Arista DCS-7280TRA-48C6-F — 48×10GBASE-T + 6×100GbE Switch Router with Front-to-Rear Airflow
TheÂ
Arista DCS-7280TRA-48C6-FÂ is a 1RU switch router in the 7280R Series, deliveringÂ
2.16 Tbps of non-blocking switching capacity withÂ
48 × 10GBASE-T RJ45 copper ports (100M/1G/10G) andÂ
6 × 100GbE QSFP28 uplinks. Built on a deep buffer VOQ ASIC platform withÂ
4 GB of packet buffer memory andÂ
3.8 µs store-and-forward latency, the TRA-48C6 provides the same Layer 2/3 switch router capabilities as the SR-48C6 — full BGP routing, MPLS, Segment Routing, EVPN, VXLAN, and 128-way ECMP — with 10GBASE-T copper access ports instead of fiber interfaces. WithÂ
720 Mpps forwarding rate, it operates at full line rate across all port combinations. The “
-F” suffix denotesÂ
front-to-rear airflow, where cool air enters from the non-port side and exhausts from the port side. For rear-to-front airflow, see theÂ
DCS-7280TRA-48C6-R.
Key Features at a Glance
- 48 × 10GBASE-T RJ45 copper ports supporting 100M, 1G, and 10G speeds over Category 6A cabling (up to 30 meters)
- 6 × 100GbE QSFP28 uplinks supporting breakout to 4×25GbE or 4×10GbE — up to 24 × 25G or 24 × 10G additional ports
- Maximum port density: 6 × 100GbE, 12 × 50GbE, 6 × 40GbE (QSFP+), 24 × 25GbE, or 72 × 10GbE (100Mb-10Gb)
- 2.16 Tbps non-blocking switching capacity with 720 Mpps forwarding rate
- 3.8 µs store-and-forward latency with 4 GB VOQ deep packet buffer — eliminates head-of-line blocking
- Full Layer 3 switch router:Â BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, MPLS (LDP, RSVP-TE, BGP LU), SR-MPLS, EVPN, VXLAN, 128-way ECMP
- 768K host routes (IPv4 and IPv6), over 1M IPv4 LPM routes, 928K IPv6 LPM routes — full Internet routing table support
- Quad-core x86 CPUÂ with 8 GB DRAM (32 GB optional) running Arista EOS
- IEEE 1588v2 PTPÂ hardware-assisted Precision Time Protocol for network clock synchronization
- Telemetry:Â LANZ, sFlow, Advanced Event Management (AEM), DANZ, streaming telemetry via gNMI and eAPI
- CloudVision integration, Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP), Python/Bash scripting, OpenConfig
- Hot-swappable dual PSU (1+1) and N+1 fan trays; front-to-rear (-F) airflow
- 1RU form factor — 290W typical / 405W maximum power draw
- BrightStar Systems:Â Supplied fully tested, reset to factory defaults, and backed by a 1-year in-house warranty
2.16 Tbps Non-Blocking VOQ Architecture
The DCS-7280TRA-48C6-F deliversÂ
2.16 Tbps of full-duplex, non-blocking throughput — (48 × 10 Gbps) + (6 × 100 Gbps) in both directions simultaneously. TheÂ
Virtual Output Queue (VOQ)Â ASIC architecture maintains separate queues for each input-to-output port pair, eliminating head-of-line blocking. With aÂ
720 Mpps forwarding rate, the switch operates at full line rate across all port combinations regardless of traffic mix or packet size distribution. TheÂ
4 GB deep packet buffer is distributed across the VOQ structure, providing substantial burst absorption capacity. Unlike shared-memory switches with smaller buffer pools, the VOQ deep buffer architecture handles transient congestion, TCP incast events, and bursty traffic patterns without triggering early packet drops or ECN marking — delivering higher effective throughput in oversubscribed topologies.
3.8 µs Store-and-Forward Latency
The 7280TRA-48C6-F operates in store-and-forward mode with a measured latency ofÂ
3.8 microseconds. The ASIC receives the complete packet, performs a full Layer 2/3 lookup, applies ACLs and QoS policies, and forwards the packet — all within 3.8 µs. This design trades the sub-microsecond latency of cut-through architectures for the ability to buffer, inspect, and apply policy at every forwarding decision, while maintaining sub-10-microsecond performance suitable for enterprise, service provider, and data center applications.
Port Configuration and Optics
The 7280TRA-48C6-F provides 48 × 10GBASE-T RJ45 copper access ports and 6 × 100GbE QSFP28 uplink ports:
- 48 × 10GBASE-T RJ45 (100M/1G/10G): Auto-negotiating copper ports supporting 100M, 1G, and 10G speeds. 10G operation over Category 6A UTP cabling up to 30 meters.
- 6 × 100GbE QSFP28: Support for 100GBASE-SR4, LR4, DR, FR, CWDM4, ZR/ZR+, and DAC/AOC cables. Breakout to 4×25GbE or 4×10GbE via standard breakout cables.
- Management: 1 × 100/1000 Mbps out-of-band management port + 1 × RS-232 RJ-45 console port, independent of the forwarding plane.
- Maximum port configurations: Up to 72 × 10GbE ports (48 RJ45 + 24 via QSFP28 breakout), or 6 × 100GbE + 48 × 10GbE in the base configuration.
Layer 2/3 Switch Router Capabilities
The 7280TRA-48C6-F operates as a unified switch router with full Layer 2 and Layer 3 feature sets:
- BGP Full-Table Routing:Â 768K IPv4 and IPv6 host routes, over 1M IPv4 unicast LPM routes, 928K IPv6 LPM routes in the hardware FIB. Supports MP-BGP, BGP graceful restart, and 128-way ECMP for load balancing across equal-cost paths.
- MPLS:Â Line-rate MPLS label switching with LDP, RSVP-TE, and BGP Labeled Unicast (BGP LU) for carrier-grade MPLS networks and VPN services.
- Segment Routing:Â SR-MPLS for simplified traffic engineering without per-path LSP state in the network core.
- EVPN and VXLAN:Â VXLAN Tunnel Endpoint (VTEP) and EVPN control plane for multi-tenant overlay networks, data center interconnect, and MAC mobility.
- Routing Protocols:Â OSPF, OSPFv3, IS-IS, RIPv2, VRF, BFD, uRPF, VRRP, VARP, and Policy-Based Routing (PBR).
- Layer 2:Â 802.1w/s Spanning Tree, RPVST+, 4096 VLANs, Q-in-Q, 802.3ad LACP (64 ports/channel, 224 groups), MLAG (128 ports per MLAG), Jumbo Frames (9216 bytes), IGMP snooping.
Telemetry, Monitoring, and Analytics
- LANZ (Latency Analyzer):Â Per-port, real-time microburst detection and queue depth monitoring at microsecond granularity. Records egress port, queue, drop reason, and timestamp for every congestion event.
- sFlow v5:Â Industry-standard traffic sampling for flow analysis and capacity planning. Integrates with third-party collectors (Kentik, Splunk, Solarwinds).
- Streaming Telemetry:Â Real-time counter and state export via gNMI (gRPC) and Arista eAPI (REST). Supports OpenConfig data models for vendor-neutral management.
- Advanced Event Management (AEM): Programmable event-driven automation within EOS — customize alerts and actions, automate routine tasks, and respond to real-time network conditions.
- DANZ:Â Arista’s telemetry fabric for advanced mirroring (14 sessions), port mirroring, SPAN/TAP M:N aggregation, and L2/3/4 filtering.
- IEEE 1588v2 PTP:Â Hardware-assisted Precision Time Protocol for synchronized network timing, supporting Boundary Clock and Transparent Clock modes.
EOS Automation and Provisioning
The 7280TRA-48C6-F runsÂ
Arista EOS, a modular operating system built on a standard Linux kernel where each process runs in its own protected memory space and communicates through an in-memory state-sharing database (Sysdb). This architecture enables in-service software updates and self-healing resiliency without data plane interruption.
- CloudVision:Â Centralized configuration management, network-wide change control, topology visualization, and compliance monitoring across multi-site Arista deployments.
- Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP): Automatic configuration download on first power-up via DHCP — no manual CLI access required for initial deployment.
- Python and Bash:Â Native on-box scripting with full Linux shell access for custom event handlers and automation workflows.
- eAPI (JSON-RPC):Â RESTful programmatic interface to all configuration and operational commands. Integrates with Ansible, Terraform, and custom orchestration.
- OpenConfig and gNMI:Â Vendor-neutral data models and high-performance streaming RPC for configuration and telemetry.
Security
- Control Plane Policing (CoPP):Â Rate-limiting of CPU-destined traffic to protect routing stability
- ACLs: Ingress/egress access control lists at L2, L3, and L4 enforced in the ASIC at line rate — up to 24K ACL entries per forwarding engine
- TACACS+ and RADIUS:Â Centralized authentication and accounting for administrative access
- Secure Boot:Â Cryptographic verification of bootloader and EOS image integrity
- MAC Security, DHCP Relay/Snooping, ARP trapping for Layer 2 security enforcement
Quality of Service (QoS)
- Up to 8 queues per port with strict priority, weighted round-robin (WRR), and weighted fair queueing (WFQ)
- 802.1p and DSCP classification and remarking
- ECNÂ (Explicit Congestion Notification) marking for TCP-friendly congestion signaling
- PFC (Priority Flow Control) and DCBX (Data Center Bridging Exchange) for converged traffic
- Egress shaping and policing per-interface and per-queue
Physical Specifications and Airflow
The “
-F” airflow configuration providesÂ
front-to-rear cooling, where cool air enters from the non-port side and exhausts from the port side. Both -F andÂ
-R (rear-to-front)Â variants are electrically identical.
- Form Factor: 1RU — 19 × 1.75 × 16 inches (48.3 × 4.4 × 40.6 cm)
- Weight:Â 22.2 lbs (10.1 kg)
- Power:Â 290W typical / 405W maximum; 500W AC or 500W DC power supplies
- Redundancy:Â Dual hot-swappable PSU (1+1) and 4 hot-swappable fan trays (FAN-7000H-F/R) supporting N+1
- Storage: 4 GB Flash, optional SSD, 2 × USB ports
- Compliance:Â FCC Class A, CE, RoHS, WEEE
Lifecycle and Reliability
- Self-Healing Software:Â EOS includes Stateful Fault Repair (SFR) for automatic recovery from software faults without data plane impact, and Stateful Fault Containment (SFC) for fault isolation.
- In-Service Software Updates:Â Dual-partition boot with Smart System Upgrade (SSU) and Accelerated Software Update (ASU) for planned upgrades with minimal disruption.
- Configuration Rollback:Â Instant rollback to previous configuration snapshots via EOS configuration replace.
- BrightStar Systems 1-Year Warranty:Â Supplied fully tested, reset to factory defaults, and backed by a 1-year in-house warranty.
Scalability and Table Sizes
- MAC Addresses:Â 768K
- IPv4 Host Routes:Â 768K
- IPv6 Unicast Host Routes:Â 768K
- IPv4 Unicast LPM Routes:Â Over 1M
- IPv6 Unicast LPM Routes:Â 928K
- Multicast Routes:Â Up to 768K
- ACL Entries per Forwarding Engine:Â 24K
- LACP:Â 64 ports/channel, 224 groups
- MLAG:Â 128 ports per MLAG
- ECMP:Â 128-way
Similar Arista Models to Consider
- DCS-7280TR-48C6-F: 48×10GBASE-T + 6×QSFP28 with rear-to-front (-R) airflow; same electrical specifications with alternative cooling configuration.
- DCS-7280SRA-48C6-F: 48×SFP+ (1/10G) + 6×QSFP28 with AlgoMatch for advanced policy-based forwarding. Same platform with fiber access ports instead of copper.
- DCS-7280SR-48C6-M-F: 48×SFP+ (1/10G) + 6×QSFP28 with expandable memory (up to 32 GB) for large BGP routing tables. Fiber variant with enhanced memory support.
Related 7280 Series Resources
For comprehensive technical documentation and comparative model information across the Arista 7280 family, visitÂ
In-depth technical overview of the Arista 7280R series.
Summary
The Arista DCS-7280TRA-48C6-F is a 1RU switch router combining 48 × 10GBASE-T copper access ports with 6 × 100GbE QSFP28 uplinks, 2.16 Tbps non-blocking throughput, 4 GB VOQ deep packet buffer, and full Layer 2/3 capabilities including BGP, MPLS, SR-MPLS, EVPN, and VXLAN. Running Arista EOS with CloudVision integration, ZTP, and comprehensive telemetry (LANZ, sFlow, AEM, DANZ), the 7280TRA-48C6-F is available from BrightStar Systems fully tested, reset to factory defaults, and backed by a 1-year in-house warranty.
