Cisco APIC-L4 Appliance

About Cisco ACI

The Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI) is part of our intent-based networking framework to enable agility in the datacenter. It captures higher-level business and user intent in the form of a policy and translates this into the network constructs necessary to dynamically provision network, security, and infrastructure services.

Built on top of the industry-leading Cisco N9000 platform, Cisco ACI uses a holistic systems-based approach, with tight integration between hardware and software, between physical and virtual elements, an open ecosystem model, and innovative Cisco Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) to enable unique business value for modern data centers. As part of the Cisco Nexus One architecture, Cisco ACI border gateways, implemented on Cisco N9000 series switches, provide scalable and secure Layer-3 connectivity between the ACI fabric and external networks using policy-based control and dynamic routing. This enables seamless any-to-any connectivity between ACI and open-standard VXLAN EVPN fabrics with consistent policy extension across environments.

Cisco ACI is the industry’s most secure, open, and comprehensive software-defined networking solution.

ACI enables automation that accelerates infrastructure deployment and governance, simplifies management to easily move workloads across a multifabric, multicloud framework, and proactively secures against risk arising from anywhere. It radically simplifies, optimizes, and expedites the application deployment lifecycle.

Modern data centers are dynamic. IT operations must meet the expectation of quality-of-service business needs in a rapidly changing environment. ACI transforms IT operations from reactive to proactive with a highly intelligent set of software capabilities that analyzes every component of the data center to ensure business intent, guarantee reliability, and identify performance issues in the network before they happen.

As application usage gets more pervasive across an enterprise’s network, IT professionals are looking to build solutions for consistent policy and encryption from the campus to the datacenter. With ACI integrations with SDA/DNA Center and SD-WAN, customers can now automate and extend policy, security, assurance, and insights across their entire networking ecosystem.

Cisco ACI components

The Cisco ACI solution consists of the following building blocks (Figure 1):

●Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC).

●Cisco N9000 Series spine and leaf switches for Cisco ACI.

●Cisco Nexus Dashboard, on-premises managed Nexus One.

Cisco ACI architectural building blocks

Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) features

The infrastructure controller isthe main architectural component of the Cisco ACI solution. It is the unified point of automation and management for the Cisco ACI fabric, policy enforcement, and health monitoring. The APIC appliance is a centralized, clustered controller that optimizes performance and unifies the operation of physical and virtual environments. The controller manages and operates a scalable multitenant Cisco ACI fabric.

The APIC provides enhanced lifecycle and operational capabilities, including optimized APIC cluster upgrades through a robust, centralized workflow and faster APIC reboot times. It also enables hybrid APIC cluster deployments, allowing seamless coexistence and interoperability between physical and virtual APICs. Operational efficiency is further improved through enhanced support for mixed (dual) software versions across ACI fabrics, enabling smoother upgrades and reduced operational risk.

The main features of the APIC include the following:

●Application-centric network policies.

●Data-model-based declarative provisioning.

●Application and topology monitoring and troubleshooting.

●Layer-4 through Layer-7 (L4-L7) services integration with APIC.

●Third-party integration.

◦VMware vCenter and vShield

◦Nutanix

◦Openshift container and virtualization platform

●Automation platform integrations.

◦Terraform

◦Ansible

◦Chef

◦Puppet

◦Python

◦ServiceNow

●Image management (spine and leaf).

●Cisco ACI inventory and configuration.

●Implementation on a distributed framework across a cluster of appliances.

●Health scores for critical managed objects (tenants, application profiles, switches, etc.).

●Fault, event, and performance management.

●Isovalent Cilium and eBPF integration for end-to-end observability.

The controller framework enables broad ecosystem and industry interoperability with Cisco ACI. It enables interoperability between a Cisco ACI environment and management, orchestration, virtualization, and L4-L7 services from a broad range of vendors.

Cisco APIC cluster

The APIC appliance is deployed as a cluster. A minimum of three infrastructure controllers are configured in a cluster to provide control of the scale-out Cisco ACI fabric (Figure 2). The ultimate size of the controller cluster is directly proportionate to the size of the Cisco ACI deployment and is based on the transaction-rate requirements. Any controller in the cluster can service any user for any operation, and a controller can be transparently added to or removed from the cluster.

Cisco APIC cluster

APIC appliance product specifications

The APIC appliance is available in different form factors (Table 1):

Table 1.Cisco APIC sizes

Table 2.Specifications of the APIC G5 combined appliance. Note that at least three appliances need to be configured as a cluster.

Table 3.Cisco APIC G5 physical and environmental specs

Table 4.Specifications of the APIC M4 and L4 appliance. Note that at least three appliances need to be configured as a cluster

Table 5.Cisco APIC M4 and L4 Physical and Environmental Specs

Table 6.Cisco medium form factor virtual APIC requirements

To use the APIC controller as a virtual form-factor or in AWS cloud, a DCN-vAPIC license is required. A minimum of three licenses are required for a cluster, and additional licenses can be ordered for expanding the cluster.

For more information

Use the following links for additional information:

●Cisco ACI solution data sheet: Click here.

●Cisco ACI ordering guide: Click here.

●Cisco N9000 Series Switches data sheet: Click here.

●Cisco Nexus Dashboard data sheet: Click here.

●Cisco ACI solution general details: Click here.

●Technical white papers: Click here.

●Case studies: Click here.

●Solution overviews: Click here.

●YouTube video tutorials: Click here.

●Release notes for Cisco ACI and APIC solutions: Click here.

●Release notes for Cisco N9000 Series Switches: Click here.

●Download Cisco ACI software: Click here.

●Cisco Nexus One: Click here.