AVI Network Experience?

Hi /networking, it has been about 6 months since the last AVI thread so I figured I would try to get a discussion going.

As AVI will be quick to tell you they are developed from the group up to support a modern, DevOps model with cloud support built on a fully API driven platform. They run on pretty much anything with an Intel chipset and aim to be flexible enough to do pretty much anything.

That is the marketing hype at least. I cut my teeth on F5 and a lot of what AVI mentioned is "you don't have an appliance refresh cycle" any longer, which I call BS on because on-prem it still runs on someone's compute. I am not blind to F5 though and AVI's offerings of being able to scale intelligently is interesting from a consumption perspective.

My other hangup, because I know less about ASICs than I should, is AVI's statement that ASICs have stagnated horribly while Intel chipsets have been catching up. The short is that if you are doing heavy SSL encrypt/decrypt that the cost of throwing more cores at the AVI box still comes out under the F5 price because 1) a UCS/CSP/server is cheaper than an F5 appliance, and 2)You can scale the AVI intelligently to reduce waste while the F5 A/P method means at most 50% utilization.

AVI aims to be a disruptor and there isn't a lot out there regarding them. I am hoping to get other's input. We aren't a particularly DevOps/automated shop and have a very diverse skill set in the networking field. Supportability is a key factor and AVI is so small, with such interest from Cisco, that I would hate to pull the trigger on them, Cisco acquire them, and Cisco quickly ruin whatever we would love about them.