for his team.
“The amount of time that it took to ramp up was minimal.”
Consistency across an environment can make day-to-day operations easier while also helping teams build knowledge that transfers across different parts of the network.
That matters for organizations where experienced IT professionals are balancing daily operations with long-term infrastructure planning and where developing the next generation of technical expertise is increasingly important.
The session also explored the growing connection between network operations and cybersecurity.
As threats evolve, visibility into what's happening across the network, consistent configurations and the ability to respond quickly to vulnerabilities become increasingly important.
Arista discussed how its approach to software quality, automation, network visibility and segmentation can support organizations as they build more resilient environments.
For network teams, the larger takeaway is that networking and cybersecurity decisions can't happen in isolation.
The infrastructure connecting your organization also plays a role in how you understand activity, control access, respond to vulnerabilities and maintain services when conditions change.
That makes collaboration among network, infrastructure and cybersecurity teams increasingly important when planning what's next.
The Nysernet + Arista partnership is one example of how we're continuing to build tangible value into Nysernet membership.
The added financial value matters, but it's only one part of the opportunity.
Members can gain access to technical expertise and education. They can learn directly from organizations that have already navigated similar decisions. They can bring questions to people who understand research and education environments. And they can lean on Nysernet to help make those connections.
That community was already delivering value before this partnership became official. Daemen's experience is evidence of that.
Now we're building on it.
As Walsh said during the session, sometimes the opportunity Nysernet can create is simply “bringing the right people into the room so members can learn from one another.”
That's what member powered means in practice.
You don't need to have an Arista project planned to start exploring the benefit.
If you're considering a network upgrade, evaluating future infrastructure needs or simply want to understand whether Arista could be a fit for your environment, reach out to the Nysernet membership team.
We'll help you understand what's available through your membership, connect you with the appropriate Arista resources and, where helpful, connect you with peers who can share their own experiences.
Contact membership@nysernet.org to get connected with Arista and take advantage of the Nysernet + Arista member benefit.
Learn more about the benefits, resources and community available through Nysernet membership at nysernet.org/membership.