Case Study: Exa Networks achieves 10x capacity and reduced power and footprint with Arista Networks

Exa Networks - Customer Case Study

Exa Networks is a UK ISP that specializes in connectivity for schools and small businesses, with an award-winning track record and a customer base that includes over 10% of UK primary and secondary schools. Facing rapidly growing bandwidth demand from video and online learning, constrained space and power at its Telehouse sites, and a strategic move away from costly MPLS toward scalable services, Exa needed a higher-throughput, high-density core that could scale toward 100Gbps without a costly site relocation.

Exa replaced its aging Juniper core with Arista 7280R switches, Arista EOS and CloudVision, deploying them in active‑pair, high‑availability configurations across five data centres with zero‑touch provisioning and centralized management. The upgrade delivered a tenfold capacity increase, higher port density and lower power use (avoiding a site move), reduced latency, improved reliability, room to scale to 100Gbps, and zero customer downtime during phased implementation.

Exa Networks

Thomas Mangin

Technical Director and Co-founder