When it comes to managing complex, always-on networks — like those in hospitals, universities, or large campuses — IT teams often struggle with the same challenge: keeping the network updated and secure without creating downtime that disrupts critical operations.
Two years ago, Baptist Health, a major healthcare provider in Jacksonville, Florida, decided to tackle this challenge head-on by replacing its entire Cisco network infrastructure with Arista Networks’ solutions. Their reasons for making such a massive change highlight exactly why more organizations are taking a closer look at Arista.
Why Baptist Health Switched from Cisco to Arista
So, what drove one of Florida’s largest medical centers to move away from a networking giant like Cisco? In short: complexity and maintenance headaches.
Baptist Health’s IT operations vice president, Jim Bilsky, put it simply: Cisco made network maintenance too difficult for their lean IT team. Hospitals can’t just shut down parts of the network for updates — they run 24/7. But with Cisco’s multiple operating systems and patchwork updates, that’s exactly what Baptist Health’s team was forced to do.
Arista, on the other hand, uses a single, unified code base — its Linux-based Extensible Operating System (EOS). That means updates and patches can be rolled out consistently across the entire network, whether it’s in the data center or covering the wireless LAN across six hospitals and dozens of care sites.
“Getting maintenance windows in hospitals is extremely painful. That’s because hospitals never close. They’re always open for business,” Bilsky explained.
Simpler Management with CloudVision
Another factor tipping the scales in Arista’s favor was CloudVision, Arista’s centralized management platform. Unlike Cisco’s approach — which splits network management between DNA Center and the Meraki Dashboard — CloudVision gives Baptist Health’s IT team a single pane of glass to monitor and troubleshoot the entire network.
This means they can drill down into any device — from smartphones and tablets to life-saving medical equipment — and fix issues faster. That level of visibility and speed can make a real difference in a high-stakes environment like healthcare.
Bilsky also highlighted a major advantage for the future: Arista’s new Guardian for Network Identity, a built-in network access control feature that will eventually replace Cisco’s Identity Services Engine. For Baptist Health, this means even sensitive medical devices like EEGs or Moxi robots can be securely authenticated and monitored without needing extra overlapping tools.
Fewer Vendors, Lower Costs
One of the biggest lessons Baptist Health’s experience reveals is the benefit of vendor consolidation. By standardizing on Arista, Baptist Health can negotiate better pricing, reduce overlapping products, and simplify support and training — all of which help manage tight IT budgets in industries where patient-care equipment naturally takes priority over IT hardware.
“I have to justify why that new whiz-bang MRI that’s going to save a patient’s life is less important than replacing a switch that no one understands,” Bilsky said.
Should You Make the Switch?
While Cisco still dominates Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure, Arista’s approach is winning over more IT leaders who value simplicity, unified management, and fewer maintenance headaches. According to Gartner Peer Insights, users actually rate Arista slightly higher than Cisco — praising Arista’s streamlined management and dinging Cisco for being “very complex to configure a simple task.”
So, if your organization is tired of juggling multiple operating systems, overlapping tools, and frustrating update windows, Baptist Health’s experience is worth considering.
In a world where always-on, mission-critical networks are the norm — not the exception — Arista’s unified architecture and single management console might just be the smarter choice.
Article adapted from TechTarget’s article Baptist Health Leaves Cisco for Arista
