I have to apologise because of skipping last month’s update, what has led to a massive update today. If you thought that 2 years after ACI’s launch the speed of innovation would decrease, just have a look at all the new stuff below (and I assure you, it is not all of it).
Without any doubt, the most interesting thing is the announcement of a new technology, that I think heralds a new era of the networking industry: Tetration analytics. Why am I so excited about this? Some years ago I used to talk to customers about networking features. In the last 24 months, most discussions have turned to “SDN”, or how to efficiently deploy networks. I think that discussions will shift once more, to network analytics.
But wait, there is another major piece of news here: ACI 2.0 software has been released! If some dubbed last 1.2 version as ACI’s come out of age due to the big improvements in operability, this release takes ACI’s maturity yet another step forward. Amongst many other new things, increasing the flexibility of multi-DC deployments or the integration with the WAN, and streamlining even more ACI operation tasks for vSphere admins with the new ACI vCenter plug-in.
But enough chat, here you have the usual list of items and links, so that you get a quick idea of what has been going on in the ACI and Nexus 9000 area in the past 8 weeks:
- First things first, welcome to the future of networking! Here you have the long awaited Tetration press release: https://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1772270. The following links will give you an idea of what is behind this revolution:
- Tetration overview (3:24): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWSgVIeUVcU
- Tetration as DC time machine (2:07): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAig2SLODuI
- WP on network simulation in real time: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/data-center-analytics/tetration-analytics/white-paper-c11-737376.html
- Next-Gen DC flow telemetry: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/data-center-analytics/tetration-analytics/white-paper-c11-737366.html
- Behaviour-based app insight: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/data-center-analytics/tetration-analytics/white-paper-c11-737370.html
- IDC SpotLight on network analytics: http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/data-center-analytics/tetration-analytics/idc-technology-spotlight.pdf
- IDC Report on reduced security risk with Tetration: https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/data-center-analytics/tetration-analytics/idc-tetration-ciscoit-wp.pdf
- Meet the man behind Tetration: http://weare.cisco.com/c/r/weare/amazing-stories/amazing-people/navindra-yaday.html
- I would have never thought that I would post this BIG news in second place, but here you go: the ACI 2.0 software has been released! Long awaited features like multipod, FCoE NPV, copy services, or the official coming out of the vCenter plugin. Or the not-so-publicised-but-very-useful EPG deployment through AEPs. See more here:
- Release notes for controller: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/aci/apic/sw/1-x/release/notes/apic_rn_201.html
- Release notes for switches: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/aci/apic/sw/1-x/release/notes/aci_nxos_rn_1201.html
- Other new software releases:
- Regarding the Nexus 7000, 7.3(0)DX(1) with M3 support is posted in CCO, release notes here: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/switches/nexus-7000-series-switches/products-release-notes-list.html
- DCNM 10 available! Other than the revamped GUI (finally no Java!), lots of new features like VXLAN-specific functionality. Check the release notes for a complete list of the new stuff here: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/sw/10_0_x/release_notes/b_dcnm_release_notes_10_0.html
- UCSD 5.5 is there, here you have the release notes: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/ucs-director/release-notes/5-5/b_Cisco_UCS_Director_RN_55.html, and here the UCSD 5.5 APIC config guide: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/ucs-director/apic-management-guide/5-5/b_UCS_Director_APIC_Management_Guide_55.html. There are some enhancements on the Resource Groups model, like support for generic tenant onboarding.
- On the ecosystem side of things: F5 Big-IQ has been renamed to iWorkflow 2.0, you can read the APIC integration guide here: https://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/iworkflow/manuals/product/iworkflow-cisco-apic-administration-2-0-0.html. Remember no device package is required, since iWorkflow will generate dynamically the device packages contained the configured catalog objects.
- From cisco.com:
- A new URL for your bookmarks: the 25G compatibility matrix: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/interfaces_modules/transceiver_modules/compatibility/matrix/25GE_Tx_Matrix.html
- Here you can download your free copy of a new book on VXLAN: http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus9000/sw/vxlan_evpn/VXLAN_EVPN.pdf
- New white papers:
- ACI network-centric approach: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/data-center-virtualization/application-centric-infrastructure/white-paper-c11-737361.html
- ACI contract best practices: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/data-center-virtualization/application-centric-infrastructure/white-paper-c11-737387.html
- ACI Dual Fabric Design Guide (132 pages): http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/data-center-virtualization/application-centric-infrastructure/white-paper-c11-737077.pdf.
- ISSU for N9K/N3K: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/nexus-9000-series-switches/white-paper-c11-737076.html
- VXLAN multipod design (58 pages): http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/nexus-9000-series-switches/white-paper-c11-737201.pdf.
- New blogs:
- Five reasons that have made ACI the market leader: http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/5-reasons-aci
- Don’t miss Juan’s series on microsegmentation:
- On ACI, GBP, Contiv and open source: http://blogs.cisco.com/cloud/policy-based-cloud-with-cisco-aci-and-openstack-project-contiv-and-the-open-source-community. BTW, speaking about open source, don’t miss the site http://opensource.cisco.com/.
- How cloud-native apps and containers change the way we think about networking: http://blogs.cisco.com/cloud/how-cloud-native-and-container-platforms-change-the-way-we-think-about-networking
- ACI/N9K customer count keeps growing, now at 1,800+: http://blogs.cisco.com/news/next-generation-data-center-aci-leads-the-way.
- Contiv best of ONUG Spring 2016: http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/cisco-open-source-project-contiv-winner-at-onug-spring
- From the web:
- Great new blog entry from Juan (as usual) on simplified infrastructure upgrades: http://nillosmind.blogspot.in/2015/06/aci-example-simplified-infrastructure.html
- FortiGate connector for Cisco ACI: http://www.fortinetguru.com/2016/06/fortigate-connector-for-cisco-aci/
- Blog and video on ACI-F5 integration including additional topics like microsegmentation and containers: https://1138blog.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/what-do-cisco-aci-microsegmentation-service/
- Some infos on SPAN and ACI on Andrew’s blog: https://aciandme.wordpress.com/
- And this one on Postman and ACI: https://aciandme.wordpress.com/2016/06/03/using-postman/
- Hutchinson: if you can’t beat the cloud, join it: http://www.lightreading.com/enterprise-cloud/hutchinson-networks-if-you-cant-beat-the-cloud-join-it/d/d-id/723697
- Some education on Linux containers: http://www.infoworld.com/article/3072929/linux/containers-101-linux-containers-and-docker-explained.html#jump
- Great blog from Luca on hybrid cloud strategy: http://lucarelandini.blogspot.it/2016/05/a-simpler-framework-for-hybrid-cloud.html
- Symantec and Cisco ACI case study (15 slides): http://www.slideshare.net/fengmeng1970/detailed-sdn-technical-case-study-symantec-and-cisco-aci
- Great article about ACI’s success: http://zkresearch.com/blog/2016/05/software-defined-networking-touches-every-industry-segment/
- Enhancements on SevOne 5.6 for ACI management: https://www.sevone.com/blog/platform-enhancement-operational-insights-cisco-aci
- Nice article on microservices: http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/3787463
- Citrix blog on the partnership with Cisco: https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/05/11/citrix-innovation-driven-alliance-with-cisco/
- Videos:
- Frank Palumbo and Zeus Kerravala: ACI leads the way (5:41): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY5HX30r2Z0
- Some videos from the last Tech Field Day:
- ACI programmability by Michael Smith (33:29): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo4b0Pda7Dc
- ACI update by Carly Stoughton (9:10): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcCElfcXLcc
- ACI and VMware integration by Lauren Malhoit (22:45): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9SJkXmFfIY
- ACI and Open Source, by Mike Cohen (20:06): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaKI7QsJ6Uw
- Cisco CloudCenter by Carly (18:26): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZZVOHYTu3M
- And a CloudCenter+ACI demo (20:25): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKQtsKRjA98
- TechWiseTV on Nexus Data Broker (18:11): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjO_Avjb09Q
- TechWise TV on Segment Routing for the DC (15:38): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2l77Ny7GvY
- Contiv project (advanced networking for Docker): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uSnkR3o370
- Joe has been very busy recording videos on ACI programmability:
- Intro to Postman (6:01): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHui1mKfbF0
- Using Postman with the Runner tool (5:32): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNBeTRHwoyM
- Using Google Postman for compound tasks (5:52): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqIKnITLtAs
- Using the APIC GUI as a REST client (2:37): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaaGk93nMY
- Using Arya (6:03): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B9ASpc3lNs
- Bringing all together (4:18): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7-4uvUgX5Q
- Put some dvorkinism in your life: Tackling consumption chaos in microservices architectures (5:44): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfLQs_hhoUM
- Using NXAPI to completely reconfigure a network in minutes (4:54): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb1JS4r4cs4. Kudos to Christian Jäckel for his script in https://github.com/chjaecke/nexus_lab_deploy
- Demo on ACI-Docker integration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7Gb1CiSzJQ (and here the corresponding blog: https://1138blog.wordpress.com/2016/06/20/demo-with-docker-containers-and-cisco-aci/
- Here you can see some of the great videos by Vincent and Juan with the demos on ACI microsegmentation use cases:
- ACI microsegmentation demo via vCenter (13:12): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEs7B1dKVjE
- ACI microsegmentation – adding L2 firewall (11:32): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8xHJ2T4XmA
- ACI microsegmentation – Day-2 operations (19:34): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8xHJ2T4XmA
- ACI microsegmentation – From Dev to Prod with overlapping IPs (17:30): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PGLFibLs7s
- Juan is on fire, here with “Open Integration with Hybrid Cloud” (4:40): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8xHJ2T4XmA
- And here with “Easy and Secure Multi-tenancy by Nature” (5:29): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_CgG1r3ONg
- ACI+NetScaler: context awareness and admin partitions (3:45): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ghag-wGAFs
- YRC success story with Cisco+NetScaler (1:50): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaGTbHXacFw
- Checkpoint vSec Controller integration with ACI (2:31): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSiS6mrZ44o
- Cisco NGFW in ACI series, brought to your screen by Goran:
- Part 1: introduction to Firepower Threat Defense (16:58): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wli8ROTw7E
- Part 2: FTDv with HA (29:46): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvmsfE4curA
- Part 3: FTD unmanaged insertion (12:57): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq6ZZQ_0IJc
- ACI partners: Citrix, Netapp, Microsoft, VCE, F5, SAP, RH, EMC, Symantec, IBM (3:42): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snsC7iVOS0g
