CPOC Series: Exploring ACI

Recently I had the pleasure to work with the fine folks at the Cisco Proof of Concept labs in Research Triangle Park, NC. Because of the unique times we live in, this normally onsite event was constrained to a virtual event, where we set on WebEx meetings throughout the week and ran through various test scenarios and tested features.

In order to get the most out of the event, I asked if I could record a subset of the tests that we conducted on their ACI MultiPod setup, and they graciously agreed. With these videos you’ll see how much work they put into this lab setup; its not just ACI. It’s external devices (i.e., Cat9000s, ASRs, ISR routers), UCS C-series and B-series servers for the VMware environment; and finally, Spirent traffic generators. This was a huge undertaking, and it was a privilege to play in the lab for a week with this stuff!

Overview of the CPOC lab

Below is a diagram of the CPOC ACI MultiPod lab. Feel free to download and follow along.

I hope you enjoy these videos half as much as I did working with Luis, Javad, Stefan, and the rest of the wonderful team @ Cisco’s CPOC labs in RTP.

While we tried to make these videos independent and standalone, I do find that you’ll probably get the most out them in you follow them in an order. I’ve suggested the order below, but feel free to jump back and forth if you feel you find a topic you want to dive into.

Establishing Layer-2 Connectivity between the traditional network and ACI

CPOC Series: Establishing L2 connectivity into ACI

Migration into ACI: Layer-2 and Layer-3 GW migration

CPOC Series: L2 and L3 Migration into ACI

L3outs in ACI

CPOC Series: L3out configuration in ACI

VMM Integration

CPOC Series: VMM integration from ACI to VMware vSphere

CPOC Series: vMotion and vKernel configuration considerations between ACI and vSphere

vMotion from Pod1 to Pod2 in ACI

CPOC Series: ACI MultiPod with Live vMotion from one Pod to another

ACI MultiPod Architecture, Design Considerations, and Configuration Considerations

CPOC Series: ACI MultiPod Architecture

Using Host-based routing to Optimize Ingress Routing

CPOC Series: Using the Host-based routing feature in ACI to optimize ingress routing for MultiPod

Using HealthScores to troubleshoot inside of ACI

CPOC Series: Using Healthscores in ACI to troubleshoot issues

APIC Failure Testing – Taking out all of the APICs in the cluster

CPOC Series: APIC Failure Testing with No active APICs in the cluster

ACI Service-Chaining: Unmanaged Policy-based redirect of east-west traffic through a firewall

CPOC Series: ACI Service Chaining using Policy Based Redirect (PBR) for east-to-west traffic through an ASA FW


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