What is ACI?
A. Cisco® Application
Centric Infrastructure (ACI) is an innovative architecture that provides a
common management framework for the network, application, security, and IT
operations teams, to help make IT more agile while reducing application
deployment time.
Cisco’s ACI delivers
centralized application-driven policy automation and management of, and visibility
into, both physical and virtual environments as a single system. It is
optimized to support an “application anywhere” model, with complete freedom of
application movement and placement. This novel approach empowers IT teams to
offer cloud-based services to their customers directly, with the associated
service-level agreements (SLAs) and performance requirements for the most
demanding business applications.
What are the
components of ACI?
A. ACI embraces
hardware, software, and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) elements
as part of the overall architecture. The primary components of ACI will include
a centralized fabric controller, the Cisco
Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (Cisco APIC);
ACI-ready networking switches (for example, the new Cisco Nexus® 9000 Series
Switches); and a rich set of ecosystem elements made possible by an open
approach. Cisco also offers a portfolio of professional and technical services
for ACI and the Nexus 9000 Series. All components of ACI will continue to be
sold through Cisco’s channel partners and direct sales as well as through
ecosystem partners as appropriate. Two portfolios of Cisco Branded Services are
available to partners to help enable and secure the Cisco ACI: Cisco Services
for Cisco ACI and Cisco Services to Secure Cisco Data Center Infrastructure. To
learn more about these services visit http://www.cisco.com/en/US/
prod/collateral/switches/ps9441/ps13386/at-a-glance-aci-services.pdf or
contact your local Cisco partner services development manager (PSDM); send any
queries to as-aci-support@cisco.com.
Are technology
partners affected by ACI?
A. ACI is designed as
an open architecture from the ground up. Cisco, with Insieme, is actively
developing a complete technology ecosystem in seven key areas:
1. Orchestration,
automation, and management
2. Configuration and
compliance
3. Monitoring and
diagnostics
4. Traffic flow and
analysis
5. Security
6. Network services
7. Storage and virtualization© 2013 Cisco Systems, Inc and/or its affiliates. All
rights reserved.
Will
ACI be integrated into VCE products?
A. Yes, as indicated
by VCE Chief Technology Officer Trey Layton’s recent blog post (https://blog.
vce.com/innovation/future-vblock-systems-and-application-centric-infrastructures/),
ACI will be deployed in future VCE™ Vblock™ Systems.
How is ACI different
from SDN and Cisco ONE?
A. Cisco Open Network Environment (Cisco
ONE: www.cisco.com/go/one) is the industry’s broadest
approach to making networks open, programmable, and application aware. It is
cross architectural and supports service provider, branch, campus, and data
center deployments. Cisco ONE advocates open standards, open APIs, and open
source, for a variety of network deployment options, including software-defined
networking (SDN) models. It includes elements of orchestration, automation
policy and analytics to expose the value of networks.
Cisco
ACI supports all aspects of open networking and delivers on the Cisco
ONE strategy, embracing open APIs, open source, and open standards. The vision
of ACI extends beyond the network to include other infrastructure elements such
as computing and storage, while supporting an open ecosystem of technology and
developer partners. It also goes beyond traditional SDN and overlay network
virtualization models, with an application-centric design built from the ground
up for next-generation data center and cloud requirements.
How does ACI address
white-label boxes?
A. Cisco’s approach is
to bring in tight integration between hardware, software, and ASICs and to
provide a systems approach, which creates a better customer experience, delivers
operational simplicity, and lowers TCO. These outcomes are not achievable
through commodity white-label boxes.
Does ACI represent a
vendor lock-in?
A. No. The ACI
approach is built on open principles with an emphasis on open and published
APIs, open source, open standards, and an open ecosystem model with the intent
to facilitate integration with a heterogeneous, multivendor data center
environment.
Will the Cisco Nexus
9000 Series cause the existing Nexus portfolio to become obsolete? Will Cisco
continue to invest in the existing Nexus portfolio?
A. The existing Nexus
portfolio will not become obsolete; in fact, Cisco has announced the evolution
of its Unified Fabric portfolio with the current Nexus platforms to deliver new
innovations such as Dynamic Fabric Automation on the Nexus 7000 and 6000 Series
as well as the new F3 line cards on the Nexus 7000 Series. In addition, new
models were introduced recently in the Nexus 3000 and 6000 Series. Cisco has a
committed roadmap showing delivery of many new platforms, modules, and features
over the course of FY14 alone. Customers who invested in the existing Nexus
portfolio can continue on the same path if they choose, as Cisco continues to
build and invest in these platforms.
Cisco has always talked
about investment protection. What is the investment protection offered here?
A. Cisco is expanding
the Nexus portfolio with Nexus 9000 Series switches built on the proven NX-OS
to meet the increasing application demands in the data center. ©
2013 Cisco Systems, Inc and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Can
I mix ACI deployments with existing Nexus installations?
A. No, but platforms
such as the Nexus 7000 Series participate in ACI deployments for data center interconnect,
WAN environments, extranet, and Internet deployments.
How are you
positioning ACI compared to existing Nexus offerings?
A. A use-case-led
approach is being adopted for advising customers on when to adopt the Nexus
9000 Series and where the current products within the Nexus portfolio make the
most sense. These are generic recommendations, with actual positioning to be
decided by account teams on a case-by-case basis.
Can you describe the
hardware used in building ACI?
A. The Nexus 9000
Series is based on both merchant and custom ASICs as part of a “merchant plus”
strategy to provide maximum benefits to the data center infrastructure. Custom
ASICs are used, enabling Cisco to take advantage of its experience and insights
to differentiate its platforms.
Why are there so many
controllers? Extensible Network Controller (XNC)? OpenDaylight? Cisco APIC?
What should customers choose?
A. Customer use cases
and feature requirements vary depending on their deployment model. In keeping
with this, Cisco has developed controllers based on deployment models, for
maximum impact. While XNC is a network controller based on classic SDN
principles, the Cisco APIC is expected to be a much broader data center
infrastructure controller designed from the ground up to be application
centric. OpenDaylight is an open source initiative that Cisco has committed to
contribute to under the Linux foundation, but it is not sold or supported by
Cisco.
Is Cisco still
committed to XNC and OpenDaylight?
A. Yes.
Will the Cisco APIC
support the existing Nexus installed base?
A. The Cisco APIC is
an integral part of the Cisco Nexus 9000, in which the hardware is designed
from the ground up to provide a tightly integrated solution for ACI
environments.
What will this
announcement mean to Cisco’s existing installed base that has invested in Nexus
platforms over the past several years? Is Cisco going to continue to invest in
the current portfolio?
A. Cisco has
introduced new innovations in the past few months on its modular and fixed
platforms and will continue to do so, based on customer requirements.
How should customers
approach adoption of the new Nexus 9000 Series and ACI into existing
architectures?
A. During refresh or
expansion cycles, customers will be able to evaluate the new offerings and
decide on the best approach for their environment, in conjunction with guidance
from Cisco solution sales experts on a case-by-case basis
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