Cisco ACI and Nexus 9000  news – February 2016

Happy New Year! Yes, you are right, a bit late for that. As late as I am with the monthly newsletter, so I have lots of stuff for this edition. Let’s cut the nonsense and go where the beef is, because there is a lot of it:

• ACI one of the technologies of the year for InfoWorld! http://www.infoworld.com/article/3023050/open-source-tools/infoworlds-2016-technology-of-the-year-award-winners.html#slide6
• Software:
  • Brazos is now GA! Although by now you have probably updated your fabric already 😃
  • 7.0(3)I2(2a) is out, release notes here: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus9000/sw/6-x/release/notes/70322a_nxos_rn.html.
• Cisco blogs:
  • You need to read this one from Soni Jiandani: http://blogs.cisco.com/news/executing-on-our-vision-and-strategy-the-future-of-networking-for-an-application-centric-world
  • And this one by Frank D’Agostino and Juan Lage on Microsegmentation, Security and NSX: http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/aci-surpasses-vmware-nsx-again-with-micro-segmentation-end-point-granularity
  • Overcoming the “stack fallacy”: http://dcweapons.cisco.com/blog/2016/01/26/competitive-response-to-aristas-next-generation-eos/
  • On Fast IT and the IDC report on the Pulsant success story: http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/fast-aci-cloud-starwars
  • Update on ACI partners and microsegmentation: http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/aci-applications-spotlight-microsegmentation-and-new-application-partners
  • Learnings from the last Gartner DC conference: http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/part-2-ten-learnings-and-observations-from-the-2015-london-gartner-data-center-conference
• In cisco.com:
  • Forrester study on economic impact of ACI now available in cisco.com: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/software-defined-networking/learning-center.html#ufh-i-191651035-what-can-cisco-aci-do-for-you
  • New white paper on migrating existing networks to ACI: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/aci/apic/sw/migration_guides/migrating_existing_networks_to_aci.htmlWhite paper on AVS: failover and convergence tests: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/application-virtual-switch/white-paper-c11-736554.html
  • White paper on the multiple UIs in ACI: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/data-center-virtualization/application-centric-infrastructure/white-paper-c11-736514.pdf
  • Scalability limits of ACI 1.2: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/aci/apic/sw/1-x/verified-scalability/b_Verified_Scalability_1_2_1x.html
  • Pulsant case study infographic: http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/solutions/collateral/data-center-virtualization/application-centric-infrastructure/pulsant-win-happy-customers.pdf
  • New ACI security white paper: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/data-center-virtualization/application-centric-infrastructure/white-paper-c11-736292.html
  • AVS now supported on vSphere 6.0 too: http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/switches/application-virtual-switch/avs-support-statement-an.pdf
  • Data sheet for the upcoming Nexus 9200 online: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/nexus-9000-series-switches/datasheet-c78-735989.html
• Out in the web:
  • Interesting interview with Cisco’s CTO, where ACI plays a key role: http://www.infoworld.com/article/3028173/analytics/ciscos-cto-charts-a-new-direction.html
  • IDC study on ACI benefits for Pulsant (8-pages): https://www.sdxcentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/IDC_ROISpotlightDec2015_Pulsant.pdf. For example: a ROI of 513%, payback in 6.4 months, 85% less time in fabric provisioning.
  • Find other ACI customer success stories in SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/Ciscodatacenter/cisco-aci-customer-spotlights
  • Command-line REST client for ACI, with variables support, rollback functionality and automatic generation of files to import into UCS Director as custom tasks: http://erjosito.tumblr.com/post/137149656822/a-command-line-rest-client-for-aci
  • New vBrownBag series started by Lauren Malhoit on ACI: http://professionalvmware.com/2015/12/cisco-aci-series/, first four episodes posted
  • Plumgrid integrates with N9K in NXOS mode : http://www.plumgrid.com/plumgrid-blog/2015/12/extend-sdn-overlay-with-cisco-nexus-9000-switch-in-under-10-steps/. Another proof of NXOS programmability, with a software overlay product
    • Video demo here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd9NRI3_3yI).
    • Here some more details: http://www.plumgrid.com/wp-content/uploads/documents/GAS_Cisco_v1.3.pdf
• A special section in L4-L7 services integration with ACI:
  • Yet a new example of openness and programmability: a Belgian computer science student developed an ACI device package for the open source load balancer NGINX: https://github.com/FServais/NGINX-Device-Package
    • Here you can find a demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLiydsFUOYc
  • Some news on Citrix NetScaler, including a new device package version: https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2015/12/28/say-happy-new-year-with-netscaler-device-packages-with-cisco-aci/
  • New deployment guides on cisco.com about ACI+F5: http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/solutions/collateral/data-center-virtualization/application-centric-infrastructure/guide-c07-736160.pdf
• Videos:
  • I did a 4-part video series demonstrating the advantages of managed Service Graphs with ASA (more focused on the “why” than on the “how”, see other blog entries in this site):
    • Part 1: quick insertion/removal (7:56): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kvpKNudt0k
    • Part 2: service insertion and the troubleshooting wizard (4:16): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4fbclJfVkw
    • Part 3: ruleset management (6:46): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JNQE6aCYos
    • Part 4: automated microsegmentation of compromised workloads (9:09): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmufoFsjXoM
  • Watch this series (3 videos) on a deep dive on how to setup ASA in ACI: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_VvDNvGnyZ38GSdhJ3R1abrWtcOh4gEY
  • ACI programmability demo using the concept of network dashboard (3:37): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBnthLw7bvI
  • NetScaler ACI migration tool (5:19): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_RahlgPBP. Translating between native netScaler config and ACI XML
  • NetScaler ACI PoC starter kit (3:29): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14CMX6v-3PY. How to use content downloadable from https://github.com/citrix/netscaler_aci_poc_kit
  • Managing Cisco ACI (1:17:51): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFNhwKPQTSU. Including software upgrades, OOB mgmt, SNMP, NTP config and other topics
  • Cisco WLAN Controllers over 2 ACI fabrics (16:45): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLxG8hd2QQ8
  • TechWise TV: scaling multitenancy with VXLAN (14:34): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APqVHTIYrPQ. Learn more by joining the Webinar in February (http://cs.co/6052Bni1O)
  • N9K and ACI intro, by John Swartz (13:19): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7846ZYy0Y8
  • What do your customers think of ACI? Part 1 (3:27): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s56yWMqY0bE
  • What do your customers think of ACI? Part 2 (3:01): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUL1h1N3DEw
  • And another one featuring Pulsant (3:10): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHU6RWDJGEo
  • WWT strikes again with great content: demo on Openstack-ACI integration (19:01): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1qef1_y22Y
  • New chapter of Lauren’s vBrownBag, this time on security (42:22): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKwrF7epn-8
  • Fulfilling SDN Vision + Customer Testimonials (Gartner DC Summit): http://eod.gartner.com/session-video/LSC34/SPS1
  • Developing with Cisco Network Programmability (1:07): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJIWzXvcy64
  • Cisco DC overlays with focus on VXLAN (Vishal Mehta, 1:25:48): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAoa7djX3Ew

Did I forget anything?