Category: ACI
Running vSphere on Cisco ACI? Think Twice…
When Cisco ACI was launched it promised to do everything you need (plus much more, and in multi-hypervisor environment). It was quickly obvious that you can’t do all that on ToR switches, and need control of the virtual switch (the real network edge) to get the job done.
Why Is Stretched ACI Infinitely Better than OTV?
Eluehike Chedu asked an interesting question after my explanation of why stretched ACI fabric (or alternatives, see below) is the least horrible way of stretching a subnet: What about OTV?
Time to go back to the basics. As Dinesh Dutt explained in our Routing on Hosts webinar, there are (at least) three reasons why people want to see stretched subnets:
Stretched ACI Fabric Is Sometimes the Least Horrible Solution
One of my readers sent me a lengthy email asking my opinion about his ideas for new data center design (yep, I pointed out there’s a service for that while replying to his email ;). He started with:
I have to design a DR solution for a large enterprise. They have two data centers connected via Fabric Path.
There’s a red flag right there…
Palo Alto Integration with Cisco ACI and OpenStack on Software Gone Wild
A while ago Christer Swartz explained how a Palo Alto firewall integrates with VMware NSX. In the meantime, Palo Alto announced integration with Cisco ACI and OpenStack, and it was time for another podcast with Christer deep-diving into the technical details of these integrations.
Spoiler: It’s not OpFlex. For more details, listen to Episode 53 of Software Gone Wild
Cisco ACI – a Stretched Fabric That Actually Works
In mid-February a blog post on Cisco’s web site announced stretched ACI fabric (bonus points for not using marketing grammar but talking about a shipping product). Will it work better than other PowerPoint-based fabrics? You bet!
What’s the Big Deal?
Cisco’s ACI fabric uses distributed (per-switch) control plane with APIC controllers providing fabric configuration and management functionality. In that respect, the ACI fabric is no different from any other routed network, and we know that those work well in distributed environments.
Networking Field Day 9: Brief Recap
I’m sitting in the San Francisco airport with nothing better to do than writing blog posts, so let’s see what we’ve seen and learned during the Networking Field Day 9.