Thoughts from the clouds
You might have heard the hype about microsegmentation in the DC, and multiple definitions of this term. Paraphrasing Juan Lage, it is the possibility of setting up policies with end point granularity. In other words, to be able to take any end point in the DC and change its security policies, without having to alter … Continue reading Microsegmentation and APIs: the perfect combination
First of all, Happy New Year! Thanks for looking at my first post in 2016. As you might already know, Cisco ACI is a new concept of network management. In short, it is a network that brings along embedded network management functionality, that sits in a centralised controller cluster. If you want to manage a … Continue reading A command-line REST client for ACI
Hey there, So this is probably my last post of the year, it has been a fun ride! So far I have been able to keep the goal “no post without code” (excluding the news updates), let’s see if I can keep it up next year. But let’s turn to our matter of the day. Have … Continue reading Firewall insertion with ACI
After a long time without blogging, two entries in one day. I wanted to share some ideas about network dashboards and Cisco ACI. If you are managing a “traditional network” (that is, everything that is not called ACI :-), you are probably familiar with non-network folks rolling their eyes when they see you typing CLI commands … Continue reading Network dashboards
Hi there, sorry for the delay in this edition, but I wanted to wait until ACI 1.2 hits the road. I had some early releases in my lab and I have to tell you: it is AWESOME. But don’t let me bore you, here you have my summary of past month until today: Happy birthday … Continue reading ACI/N9K news: 1.2 is here!
Winter is coming closer, and we are in the count down before the next big ACI release comes (code named “Brazos”) with lots of operational enhancements, amongst other things. In the meantime, this is what has been going on in the ACI/N9K area this past month of October: Puppet for ACI: https://github.com/datacenter/puppet-aci. The Puppet Device framework … Continue reading ACI/N9K news update: October
Hi there, I missed the updates during Summer, so this one is a bit more dense than usual 🙂 Hope you find something interesting! ACI software 1.1(3f) posted in CCO! 1.1(3f) Release Notes: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/aci/apic/sw/1-x/release/notes/apic_rn_113f.html This release contains mostly bug-fixes, plus the new feature “Deployment Warning and Policy Usage Information”: before updating a policy you can … Continue reading N9K/ACI update: September+
What is the best way to configure a network? There are probably a lot of different opinions out there. Some will say there is nothing like CLI. Others will prefer GUIs. And in this last point people will not agree on what is the best GUI: this one is too complex, this one has too … Continue reading Configuring your network from Excel
This is a question I have thinking about lately, after a customer asked me whether in Cisco ACI you can copy and paste config like in any other Cisco router or switch. Every network admin knows how to do a “show running-config”, copy a fragment of the config into a notepad, change it, and paste … Continue reading What should network config look like? (or the self-documenting network)
Hi there, fasten your seat belts, because these last weeks have been spectacular. Not because I was lazy and I am including here not just June, but the first July week (therefore “June+” and not only “June” update), but because Cisco Live happened, and a LOT of stuff has been going on. Take your time, … Continue reading June+ Cisco ACI/N9K news update
