February update on Cisco ACI and Nexus 9000 news

Hi there,

In case you are wondering whether there is life after CiscoLive Milan, here an update on what has been going on in the last month all around Cisco ACI and the Nexus 9000 switch family:

• New dCloud demo on ACI+UCSD! Make sure you check it out. You can get to dCloud on http://dcloud.cisco.com
• New book on ACI Troubleshooting: http://datacenter.github.io/aci-troubleshooting-book/. By the way, published following DevOps practices 🙂
• Upcoming webinar: register to F5+Cisco Demo Friday for next March 13th here: http://t.co/1A4Hsqqfzr
• Cisco training videos in ACI:  buff.ly/1LJcX8f
• A new software release for ACI is there! Official name is 1.0(3f)
  • Release notes: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/aci/apic/sw/1-x/release/notes/apic_rn_103.html
  • New hardware supported: N9372PX, N9372TX, N9332PQ
  • Amongs the new features, support for stretched fabric shines: check the stretched fabric guide here: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/aci/apic/sw/kb/b_kb-aci-stretched-fabric.html, or the blog entry here: http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/new-cisco-apic-software-allows-stretched-aci-fabric-across-long-distances
• Check out the new market numbers for ACI and N9K: more than 1,700 N9K customers, out of which 300+ have them running in NXOS mode: http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240240260/Cisco-software-defined-networking-business-booms. Not bad!!
• The VXLAN config guide for Bronte has been posted: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus9000/sw/7-x/vxlan/configuration/guide/b_Cisco_Nexus_9000_Series_NX-OS_VXLAN_Configuration_Guide_7x.html
• I got this question multiple times in Cisco Live, so here it goes: there is a limit of 32 routing adjacencies per leaf in ACI: you can have 32 OSPF adjacencies per leaf, 32 BGP adjacencies, or a combination of both not exceeding 32. This “32” number doesn’t have anything to do with the maximum number of IP addresses you can define in an ACI fabric per leaf, you can do a lot more.
• Lauren’s blog on AVS configuration in APIC: http://www.virtualizationadmin.com/articles-tutorials/general-virtualization-articles/cisco-aci-cisco-application-virtual-switch.html
• Check out the section at the end “Workarounds for unsupported ASA features”: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/data-center-virtualization/application-centric-infrastructure/whitepaper_C11-733540.html
• VXLAN EVPN control plane is all over the web, folks (including myself) are pretty excited about bringing an open protocol to achieve some of the data plane benefits of ACI
  • Cisco blog: http://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1586600
  • http://www.networkworld.com/article/2879591/cisco-subnet/cisco-offers-aci-alternative-for-nexus-9000-switches.html
  • http://www.enterprisetech.com/2015/02/07/cisco-looks-boost-datacenter-bandwidth-standard-switch/
  • http://www.so-co-it.com/post/369735/cisco-continues-open-standard-leadership-with-support-for-evpn-vxlan-overlay-protocol-on-nexus-9000-series-switches.html/
• New N9K trainings (NXOS and ACI modes), see http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/certifications/specialist/dc/dc_prod_train.html
• From the web
  • Citrix wrap up of Cisco Live: http://blogs.citrix.com/2015/02/04/cisco-live-milan-wrap-up/
  • Setting up your first APIC: http://www.virtualizationadmin.com/articles-tutorials/general-virtualization-articles/cisco-aci-setting-your-first-apic.html
  • Upgrading to 1.0(3f): http://www.richardstrnad.ch/2015/02/26/cisco-aci-upgrade-your-aci-fabric-1-02j-to-1-03f/
  • Why ACI outdoes NSX (by Patrick Hubbard, Solarwinds): http://searchsdn.techtarget.com/opinion/How-Ciscos-almost-open-SDN-outruns-VMware
• Videos
  • Tech Field Day with Soni Jiandani and Joe Onisick: http://techfieldday.com/video/cisco-aci-overview-with-soni-jiandani-and-joe-onisick/
  • Tech Field Day: understanding the ACI policy model (Carly Stoughton): http://techfieldday.com/video/understanding-the-cisco-aci-policy-model/
  • Check out this ACI whiteboarding session with Ivan Pepelnjak and David Gee: http://content.ipspace.net/get/Show_21-Whiteboarding_Cisco_ACI.mp4
  • Autoscaling server farms with Cisco ACI and F5 BigIP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Luj2ulYAvGk
  • Unleashing SAP with Cisco ACI (Cisco+SAP+Vnomic), 4:49: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08QXHcd7ArU
  • ACI + Radware DDoS integration demo, 2:38, no audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoEl3zoWL44
  • Fast IT – order and provision a 3-tier app (by the Cisco UKI team), 40:18: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUteSQqV98M
  • F5+ACI joint solution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UviYWQOPT6w
  • Red Hat’s GM on Cisco ACI + Openstack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxJqQcW5RgI
  • ACI Flowlet switching tested by Pulsant Labs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y73diWAP6I
  • Simplify SAP app deployment with ACI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2pBjpd6a1E
  • Soni Jiandani’s keynote in CL Milan posted in ciscolive.com: https://www.ciscolive.com/online/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=81712&backBtn=true
  • Customer testimonials on lower Opex and TCO with ACI (1:22): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmHyx–eOR8
  • F5 BigIQ and ACI integration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfP-y4Vnzfg