Learning the Cisco Application-Centric Infrastructure (ACI)

Learning the Cisco Application-Centric Infrastructure (ACI)

by Rene Cardona
Released May 2020
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781800205475

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to live online training experiences, plus books, videos, and digital content from O’Reilly and nearly 200 trusted publishing partners.

Start your free trial

Video description

Master Cisco's ACI and become an expert NOW!

About This Video

  • This course will help you get from zero to hero and master the policy-driven Data Center approach that ACI offers
  • ACI involves a big learning curve and you'll learn to change your traditional network design mentality, which will be crucial to mastering ACI
  • We will work with ACI APIC version 3.x. which provides the current SDN feature set you need to perform all data center functions and requirements

In Detail

Automation, objects, and policies are replacing traditional networks as we know them. North-to-South or East-to-West traffic flows—do you know the difference between the two? Don't worry if you don't: this course will remedy that! Traditional campus networks are static, and won't change much because they can't scale up. Data centers are not meant to be static.

Today's Data Center architecture requirements are: scalability, geo-redundancy, security, multi-tenancy, and speed! Data center traffic flow should be highly available and predictable. As the demand for talented ACI engineers and architects is rapidly increasing, knowing the foundational aspects of SDN-based architectures and being able to implement and support them are crucial for your career development.

This fast-paced course uses a whiteboard-based approach with hand written explanations. We start with an introduction to fabric data center designs, Spine and Leaf architectures, and ACI. We then start to implement them and deploy a fabric from the ground up. Then we build a multi-tenant environment.

After completing this video training course, you will have gained a solid understanding of how to administer an Application Centric Infrastructure.

Audience

This course will appeal to senior network engineers, cloud networking engineers, data center network engineers, network and/or security solutions architects, data center solutions architects, and network automation engineers.

While this training curriculum has been developed using a detailed approach the following knowledge skills are not required (but are strongly recommended):

  • CCNP or equivalent routing and switching experience
  • Experience working and implementing firewall ACLs, Layer 4 through Layer 7 inspection, and policies
  • NX-OS datacenter switching and routing experience (BGP, vPC domains)
  • General knowledge of VMware VSphere ESXi 50+ and vCenter

A familiarity with data center and campus-networks designs is assumed.

Publisher resources

Download Example Code

Table of contents

  1. Chapter 1 : Introduction to Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI)
    1. Course Overview
    2. Spine and Leaf Architecture
    3. ACI Fabric Components
    4. Policy Driven Architectures
  2. Chapter 2 : Let's Bring the ACI Fabric to Life
    1. Connecting an ACI Fabric Together
    2. Building the Fabric from the ACI APIC
    3. Fabric Inventory Hardware Membership
    4. ACI APIC Web User Interface
  3. Chapter 3 : Enabling Connectivity in ACI
    1. Interface Policy Groups, Profiles, and Policies
    2. Switch Policies and Profiles
    3. Fabric Domains and VLAN Pools
    4. Configure Fabric Domains and VLAN Pools
    5. Attachable Entity Profiles
    6. Virtual Machine Manager Integration in ACI
  4. Chapter 4 : Multi-Tenancy: ACI's Ultimate Weapon
    1. Fabric Tenants
    2. Application Profiles and Endpoint Groups
    3. Subjects, Filters, and Contracts
    4. ACI Domains to Tenant Relationship
  5. Chapter 5 : Secured Internal Connectivity In ACI
    1. ACI Tenant Networking
    2. VRF and Bridge Domains
    3. Inter and Intra Tenant Communications and Contract Interfaces
  6. Chapter 6 : Secured External Connectivity with L3OUTs
    1. External L3OUT with BGP
    2. External L3OUT with OSPF
    3. Tenants to L3OUT: Part One
    4. Tenants to L3OUT: Part Two
    5. ACI As an External Transit Network
  7. Chapter 7 : Layer 2 Through Layer 7 Service Insertion
    1. External L2OUT
    2. Vlan Stitching
    3. DHCP Services In ACI
    4. L4-L7 Service Graph and Templates
    5. Adding Routed Firewalls in ACI
  8. Chapter 8 : Automation and Orchestration with ACI
    1. Rest API with ACI Toolkit
    2. Automation with Python and the ACI Toolkit
    3. Bulk ACI Tenant Automation using Python Loops
    4. Working with ACI Command-Line Interface
  9. Chapter 9 : ACI Management and Troubleshooting
    1. Understanding Faults and Health Scores
    2. Working with Visibility and Troubleshooting
    3. Maintenance Policies and Administration Rights
    4. Fabric Backups and Restores
    5. Out-Of-Band and In-Band Management Access

Product information

  • Title: Learning the Cisco Application-Centric Infrastructure (ACI)
  • Author(s): Rene Cardona
  • Release date: May 2020
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781800205475