Best Practice Archives -

Nexus Dashboard 2.1 – New Features – Federated Clusters

September 20, 2021

Nexus Dashboard 2.1 has incorporated a lot of New Features/Improvements. In this write-up, I will primarily discuss the Federated Nexus Dashboard configuration, why use it and also discuss some of other underlying improvements/changes. I will also show how to send API calls to Nexus Dashboard Federated Clusters to get Federation Related Information. Installing ND is … More Nexus Dashboard 2.1 – New Features – Federated Clusters

ACI Best Practice Configurations

July 16, 2021

The top question all new ACI customers have (or should have), is what are the configurations that should be enabled on my fabric from the beginning? With that in mind, we’re going use this post as a living document with configurations that are considered “Best Practice” to have enabled. We will keep this document updated … More ACI Best Practice Configurations

ACI SR-MPLS Handoff for L3 Outs

May 6, 2021

Starting from ACI Release 5.0(1) Cisco has started supporting ACI SR-MPLS handoff for L3 Outs. If you are not familiar with Segment Routing concepts do not despair. Once you see the benefits of using Segment Routing you will realize why this is such a good way of doing L3 Outs. If you are familiar with … More ACI SR-MPLS Handoff for L3 Outs

ACI TEP Pool Discussion

April 14, 2021

Updates: 01/21/2022: Added Notes on Multisite and Multipod parameters. Also, how to look at APIC initial setup parameters from ssh to APIC. This is a rather old topic, relevant only for day 0 setup of ACI. However, now that a lot of new customers are implementing ACI, this topic is again coming up and I’ve … More ACI TEP Pool Discussion

Understanding ACI TCAM Utilization & Optimization

January 6, 2021

Being organized and creating consistent configurations is a great virtue in the Networking / SDN / Cloud and computing field. ACI is no exception to that rule. Haphazard, Inconsistent and thoughtless configurations will increase your work and complexity/understanding of your infrastructure once your Fabric grows. In addition it will make it more prone to failures … More Understanding ACI TCAM Utilization & Optimization

ACI NetCentric 2 AppCentric Using MicroSegmentation

February 22, 2020

In this blog post, I’ll discuss a method of moving from Network Centric ACI Deployment to APP Centric ACI deployment using combination of ACI Features: MicroSegmentation/PrefferedGroups/ContractMasters. When ACI Fabric is initially deployed, it is either deployed in a Greenfield or Brownfield method. Green Field means it’s a brand new deployment. Brown Field means that the … More ACI NetCentric 2 AppCentric Using MicroSegmentation

Understanding Scope Of Prefixes in L3Out External EPG in ACI

November 8, 2019

In ACI the external Routing Peer to the router is done through border leaves with a object called L3Out. L3Out has an object in it called the L3Out InstP also known as the External EPG. In the External EPG you can put in Prefixes and choose the scope based on your intended goal. Under the … More Understanding Scope Of Prefixes in L3Out External EPG in ACI

Operationalizing ACI: Enhanced Endpoint Tracker

April 17, 2019

One of the most frequent topics that comes up when I am discussing ACI with customers, is, “How can we better operationalize ACI?”. In other words, how can we take what we have with ACI, and make it simpler to consume for not only ourselves, but for our Ops staff? For those new to ACI … More Operationalizing ACI: Enhanced Endpoint Tracker

Using MCP (MisCabling Protocol) for ACI

March 27, 2018

MisCabling Protocol (or MCP) detects loops from external sources (i.e., misbehaving servers, external networking equipment running STP) and will err-disable the interface on which ACI receives its own packet. Enabling this feature is a best practice and it should be enabled globally and on all interfaces, regardless of the end device. MCP limits the blast … More Using MCP (MisCabling Protocol) for ACI

ACI Naming Convention Best Practices

February 16, 2018

This statement is especially true when it comes to naming objects inside of ACI. Naming your ACI objects in a meaningful and thoughtful way will increase the supportability of your fabric and even help the fabric to become “self-documenting”. Having naming conventions that are haphazard, will have an equally negative impact. To complicate matters, … More ACI Naming Convention Best Practices