Cisco ACI

Cisco ACI | ACI Infrastructure

Cisco ACI | ACI Infrastructure

The ACI Cisco stands for Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure and is based on a spine leaf architecture. It is a software-defined networking solution that provides a holistic approach to network management. ACI offers a centralized policy-driven framework for managing and automating network infrastructure.

One of the critical features of ACI Cisco is its ability to create a virtualized network environment using the Application Network Profiles (ANPs) concept. ANPs allow administrators to define and manage network policies based on the requirements of specific applications.

This simplifies the deployment and management of applications, as network policies can be easily applied across the entire infrastructure.

Table of Contents

Highlights: ACI Cisco

Example: ACI Networks

ACI Networks also introduces the concept of the Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC), which acts as the central point of control for the network. The APIC allows administrators to define and enforce network policies, monitor performance, and troubleshoot issues.

In addition to network virtualization and policy management, ACI Cisco offers a range of other features. These include integrated security, intelligent workload placement, and seamless integration with other Cisco products and technologies.

COOP Protocol in ACI

The spine proxy receives mapping information (location and identity) via the Council of Oracle Protocol (COOP). Using Zero Message Queue (ZMQ), leaf switches forward endpoint address information to spine switches. As part of COOP, the spine nodes maintain a consistent copy of the endpoint address and location information and maintain the distributed hash table (DHT) database for mapping endpoint identity to location.

Micro-segmentation

Integrated security is achieved through micro-segmentation, which allows administrators to define fine-grained security policies at the application level. This helps to prevent the lateral movement of threats within the network and provides better protection against attacks.

Intelligent workload placement ensures that applications are placed in the most appropriate locations within the network based on their specific requirements. This improves application performance and resource utilization.

Related: For pre-information, you may find the following helpful:

  1. Data Center Security
  2. Data Center Topologies
  3. Dropped Packet Test
  4. DMVPN
  5. Stateful Inspection Firewall
  6. Cisco ACI Components



ACI Network



Key Cisco ACI Blog Discussion Points:


  • Operates over a Leaf and Spine design.

  • New ACI network components e.g Bridge Domain and Contracts.

  • Intelligence at the edge.

  • Overcomes many DC challenges.

  • VXLAN transport network.

  • Extend with Mutli Pod and Multi Site.

 

ACI Components

Key components that make up the ACI Cisco architecture. By understanding these components, network administrators and IT professionals can harness the power of ACI to optimize their data center operations.

Cisco ACI Components

Main ACI Components

Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) 

  • Application Policy Infrastructure Controller

  • Spine Switches

  • Leaf Switches

  • Application Network Profiles

  • Endpoint Groups 

1. Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC):

The cornerstone of the Cisco ACI architecture is the Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC). APIC is the central management and policy engine for the entire ACI fabric. It provides a single point of control, enabling administrators to define and enforce policies that govern the behavior of applications and services within the data center. APIC offers a user-friendly interface for policy configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting, making it an essential component for managing the ACI fabric.

2. Spine Switches:

Spine switches form the backbone of the ACI fabric. These high-performance switches provide connectivity between leaf switches and facilitate east-west traffic within the fabric. Spine switches operate at Layer 3 and use routing protocols to distribute traffic across the fabric efficiently. With the ability to handle massive amounts of data, spine switches ensure high-speed connectivity and optimal performance in the ACI environment.

3. Leaf Switches:

Leaf switches act as the access layer switches in the ACI fabric. They connect directly to the endpoints, such as servers, storage devices, and other network devices, and serve as the entry and exit points for traffic entering and leaving the fabric. Leaf switches provide Layer 2 connectivity for endpoint devices and Layer 3 connectivity for communication between endpoints within the fabric. They also play a crucial role in implementing policy enforcement and forwarding traffic based on predefined policies.

 

Lab Guide: IS-IS

Example: IS-IS

Cisco ACI under the covers runs ISIS. The ISIS routing protocol is an Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) that enables routers within a network to exchange routing information and make informed decisions on the best path to forward packets. It operates at the OSI model’s Layer 2 (Data Link Layer) and Layer 3 (Network Layer).

ISIS organizes routers into logical groups called areas, simplifying network management and improving scalability. It allows for hierarchical routing, reducing the overhead of exchanging routing information across large networks.

Note:

Below, we have four routers. R1 and R2 are in area 12, and R3 and R4 are in area 34. R1 and R3 are intra-area routers, so that they will be configured as level 1 routers. R2 and R4 form the backbone, so that these routers will be configured as levels 1-2.

Network administrators need to configure ISIS parameters on each participating router to implement ISIS. These parameters include the router’s ISIS system ID, area assignments, and interface settings. ISIS uses the reliable transport protocol (RTP) to exchange routing information between routers.

Routing Protocol
Diagram: Routing Protocol. ISIS.

4. Application Network Profiles (ANPs):

Application Network Profiles (ANPs) are a key component of the Cisco ACI policy model. ANPs define the policies and configurations required for specific applications or application groups. ANPs encapsulate all the necessary information, including network connectivity, quality of service (QoS) requirements, security policies, and service chaining.

By associating endpoints with ANPs, administrators can easily manage and enforce consistent policies across the ACI fabric, simplifying application deployment and ensuring compliance.

5. Endpoint Groups (EPGs):

Endpoint Groups (EPGs) are logical containers that group endpoints with similar network requirements. EPGs provide a way to define and enforce policies at a granular level—endpoints within an EPG share standard policies, such as security, QoS, and network connectivity.

This grouping allows administrators to apply policies consistently to specific endpoints, regardless of their physical location within the fabric. EPGs enable seamless application mobility and simplify policy enforcement within the ACI environment.

 

Specific ACI Cisco architecture.

In some of the lab guides we have in this blog post. We are using the following hardware from a rack rental from Cloudmylabs. Remember that the ACI Fabric is built on the Nexus 9000 Product Family.

The Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches are designed to meet the increasing demands of modern networks. With high-performance capabilities, these switches deliver exceptional speeds and low latency, ensuring smooth and uninterrupted data flow. They support high-density 10/25/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, allowing businesses to scale and adapt to growing network requirements.

Enhanced Security

The Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches offer comprehensive security features to protect networks from evolving threats. They leverage Cisco TrustSec technology, which provides secure access control, segmentation, and policy enforcement. With integrated security features, businesses can mitigate risks and safeguard critical data, ensuring peace of mind.

Application Performance Optimization:

To meet the demands of modern applications, the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches are equipped with advanced features that optimize application performance. These switches support Cisco Tetration Analytics, which provides deep insights into application behavior, enabling businesses to enhance performance, troubleshoot issues, and improve efficiency.

Diagram: The source is Cloudmylabs.

Cisco ACI Simulator

Below is a screenshot from Cisco ACI similar. At the start, you will be asked for fabric details. Remember that once you set the out-of-band management address for the API, you need to change the port group settings on the ESXi VM network. If you don’t change “Promiscuous mode, MAC address changes, and Forged Transmits,” you cannot access the UI from your desktop.

ACI fabric Details
Diagram: Cisco ACI fabric Details

Back to basics: Leaf and spine design

Leaf and Spine

Leaf and spine architecture is a network design methodology commonly used in data centers. It provides a scalable and resilient infrastructure that can handle the increasing demands of modern applications and services. The term “leaf and spine” refers to the physical and logical structure of the network.

In leaf and spine architecture, the network is divided into two main layers: the leaf and spine layers. The leaf layer consists of leaf switches connected to the servers or endpoints in the data center. These leaf switches act as the access points for the servers, providing high-bandwidth connectivity and low-latency communication.

The spine layer, on the other hand, consists of spine switches that connect the leaf switches. The spine switches provide high-speed and non-blocking interconnectivity between the leaf switches, forming a fully connected fabric. This allows for efficient and predictable traffic patterns, as any leaf switch can communicate directly with any other leaf switch through the spine layer.

 

 Lab Guide: ACI Cisco with leaf and spine.

The following lab guide has a leaf and spine ACI design that includes 2 leaf switches acting as the leaf layer where the workloads connect. Then, we have a spine connected to the leaf. When the ACI hardware installation is done, all Spines and Leafs are linked and powered up. Once the basic configuration of APIC is completed, the Fabric discovery process starts working.

Note: IFM process

In the discovery process, ACI uses the Intra-Fabric Messaging (IFM) process in which APIC and nodes exchange heartbeat messages.

The process used by the APIC to push policy to the fabric leaf nodes is called the IFM Process. ACI Fabric discovery is completed in three stages. The leaf node directly connected to the APIC is discovered in the first stage. The second discovery stage brings in the spines connected to that initial leaf where APIC was connected. The third stage involves discovering the cluster’s other leaf nodes and APICs.

The fabric membership diagram below shows the inventory, including serial number, Pod, Node ID, Model, Role, Fabric IP, and Status. Cisco ACI consists of the following hardware components: APIC Controller Spine Switches and Leaf Switches.

ACI fabric discovery
Diagram: ACI fabric discovery

Analysis:

Cisco ACI uses an overlay based on VXLAN to virtualize physical infrastructure. Like most overlays, this overlay requires the data path at the network’s edge to map from the tenant end-point address in the packet, otherwise referred to as its identifier, to the endpoint’s location, also known as its locator. This mapping occurs in a tunnel endpoint (TEP) function called VXLAN (VTEP).

The VTEP addresses are displayed in the INFRASTRUCTURE IP column. The TEP address pool 10.0.0.0/16 has been configured on the Cisco APIC using the initial setup dialog. The APIC assigns the TEP addresses to the fabric switches via DHCP, so the infrastructure IP addresses in your fabric will differ from the figure.

This configuration is perfectly valid for a Lab but not good for a production environment. The minimum physical fabric hardware for a production environment includes two spines, two leaves, and three APICs.In addition to discovering and configuring the Fabric and applying the Tenant design, the following functionality can be configured:

  • Routing at Layer 3

  • Connecting a legacy network at layer 2

  • Virtual Port Channels at Layer 2

A note about Border Leafs: ACI fabrics often use this designation along with “Compute Leafs” and “Storage Leafs.” Border Leaf is merely a convention for identifying the leaf pair that hosts all external connectivity external to the fabric (Border Leaf) or the leaf pair that hosts host connectivity (Compute Leaf).

Note: The Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) is responsible for discovering directly adjacent neighbors. When run between the Cisco APIC and a leaf switch, it precedes three other processes: Tunnel endpoint (TEP) IP address assignment, node software upgrade (if necessary), and the intra-fabric messaging (IFM) process, which the Cisco APIC uses to push policy to the leaves.

aci Cisco LLDP

Leaf and Spine: Traffic flows

The leaf and spine network topology is suitable for east-to-west network traffic and comprises leaf switches to which the workloads connect and spine switches to which the leaf switches connect. The spines have a simple role to play and are geared around performance, while all the intelligence is distributed to the edge of the network where the leaf layers sit.

This allows engineers to move away from managing individual devices and manage the data center architecture more efficiently with policy. In this model, the Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) controllers can correlate information from the entire fabric.

Understanding Leaf and Spine Traffic Flow

In a leaf and spine architecture, traffic flow follows a structured path. When a device connected to a leaf switch wants to communicate with another device, the traffic is routed through the spine switch to the destination leaf switch. This approach minimizes the hops required for data transmission and reduces latency. Additionally, traffic can be evenly distributed since every leaf switch is connected to every spine switch, preventing congestion and bottlenecks.

Lab guide on ACI Cisco with leaf and spine.

In the following lab guide, we continue to verify the ACI leaf and spine.  We can run the command Acidiag fnvread, a diagnostics tool to check the ACI fabric. It would also be recommended to check the LLDP and ISIS adjacencies. With a leaf and spine design, the leaf layer does not connect, and we can see this with the LLDP and ISIS adjacency information below.

ACI leaf and spine
Diagram: ACI leaf and spine
 

Advantages of Leaf and Spine Traffic Flow:

  • Improved Performance: Leaf and spine architecture ensures optimal performance by evenly distributing traffic and minimizing latency. This results in faster data transmission and improved response times for end-users.
  • Scalability: The leaf and spine architecture allows for easy scalability as additional leaf switches can be added without disrupting the existing network. This flexibility enables networks to adapt to changing requirements and handle increasing traffic loads.
  • High Availability: Providing multiple paths for traffic, leaf, and spine architecture ensures redundancy and fault tolerance. If one link fails, traffic can be rerouted through alternative paths, minimizing downtime and ensuring uninterrupted connectivity.

leaf and spine

 

Leaf and Spine Switch Functions

Based on a two-tier (spine and leaf switches) or three-tier (spine switch, tier-1 leaf switch, and tier-2 leaf switch) architecture, Cisco ACI switches provide the following functions:

Leaf switches: 

What are Leaf Switches?

Leaf switches connect between end devices, servers, and the network fabric. They are typically deployed in leaf-spine network architecture, connecting directly to the spine switches. Leaf switches provide high-speed, low-latency connectivity to end devices within a data center network.

Functionalities of Leaf Switches:

1. Aggregation: Leaf switches aggregate traffic from multiple servers and sends it to the spine switches for further distribution. This aggregation helps reduce the network’s complexity and enables efficient traffic flow.

2. High-density Port Connectivity: Leaf switches are designed to provide a high-density port connectivity environment, allowing multiple devices to connect simultaneously. This is crucial in data centers where numerous servers and devices must be interconnected.

These devices have ports connected to classic Ethernet devices, such as servers, firewalls, and routers. In addition, these leaf switches provide the VXLAN Tunnel Endpoint (VTEP) function at the edge of the fabric. In Cisco ACI terminology, IP addresses representing leaf switch VTEPs are called Physical Tunnel Endpoints (PTEPs). The leaf switches route or bridge tenant packets and applies network policies.

Spine switches:

What are Spine Switches?

Spine switches, also known as spine or core switches, are high-performance switches that form the backbone of a network. They play a vital role in data centers and large enterprise networks and facilitate the seamless data flow between various leaf switches.

These devices interconnect leaf switches. To build a Cisco ACI Multi-Pod fabric, they can also connect Cisco ACI pods to IP networks or WAN devices. In addition to the mapping entries between endpoints and VTEPs, spine switches also store proxy entries between endpoints and VTEPs. Leaf switches are connected to spine switches within a pod, and spine switches are connected to leaf switches.

No direct connection between tier-1 leaf switches, tier-2 leaf switches, or spine switches is allowed. If you incorrectly cable spine switches to each other or leaf switches in the same tier to each other, the interfaces will be disabled.

Cisco ACI Fabric
Diagram: Cisco ACI Fabric. Source Cisco Live.

 

Video 2: Demonstration on a leaf and spine data center design

The following tutorial will examine the leaf and spine data center architecture. We know this design is a considerable step from traditional DC design. As a use case, we will focus on how Cisco has adopted the leaf and spine design with its Cisco ACI product. We will address the components and how they form the Cisco ACI fabric.

Spine and Leaf Design: Cisco ACI
Prev 1 of 1 Next
Prev 1 of 1 Next

BGP Route Reflection

Under the cover, Cisco ACI works with BGP Route-Reflection. BGP Route Reflection creates a hierarchy of routers within the ACI fabric. At the top of the hierarchy is a Route-Reflector (RR), a central point for collecting routing information from other routers within the fabric. The RR then reflects this information to other routers, ensuring that every router in the network has a complete view of the routing table.

The ACI uses MP-BGP protocol to distribute external Network subnets or prefixes inside the ACI fabric. To create an MP-BGP route reflector, we must select two Spines acting as Route Reflectors and make an iBGP Neighbourship to all other Leafs.

BGP Route Reflection
Diagram: BGP Route Reflection

The ACI Cisco Architecture

The ACI Cisco operates with several standard ACI building blocks. These include Endpoint Groups (EPGs) that are used to classify and group similar workloads; then, we have the Bridge Domains (BD), VRFs, Contract constructs, COOP protocol in ACI, and micro-segmentation. With micro-segmentation in the ACI, you can get granular policy enforcement right the workload anywhere in the network.

Unlike in the traditional network design, you don’t need to place certain workloads in specific VLANs or, in some cases, physical locations. The ACI can incorporate devices separate from the ACI, such as a firewall, load balancer, or an IPS/IDS, for additional security mechanisms. This enables the dynamic service insertion of Layer 4 to Layer 7 services. Here, we have a lot of flexibility with the redirect option and service graphs.

Cisco ACI 

ACI network


Automation and consitency


Multi-cloud acceleration


Zero-trust security protectomn

Centralised management

Multi-site capabilities 

The ACI Infrastructure

The Cisco ACI architecture is optimized to learn endpoints dynamically with its dynamic endpoint learning functionality. So, we have endpoint learning in the data plane. Therefore, the other devices learn of the endpoints connected to that local leaf switch; the spines have a mapping database that saves many resources on the spine and can optimize the data traffic forwarding. So you don’t need to flood traffic anymore. If you want, you can turn off flooding in the ACI fabric. Then, we have an overlay network.

As you know, the ACI network has both an overlay and a physical underlay; this would be a virtual underlay in the case of Cisco Cloud ACI. The ACI uses VXLAN, the overlay protocol that rides on top of a simple leaf and spine topology, with standards-based protocols such as IS-IS and BGP for route propagation. 

Video: BGP in the Data Center

In this whiteboard session, we will address the basics of BGP. A network exists specifically to serve the connectivity requirements of applications, and these applications are to serve business needs. So these applications must run on stable networks, and stable networks are built from stable routing protocols.

Routing protocols are predefined rules used by the routers that interconnect your network to maintain communication between the source and the destination. These protocols help to find routes between two nodes on the computer network.

BGP in the Data Center
Prev 1 of 1 Next
Prev 1 of 1 Next

ACI Cisco and endpoints

In a traditional network, three tables are used to maintain the network addresses of external devices: a MAC address table for Layer 2 forwarding, a Routing Information Base (RIB) for Layer 3 forwarding, and an ARP table for the combination of IP addresses and MAC addresses. Cisco ACI, however, maintains this information differently, as shown below.

ACI Endpoint learning
Diagram: Endpoint Learning. Source Cisco.com

What is ACI Endpoint Learning?

ACI endpoint learning refers to discovering and monitoring the network endpoints within an ACI fabric. Endpoints include devices, virtual machines, physical servers, users, and applications. Network administrators can make informed decisions regarding network policies, security, and traffic optimization by gaining insights into these endpoints’ location, characteristics, and behavior.

How Does ACI Endpoint Learning Work?

ACI fabric leverages a distributed, controller-based architecture to facilitate endpoint learning. When an endpoint is connected to the fabric, ACI utilizes a variety of mechanisms to gather information about it. These mechanisms include Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) snooping, Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP), and even integration with hypervisor-based systems.

Once an endpoint is detected, ACI Fabric builds a comprehensive endpoint database called the Endpoint Group (EPG). This database contains vital information such as MAC addresses, IP addresses, VLANs, and associated policies. By continuously monitoring and updating this database, ACI ensures real-time visibility and control over the network endpoints.

Benefits of ACI Endpoint Learning:

1. Enhanced Security: With ACI endpoint learning, network administrators can enforce security policies by controlling traffic flow based on endpoint characteristics. Unauthorized or suspicious endpoints can be automatically detected and isolated, reducing the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access.

2. Simplified Network Operations: ACI’s endpoint learning eliminates the need for manual configuration of network policies and access control lists (ACLs). By dynamically learning the endpoints and their associated attributes, ACI enables automated policy enforcement, reducing human error and simplifying network management.

3. Efficient Traffic Optimization: ACI’s endpoint learning enables intelligent traffic steering by understanding the location and behavior of endpoints. This information allows for intelligent load balancing and traffic optimization, ensuring optimal performance and reducing congestion within the infrastructure.

Implementation Endpoint Learning Considerations:

To leverage the benefits of ACI endpoint learning, organizations need to consider a few key aspects:

1. Infrastructure Design: A well-designed ACI fabric with appropriate leaf and spine switches is crucial for efficient endpoint learning. Proper VLAN and subnet design should be implemented to ensure accurate endpoint identification and classification.

2. Endpoint Group (EPG) Definition: Defining and associating EPGs with appropriate policies is essential. EPGs help categorize endpoints based on their characteristics, allowing for granular policy enforcement and simplified management.

Diagram: ACI Endpoint Learning. The source is Cisco.

 

Forwarding Behavior. The COOP database

Local and remote endpoints are learned from the data plane, but remote endpoints are local caches. Cisco ACI’s fabric relies heavily on local endpoints for endpoint information. A leaf is responsible for reporting its local endpoints to the Council Of Oracle Protocol (COOP) database located on each spine switch, which implies that all endpoint information in the Cisco ACI fabric is stored there.

Each leaf does not need to know about all the remote endpoints to forward packets to the remote endpoints because this database is accessible. When a leaf does not know about a remote endpoint, it can still forward packets to spine switches. This forwarding behavior is called spine proxy.

Diagram: Endpoint Learning. The source is Cisco.

In a traditional network environment, switches rely on the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) to map IP addresses to MAC addresses. However, this approach becomes inefficient as the network scales, resulting in increased network traffic and complexity. Cisco ACI addresses this challenge by utilizing local endpoint learning, a more intelligent and efficient method of mapping MAC addresses to IP addresses.

Diagram: Local and Remote endpoint learning. The source is Cisco.

ACI Cisco: The Main Features

We have a lot of changes right now that are impacting almost every aspect of IT. Applications are changing immensely, and we see their life cycles broken into smaller windows as the applications become less structured. In addition, containers and microservices are putting new requirements on the underlying infrastructure, such as the data centers they live in. This is one of the main reasons why a distributed system, including a data center, is better suited for this environment.

Distributed system/Intelligence at the edge

Like all networks, the Cisco ACI network still has a control and data plane. From the control and data plane perspective, the Cisco ACI architecture is still a distributed system. Each switch has intelligence and knows what it needs to do—one of the differences between ACI and traditional SDN approaches that try to centralize the control plane. If you try to centralize the control plan, you may hit scalability limits, not to mention a single point of failure and an avenue for bad actors to penetrate.

Cisco ACI Design
Diagram: Cisco ACI Design. Source Cisco Live.

MPLS overlay

In the following guide, we have an example of an MPLS overlay. Similar to that of Cisco ACI, an MPLS overlay pushes intelligence to the edge of the networks. MPLS overlay is a technique that enables the creation of virtual private networks (VPNs) over a shared IP infrastructure.

It involves encapsulating data packets with MPLS labels, allowing routers to forward traffic based on these labels rather than the traditional IP routing. This process enhances network efficiency, reduces complexity, and creates secure and isolated network segments.

Two PE nodes are running BGP, while the P nodes representing the core only run an IGP plus LDP. In the core, we have label switch paths that bring a lot of scalability.

MPLS overlay
Diagram: MPLS Overlay

Two large core devices

If we examine the traditional data center architecture, intelligence is often in two central devices. You could have two large core devices. What the network used to control and secure has changed dramatically with virtualization via hypervisors. We’re seeing faster change with containers and microservices being deployed more readily.

As a result, an overlay networking model is better suited. However, in a VXLAN overlay network, the intelligence is distributed across the leaf switch layer.

Therefore, distributed systems are better than centralized systems for more scale, resilience, and security. By distributing the Intelligence to the leaf layer, the scalability is not determined by the scalability of each leaf and is determined at a fabric level. However, there are scale limits on each device. Therefore, scalability as a whole is determined by the network design.

A key point: Overlay networking

The Cisco ACI architecture provides an integrated Layer 2 and 3 VXLAN-based overlay networking capability to offload network encapsulation processing from the compute nodes onto the top-of-rack or ACI leaf switches. This architecture provides the flexibility of software overlay networking in conjunction with the performance and operational benefits of hardware-based networking. We will have a lab guide on overlay networking in just a moment.

ACI infrastructure
Diagram: ACI infrastructure.

ACI Cisco New Concepts

Networking in the Cisco ACI architecture differs from what you may use in traditional network designs. It’s not different because we use an entirely new set of protocols. ACI uses standards-based protocols such as BGP, VXLAN, and IS-IS. However, the new networking constructs inside the ACI fabric exist only to support policy.

ACI has been referred to as stateless architecture. As a result, the network devices have no application-specific configuration until a policy is defined stating how that application or traffic should be treated on the network.

This is a new and essential concept to grasp. So, now, with the ACI, the network devices in the fabric have no application-specific configuration until there is a defined policy. No configuration is tied to a device. With a traditional configuration model, we have many designs on a device, even if it’s not being used. For example, we had ACL and QoS parameters configured, but nothing was using them.

  • Cisco ACI: Stateless Architecture.

  • ACI Network: Standards-based protocols such as BGP.

  • ACI Network: New ACI network constructs.

  • ACI Fabric Contructs: EPGs and Contracts.

  • Cisco ACI Architecture: VXLAN distributed architecture.

  • Cisco ACI Fabric: No policy tied to devices.

The APIC controller

The APICs, the management plan that defined the policy, do not need to push resources when nothing connected utilizes that. The APIC controller can see the entire fabric and has a holistic viewpoint.

Therefore, it can correlate configurations and integrate them with devices to help manage and maintain the security policy you define. We see every device on the fabric, physical or virtual, and can maintain policy consistency and, more importantly, recognize when policy needs to be enforced. 

APIC Controller
Diagram: APIC Controller. Source Cisco Live.

Endpoint groups (EPG)

We touched on this a moment ago. Groups or endpoint groups (EPGs) and contracts are core to the ACI. Because this is a zero-trust network by default, communication is blocked in hardware until a policy consisting of groups and contracts is defined. With Endpoint Groups, we can decouple and separate the physical or virtual workloads from the constraints of IP addresses and VLANs. 

So, we are grouping similar workloads into groups known as Endpoint Groups. Then, we can control group behavior by applying policy to the groups and not the endpoints in the group. As a security best practice, it is essential to group similar workloads with similar security sensitivity levels and then apply the policy to the endpoint group.

For example, a traditional data center network could have database and application servers in the same segment controlled by a VLAN with no intra-VLAN filtering. The EPG approach removes the barriers we have had with traditional networks with the limitation of the IP address being used as the identifier and locator and the VLANs restrictions.

This is a new way of thinking and allows devices to communicate with each other without having to change the IP address, VLAN, or subnet.

ACI Endpoint Groups
Diagram: ACI Endpoint Groups. Source Cisco Live.

EPG Communication

The EPG provides a better way to provide segmentation than the VLAN, which was never meant to live in a world of security. Anything in the group, by default, can communicate freely, and Inter-EPG communication needs a policy. This policy construct that ACI uses is called a contract. So, having similar workloads of similar security levels in the same EPG makes sense. All devices inside the same endpoint group can talk to each other freely.

This behavior can be modified with intra-EPG isolation, similar to a private VLAN where communication between group members is not allowed. Or, intra-EPG contracts can be used only to allow specific communications between devices in an EPG.

Endpoint groups
Diagram: Cisco Endpoint Groups (EPG).

Data Center Network Challenges

Let us examine well-known data center challenges and how the Cisco ACI network solves them.

Cisco Data Center

Cisco ACI 

Challenges

  • Complicated Topologies

  • Oversubscription

  • Varying Bandwidths

  • Management Challenges

Cisco Data Center

Cisco ACI 

Challenges

  • Lack of Portability

  • Issues with ACL

  • Issues with Spanning Tree

  • Core-Distribution Designs

Complicated topologies

Usually, a traditional data center network design uses core distribution access layers. When you add more devices, this topology can be complicated to manage. Cisco ACI uses a simple spine-leaf topology wherein all the connections within the Cisco ACI fabric are from leaf-to-spine switches, and a mesh topology is between them. There is no leaf-to-leaf and no spine-to-spine connectivity.

How ACI Cisco overcomes this

The Cisco ACI architecture uses the leaf-spine, consisting of a two-tier “fat tree” topology with equidistant bandwidths. The leaf layer connects to the physical and virtual workloads and network services. The spine layer is the transport layer that interconnects the leaves.

Oversubscription

Oversubscription generally means potentially requiring more resources from a device, link, or component than are available. Therefore, the oversubscription ratio must be examined at multiple aggregation points in the design, including the line card to switch fabric bandwidth and the switch fabric input to uplink bandwidth.

Oversubscription Example

Let’s look at a typical 2-layer network topology with access switches and a central core switch. The access switches have 24 user ports and one uplink port. The uplink port is connected to the core switch. Each access switch has 24 1Gb user ports and a 10Gb uplink port. So, in theory, if all the user ports are transmitted to a server simultaneously, they would require 24 GB of bandwidth (24 x 1 GB).

However, the uplink port is only 10, limiting the maximum bandwidth to all the user ports. The uplink port is oversubscribed because the theoretical required bandwidth (24Gb) exceeds the available bandwidth (10Gb). Oversubscription is expressed as a ratio of bandwidth needed to available bandwidth. In this case, it’s 24Gb/10Gb or 2.

Varying bandwidths

We have layers of oversubscription with the traditional core, distribution, and access designs. We have oversubscription at the access, distribution, and core layers. The cause of this will give varying bandwidth to endpoints if they want to communicate with an endpoint that is near or an endpoint that is far away. With this approach, endpoints on the same switch will have more bandwidth than two endpoints communicating across the core layer.

Users and application owners don’t care about networks; they want to place their workload wherever the computer is and want the same BW regardless of where you place it. However, with traditional designs, the bandwidth available depends on where the endpoints are located.

How ACI Cisco overcomes this

The ACI leaf and spine have equidistant endpoints between any two endpoints. So if any two servers have the same bandwidths, which is a big plus for data center performance, then it doesn’t matter where you place the workload, which is a big plus for virtualized workloads. This gives you unlimited workload placement.

data center challenges
Diagram: Data center challenges.

Lack of portability

Applications are built on top of many building blocks. We use contracts such as VLANs, IP addresses, and ACLs to create connectivity. We use these constructs to create and translate the application requirements to the network infrastructure. These constructs are hardened into the network with configurations applied before connectivity.

These configurations are not very portable. It’s not that they were severely designed; they were never meant to be portable. Location Independent Separation Protocol (LISP) did an excellent job making them portable. However, they are hard-coded for a particular requirement at that time. Therefore, if we have the exact condition in a different data center location, we must reconfigure the IP address, VLANs, and ACLs. 

How ACI Cisco overcomes this

An application refers to a set of networking components that provides connectivity for a given set of workloads. These workloads’ relationship is what ACI calls an “application,” and the connection is expressed by what ACI calls an application network profile. With a Cisco ACI design, we can create what is known as Application Network Profiles (ANPs).

The ANP expresses the relationship between the application and its communications. It is a configuration template used to express the relationship between segments. The ACI then translates those relationships into networking constructs such as VLANs, VXLAN, VRF, and IP addresses that the devices in the network can then implement.

Issues with ACL

The traditional ACL is very tightly coupled with the network topology, and anything that is tightly coupled will kill agility. It is configured on a specific ingress and egress interface and pre-set to expect a particular traffic flow. These interfaces are usually at demarcation points in the network. However, many other points in the network could do so with security filtering.

How ACI Cisco overcomes this

The fundamental security architecture of the Cisco ACI design follows an allow-list model where we explicitly define what traffic should be permitted. A contract is a policy construct used to define communication between EPGs.  Without a contract between EPGs, no unicast communication is possible between those EPGs unless the VRF is configured in “unenforced” mode or those EPGs are in a preferred group.

A contract is not required to communicate between endpoints in the same EPG (although transmission can be prevented with intra-EPG isolation or intra-EPG contract). We have a different construct to apply the policy in ACI. We use the contract construct, and within the contract construct, we have subjects and filters that specify how endpoints are allowed to communicate.

These managed objects are not tied to the network’s topology because they are not applied to a specific interface. Instead, the contracts are used in the intersection between EPGs. They represent rules the network must enforce irrespective of where these endpoints are connected.   

Issues with Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)

A significant shortcoming of STP is that it is a brittle failure mode that can bring down entire data centers or campus networks when something goes wrong. Though modifications and enhancements have addressed some of these risks, this has happened at the cost of technical debt in design and maintenance.

When you think about how this works, we have a BPDU that acts as a HELLO mechanism, and when we stop receiving the BPDUs and the link stays up, we decide to forward all the links. So, spanning Tree Protocol causes outages.

How ACI Cisco overcomes this

The Cisco ACI does not run Spanning Tree Protocol natively, meaning the ACI control plane does not run STP. Inside the fabric, we are running IS-IS as the interior routing protocol. If we stop receiving, we don’t go into an all-forwarding state with IS-IS. As we have IP reachability between Leaf and Spine, we don’t have to block ports and see actual traffic flows that are not the same as the physical topology.

So, within the ACI fabric, we have all the advantages of layer three networks, which are more robust and predictable than we have with an STP design. With ACI, we don’t rely on SPT for the topology design. Instead, the ACI uses ECMP for layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding. We can use ECMP because we have routed links between the leaves and spines in the ACI fabric. So, the ACI has ECMP for Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding.

leaf and spine design
Diagram: Leaf and spine design.

Core-distribution design

The traditional design uses VLANs to logically segment Layer 2 boundaries and broadcast domains. VLANs use network links inefficiently, resulting in rigid device placement. We also have a cap on the number of VLANs we can create. Some applications require that you need Layer 2 adjacencies.

For example, clustering software requires Layer 2 adjacency between source and destination servers. However, if we are routing at the access layer, only servers connected to the same access switch with the same VLANs trunked down would be Layer 2-adjacent. 

How ACI Cisco overcomes this

VXLAN solves this dilemma in ACI by decoupling Layer 2 domains from the underlying Layer 3 network infrastructure. With ACI, we are using the concepts of overlays to provide this abstract. Isolated Layer 2 domains can be connected over a Layer 3 network using VXLAN. Packets are transported across the fabric using Layer 3 routing.

This paradigm fully supports layer 2 networks. Large layer-2 domains will always be needed, for example, for VM mobility, clusters that don’t or can’t use dynamic DNS and non-IP traffic, and broadcast-based intra-subnet communication.

Cisco ACI Architecture: Leaf and Spine

The fabric is symmetric with a leaf and spine design, and we have central bandwidth. Therefore, regardless of where a device is connected to the fabric, it has the same bandwidth as every other device connected to the same fabric. This removes the placement restrictions that we have with traditional data center designs. A spine-leaf architecture is a data center network topology that consists of two switching layers—a spine and a leaf.

The leaf layer comprises access switches that aggregate server traffic and connect directly to the spine or network core. Spine switches interconnect all leaf switches in a full-mesh topology.

With low latency east-west traffic, optimized traffic flows are imperative for performance, especially for time-sensitive or data-intensive applications. A spine-leaf architecture aids this by ensuring traffic is always the same number of hops from its next destination, so latency is lower and predictable.

Displaying a VXLAN tunnel 

We have expanded the original design and added VXLAN. We are creating a Layer 2 network, or, more specifically, a Layer 2 overlay over a Layer 3 routed core. The Layer 2 extension allows the two hosts, desktop 0 and desktop 1, to communicate over the Layer 2 overlay that VXLAN creates.

The IP addresses of the hosts are 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2 and are not reachable via the Leaf switches. The leaf switches cannot ping these. Consider the Leaf and the Spine switches a standard Layer 3 WAN or network for this lab. So we have unicast connectivity over the WAN.

The only IP routing addition I have added is the new loopback addresses on Leaf 1 and 2, of 1.1.1.1/32 and 2.2.2.2/32, used for ingress replication for VXLAN. Remember that the ACI is one of many products that use Layer 2 overlays. VXLAN can be used as a Layer 2 DCI. For a lab guide displaying Multicast VXLAN, go to this blogWhat is VXLAN

VXLAN overlay
Diagram: VXLAN Overlay

Notice below I am running a ping from desktop 0 to the corresponding desktop. These hosts are in the 10.0.0.0/8 range, and the core does not know these subnets. I’m also running a packet capture on the link Gi1 connected to Leaf A.

Notice the source and destination are 1.1.1.1 and 2.2.2.2.2, which are the VTEPs, and the IMCP traffic is encapsulated into UDP port 1024. The UDP port 1024 is explicitly set in the confirmation as the VXLAN port to use.

VXLAN unicast mode

ACI Network: VXLAN transport network

In a leaf-spine ACI fabric, We have a native Layer 3 IP fabric that supports equal-cost multi-path (ECMP) routing between any two endpoints in the network—using VXLAN as the overlay protocol allows any workload to exist anywhere in the network.

We can have physical and virtual machines in the same logical layer 2 domain while running layer 3 routing to the top of each rack. So we can have several endpoints connected to each leaf, and for one endpoint to communicate with another endpoint, we use VXLAN.

So, the transport of the ACI fabric is carried out with VXLAN. The ACI encapsulates traffic with VXLAN and forwards the data traffic across the fabric. Any policy that needs to be implemented gets applied at the leaf layer. All traffic on the fabric is encapsulated with VXLAN. This allows us to support standard bridging and routing semantics without the standard location constraints.

Diagram: VXLAN operations. The source is Cisco.
  • A key point – Video 3: Demonstration on overlay networking with VXLAN

The following video gives a deep dive into the operations of VXLAN—the VLAN tag field defined in 1. IEEE 802.1Q has 12 bits for host identification, supporting a maximum of only 4094 VLANs. It’s common these days to have a multi-tiered application deployment where every tier requires its segment, and with literally thousands of multi-tier application segments, this will run out.

Then came along the Virtual extensible local area network (VXLAN). VXLAN uses a 24-bit network segment ID, called a VXLAN network identifier (VNI), for identification. This is much larger than the 12 bits used for traditional VLAN identification.

Technology Brief : VXLAN – Introducing VXLAN
Prev 1 of 1 Next
Prev 1 of 1 Next

Council of Oracle Protocol

COOP protocol in ACI and the ACI fabric

The fabric appears to the outside as one switch capable of forwarding Layers 2 and 3. In addition, the fabric is a Layer 3 network routed network and enables all links to be active, providing ECMP forwarding in the fabric for both Layer 2 and Layer 3. Inside the fabric, we have routing protocols such as BGP; we also use Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System Protocol (IS-IS) and Council of Oracle Protocol (COOP) for all forwarding endpoint-to-endpoint communications.

The COOP protocol in ACI communicates the mapping information (location and identity) to the spine proxy. A leaf switch forwards endpoint address information to the spine switch ‘Oracle’ using Zero Message Queue (ZMQ). The COOP protocol in ACI is something new to data centers. The Leaf switches use COOP to report local station information to the Spine (Oracle) switches.

COOP protocol in ACI

Let’s look at an example of how the COOP protocol in ACI works. We have a Leaf that learns of a host. The Leaf reports this information; let’s say it knows Host B and sends this to one of the Spine switches chosen randomly using the Council Of Oracle Protocol.

The Spine switch then relays this information to all the other Spines in the ACI fabric so that every Spine has a complete record of every single endpoint. The Spines switches record the information learned via the COOP in the Global Proxy Table, which resolves unknown destination MAC/IP addresses when traffic is sent to the Proxy address.

Lab guide on the COOP database.

So, we know that the Spine has a COOP database of all endpoints in the fabric. Council of Oracle Protocol (COOP) is used to communicate the mapping information (location and identity) to the spine proxy. A leaf switch forwards endpoint address information to the spine switch ‘Oracle’ using Zero Message Queue (ZMQ).

The command: Show coop internal info repo key allows us to verify that the endpoint is in the COOP database using the BD VNID of 16154554 mapped to the MAC address of 0050.5690.3eeb. With this command, you can also see the tunnel next hop and IPv4 and IPv6 addresses tied to this MAC address.

coop protocol in ACI
Diagram: COOP protocol in ACI

The fabric constructs

The ACI Fabric contains several new network constructs specific to ACI that enable us to abstract much of the complexity we had with traditional data center designs. These new concepts are ACI’s Endpoint Groups, Contracts, Bridge Domains, and COOP protocol.

In addition, we have a distributed Layer 3 Anycast gateway function that ensures optimal Layer 3 and Layer 2 forwarding. We also have original constructs you may have used, such as VRFs. The layer 3 anycast feature is popular and allows flexible placement of the default gateway suited for designs that need to be agile.

Extending the ACI Fabric

Developing the Cisco ACI architecture

I have always found extending data risky when undergoing data center network design projects. However, the Cisco ACI architecture can be extended without the traditional Layer 2 and 3 Data Center Interconnect (DCI) mechanisms. Here, we can use Multi-Pod and Multi-Site and better control large environments that need to span multiple locations and for applications to share those multiple locations in active-active application deployments.

Diagram: Extending the ACI fabric. Source is Cisco

When considering data center designs, terms such as active-active and active-passive are often discussed. In addition, enterprises are generally looking for data center solutions that provide geographical redundancy for their applications.

Enterprises also need to be able to place workloads in any data center where computing capacity exists—and they often need to distribute members of the same cluster across multiple data center locations to provide continuous availability in the event of a data center failure. The ACI gives us options for extending the fabric to multiple locations and location types.

For example, there are stretched fabric, multi-pod, multi-site designs, and, more recently, Cisco Cloud ACI.

Cisco ACI Design
Diagram: Cisco ACI design: Extending the network.

ACI design: Multi pod

The ACI Multi-Pod is the next evolution of the original stretch fabric design we discussed. The architecture consists of multiple ACI Pods connected by an IP Inter-Pod Layer 3 network. With the stretched fabric, we have one Pod across several locations. Cisco ACI MultiPod is part of the “single APIC cluster/single domain” family of solutions; a single APIC cluster is deployed to manage all the interconnected ACI networks.

These ACI networks are called “pods,” Each looks like a regular two-tier spine-leaf topology. The same APIC cluster can manage several pods.  All of the nodes deployed across the individual pods are under the control of the same APIC cluster. The separate pods are managed as if they were logically a single entity. This gives you operational simplicity. We also have a fault-tolerant fabric since each Pod has isolated control plane protocols.

Diagram: Multi-pod. Source is Cisco

ACI design: Cisco cloud ACI

Cisco Cloud APIC is an essential new solution component introduced in the architecture of Cisco Cloud ACI. It plays the equivalent of APIC for a cloud site. Like the APIC for on-premises Cisco ACI sites, Cloud APIC manages network policies for the cloud site it runs on by using the Cisco ACI network policy model to describe the policy intent.

ACI design: Multisite

ACI Multi-Site enables you to interconnect separate APIC cluster domains or fabric, each representing a separate availability zone. As a result, we have separate and independent APIC domains and fabrics. This way, we can manage multiple fabrics as regions or availability zones. ACI Multi-Site is the easiest DCI solution in the industry. Communication between endpoints in separate sites (Layers 2 and 3) is enabled simply by creating and pushing a contract between the endpoints’ EPGs.

Cisco ACI Architecture

ACI Network

Cisco ACI 

  • Leaf and Spine

  • Equidistant endpoints

  • ACI APIC Controller

  • Multi-Pod and Multi-Site

  • VXLAN Overlay

  • Endpoint Groups

  • Bridge Domains

  • VRFs

  • Automation and Consitency

  • Multi-cloud support

  • Zero Trust Security 

  • Central Management

 

ACI networks

ACI Networks

 

 

ACI Networks

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, reliable and efficient network connectivity is crucial for businesses of all sizes. As technology advances, traditional network infrastructures often struggle to meet growing demands. However, a game-changing solution is transforming how companies operate and communicate – ACI Networks.

ACI, or application-centric infrastructure, is a cutting-edge networking architecture focusing on application requirements rather than traditional network infrastructure. It provides a holistic and programmable approach to network management, enabling businesses to achieve unprecedented agility, scalability, and security. By leveraging software-defined networking (SDN) principles, ACI networks centralize control, simplify network operations, and enhance overall performance.

 

Highlights: ACI Networks

  • The Traditional Data Center 

Firstly, the Cisco data center design traditionally built our networks based on hierarchical data center topologies. This is often referred to as the traditional data center with a three-tier structure with an access layer, an aggregation layer, and a core layer. Historically, this design enabled substantial predictability because aggregation switch blocks simplified the spanning-tree topology. In addition, the need for scalability often pushed this design into modularity with ACI networks and ACI Cisco, which increased predictability.

  • The Challenges

However, although we increased predictability, the main challenge inherent in the three-tier models is that it was difficult to scale. As the number of endpoints increases and the need to move between segments, we need to span layer 2. This is a significant difference between the traditional and the ACI data center.

 

Related: For pre-information, you may find the following post helpful:

  1. Data Center Security 

 



ACI Networks


Key ACI Networks Discussion Points:


  • Design around issues with Spanning Tree Protocol.

  • Layer 2 all the way to the Core.

  • Routing at the Access layer.

  • The changes from ECMP.

  • ACI networks and normalization.

  • Leaf and Spine designs.

 

Back to basics: ACI Networks

Critical Benefits of ACI Networks

Cisco ACI 

Main ACI Networks Components

ACI Networks

  • Enhanced Scalability and Flexibility

  • Simplified Network Operations:

  • Enhanced Security:

  • Data Centrer and Network Virtualization

Enhanced Scalability and Flexibility:

One of the critical advantages of ACI networks is their ability to scale and adapt to changing business needs. Traditional networks often struggle to accommodate rapid growth or dynamic workloads, leading to performance bottlenecks. ACI networks, on the other hand, offer seamless scalability and flexibility, allowing businesses to quickly scale up or down as required without compromising performance or security.

Simplified Network Operations:

Gone are the days of manual network configurations and time-consuming troubleshooting. ACI networks introduce a centralized management approach, where policies and structures can be defined and automated across the entire network infrastructure. This simplifies network operations, reduces human errors, and enables IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than mundane tasks.

Enhanced Security:

In today’s threat landscape, network security is paramount. ACI networks integrate security as a foundational element rather than an afterthought. With ACI’s microsegmentation capabilities, businesses can create granular security policies and isolate workloads, effectively containing potential threats and minimizing the impact of security breaches. This approach ensures that critical data and applications remain protected despite evolving cyber threats.

Real-World Use Cases of ACI Networks

Data Centers and Cloud Environments:

ACI networks have revolutionized data center and cloud environments, enabling businesses to achieve unprecedented agility and efficiency. By providing a unified management platform, ACI networks simplify data center operations, enhance workload mobility, and optimize resource utilization. Furthermore, ACI’s seamless integration with cloud platforms ensures consistent network policies and security across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

Network Virtualization and Automation:

ACI networks are a game-changer for network virtualization and automation. By abstracting network functionality from physical hardware, ACI enables businesses to create virtual networks, provision services on-demand, and automate network operations. Streamlining network deployments accelerates service delivery, reduces costs, and improves overall performance.

 

The Traditional Data Center

Our journey towards ACI started in the early 1990s, looking at the most traditional and well-known two- or three-layer network architecture. This Core/Aggregation/Access design was generally used and recommended for campus enterprise networks.

At that time and in that environment, it delivered sufficient quality for typical client-server types of applications. The traditional design taken from campus networks was based on Layer 2 connectivity between all network parts, segmentation was implemented using VLANs, and the loop-free topology relied on the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP).

Scaling such an architecture implies the growth of broadcast and failure domains, which could be more beneficial for the resulting performance and stability. For instance, picture each STP Topology Change Notification (TCN) message causing MAC tables aging in the whole datacenter for a particular VLAN, followed by excessive BUM (Broadcast, Unknown Unicast, Multicast) traffic flooding until all MACs are relearned.

 

Designing around STP

Before we delve into the Cisco ACI overview, let us first address some basics around STP design. The traditional Cisco data center design often leads to poor network design and human error. You don’t want a layer 2 segment between the data center unless you have the proper controls.

Although modularization is still desired in networks today, the general trend has been to move away from this design type that evolves around spanning tree to a more flexible and scalable solution with VXLAN and other similar Layer 3 overlay technologies. In addition, the Layer 3 overlay technologies bring a lot of network agility, which is vital to business success.

Agility refers to making changes, deploying services, and supporting the business at its desired speed. This means different things to different organizations. For example, a network team can be considered agile if it can deploy network services in a matter of weeks.

In others, it could mean that business units in a company should be able to get applications to production or scale core services on demand through automation with Ansible CLI or Ansible Tower.

Regardless of how you define agility, there is little disagreement with the idea that network agility is vital to business success. The problem is that network agility has traditionally been hard to achieve until now with the ACI data center. Let’s recap some of the leading Cisco data center design transitions to understand fully.

 

Cisco data center design
Diagram: Cisco data center design transformation.

 

Cisco ACI Overview: The Need for ACI Networks

Layer 2 to the Core

The traditional SDN data center has gone through several transitions. Firstly, we had Layer 2 to the core. Then, from the access to the core, we had Layer 2 and not Layer 3. A design like this would, for example, trunk all VLANs to the core. For redundancy, you would manually prune VLANs from the different trunk links.

Our challenge with this approach of having Layer 2 to the core relies on Spanning Tree Protocol. Therefore, redundant links are blocked. As a result, we don’t have the total bandwidth, leading to performance degradation and waste of resources. Another challenge is to rely on topology changes to fix the topology.

Data Center Design

Data Center Stability

Layer 2 to the Core layer

STP blocks reduandant links

Manual pruning of VLANs

STP for topology changes

Efficient design

Spanning Tree Protocol does have timers to limit the convergence and can be tuned for better performance. Still, we rely on the convergence from Spanning Tree Protocol to fix the topology, but Spanning Tree Protocol was never meant to be a routing protocol.

Compared to other protocols operating higher up in the stack, they are designed to be more optimized to react to changes in the topology. However, STP is not an optimized control plane protocol, significantly hindering the traditional data center. You could relate this to how VLANs have transitioned to become a security feature. However, their purpose was originally for performance reasons.

Routing to Access Layer

The Layer 3 boundary gets pushed further to the network’s edge to overcome these challenges to build stable data center networks. Layer 3 networks can use the advances in routing protocols to handle failures and link redundancy much more efficiently.

It is a lot more efficient than Spanning Tree Protocol, which should never have been there in the first place. Then we had routing at the access. With this design, we can eliminate the Spanning Tree Protocol to the core and then run Equal Cost MultiPath (ECMP) from the access to the core.

We can run ECMP as we are now Layer 3 routing from the access to the core layer instead of running STP that blocks redundant links.  However, equal-cost multipath (ECMP) routes offer a simple way to share the network load by distributing traffic onto other paths.

ECMP is typically applied only to entire flows or sets of flows. Destination address, source address, transport level ports, and payload protocol may characterize a flow in this respect.

Data Center Design

Data Center Stability


Layer 3 to the Core layer

Routing protocol stability 

Automatic routing  convergence

STP for topology changes

Efficient design

  • A Key Point: Equal Cost MultiPath (ECMP)

Equal Cost MultiPath (ECMP) brings many advantages; firstly, ECMP gives us total bandwidth with equal-cost links. As we are routing, we no longer have to block redundant links to prevent loops at Layer 2. However, we still have Layer 2 in the network design and Layer 2 on the access layer; therefore, parts of the network will still rely on the Spanning Tree Protocol, which converges when there is a change in the topology.

So we may have Layer 3 from the access to the core, but we still have Layer 2 connections at the edge and rely on STP to block redundant links to prevent loops. Another potential drawback is that having smaller Layer 2 domains can limit where the application can reside in the data center network, which drives more of a need to transition from the traditional data center design.

 

data center network design
Diagram: Data center network design: Equal cost multipath.

 

The Layer 2 domain that the applications may use could be limited to a single server rack connected to one ToR or two ToR for redundancy with a layer 2 interlink between the two ToR switches to pass the Layer 2 traffic.

These designs are not optimal, as you must specify where your applications are set. Therefore, putting the breaks on agility. As a result, there was another critical Cisco data center design transition, and this was the introduction to overlay data center designs.

 

Cisco ACI Overview

Cisco data center design: The rise of virtualization

Virtualization is creating a virtual — rather than actual — version of something, such as an operating system (OS), a server, a storage device, or network resources. Virtualization uses software that simulates hardware functionality to create a virtual system.

It is creating a virtual version of something like computer hardware. It was initially developed during the mainframe era. With virtualization, the virtual machine could exist on any host. As a result, Layer 2 had to be extended to every switch.

This was problematic for Larger networks as the core switch had to learn every MAC address for every flow that traversed it. To overcome this and take advantage of the convergence and stability of layer 3 networks, overlay networks became the choice for data center networking, along with introducing control plane technologies such as EVPM MPLS.

VXLAN
Diagram: Changing the VNI

Overlay networking with VXLAN

VXLAN is an encapsulation protocol that provides data center connectivity using tunneling to stretch Layer 2 connections over an underlying Layer 3 network. VXLAN is the most commonly used protocol in data centers to create a virtual overlay solution that sits on top of the physical network, enabling virtual networks. The VXLAN protocol supports the virtualization of the data center network while addressing the needs of multi-tenant data centers by providing the necessary segmentation on a large scale.

Here, we are encapsulating traffic into a VXLAN header and forwarding between VXLAN tunnel endpoints, known as the VTEPs. With overlay networking, we have the overlay and the underlay concept. By encapsulating the traffic into the overlay VXLAN, we now use the underlay, which in the ACI is provided by IS-IS, to provide the Layer 3 stability and redundant paths using Equal Cost Multipathing (ECMP) along with the fast convergence of routing protocols.

 

Horizontal scaling load balancing

 

The Cisco Data Center Design Transition

The Cisco data center design has gone through several stages when you think about it. First, we started with Spanning Tree, moved to the Spanning Tree with vPCs, and then replaced the Spanning Tree with FabricPath. FabricPath is what is known as a MAC-in-MAC Encapsulation.

Then we returned Spanning Tree with VXLAN: VXLAN vs VLAN, a MAC-in-IP Encapsulation. Today, in the data center, VXLAN is the de facto overlay protocol for data center networking. The Cisco ACI uses an enhanced version of VXLAN to implement both Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding with a unified control plane. Replacing SpanningTree with VXLAN, where we have a MAC-in-IP encapsulation, was a welcomed milestone for data center networking.

VXLAN multicast mode
Diagram: VXLAN multicast mode

 

Cisco ACI Overview: Introduction to the ACI Networks

The base of the ACI network is the Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure Fabric (ACI)—the Cisco SDN solution for the data center. Cisco has taken a different approach from the centralized control plane SDN approach with other vendors and has created a scalable data center solution that can be extended to multiple on-premises, public, and private cloud locations.

The ACI networks have many components, including Cisco Nexus 9000 Series switches with the APIC Controller running in the spine leaf architecture ACI fabric mode. These components form the building blocks of the ACI, supporting a dynamic integrated physical and virtual infrastructure.

The Cisco ACI version

Before Cisco ACI 4.1, the Cisco ACI fabric allowed only a two-tier (spine-and-leaf switch) topology. Each leaf switch is connected to every spine switch in the network with no interconnection between leaf switches or spine switches.

Starting from Cisco ACI 4.1, the Cisco ACI fabric allows a multitier (three-tier) fabric and two tiers of leaf switches, which provides the capability for vertical expansion of the Cisco ACI fabric. This is useful to migrate a traditional three-tier architecture of core aggregation access that has been a standard design model for many enterprise networks and is still required today.

ACI fabric Details
Diagram: Cisco ACI fabric Details

The APIC Controller

The ACI networks are driven by the Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller ( APIC) database working in a cluster from the management perspective. The APIC is the centralized control point; you can do everything you want to configure in the APIC.

Consider the APIC to be the brains of the ACI fabric and server as the single source of truth for configuration within the fabric. The APIC controller is a policy engine and holds the defined policy, which tells the other elements in the ACI fabric what to do. This database allows you to manage the network as a single entity. 

In summary, the APIC is the infrastructure controller and is the 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 is not involved in data plane forwarding.

data center layout
Diagram: Data center layout: The Cisco APIC controller

 

The APIC represents the management plane, allowing the system to maintain the control and data plane in the network. The APIC is not the control plane device, nor does it sit in the data traffic path. Remember that the APIC controller can crash, and you still have forwarded in the fabric. The ACI solution is not an SDN centralized control plane approach. The ACI is a distributed fabric with independent control planes on all fabric switches. 

 

Cisco Data Center Design: The Leaf and Spine 

Leaf-spine is a two-layer data center network topology for data centers that experience more east-west network traffic than north-south traffic. The topology comprises leaf switches (servers and storage connect) and spine switches (to which leaf switches connect).

In this two-tier Clos architecture, every lower-tier switch (leaf layer) is connected to each top-tier switch (Spine layer) in a full-mesh topology. The leaf layer consists of access switches connecting to devices like servers.

The Spine layer is the network’s backbone and interconnects all Leaf switches. Every Leaf switch connects to every spine switch in the fabric. The path is randomly chosen, so the traffic load is evenly distributed among the top-tier switches. Therefore, if one of the top-tier switches fails, it would only slightly degrade performance throughout the data center.

SDN data center
Diagram: Cisco ACI fabric checking.

Unlike the traditional Cisco data center design, the ACI data center operates with a Leaf and Spine architecture. Now, traffic comes in through a device sent from an end host. In the ACI data center, this is known as a Leaf device.

We also have the Spine devices that are Layer 3 routers with no unique hardware dependencies. In a primary Leaf and Spine fabric, every Leaf is connected to every Spine. Any endpoint in the fabric is always the same distance regarding hops and latency from every other internal endpoint.

The ACI Spine switches are Clos intermediary switches with many vital functions. Firstly, they exchange routing updates with leaf switches via Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS) and rapidly forward packets between them. They provide endpoint lookup services to leaf switches through the Council of Oracle Protocol (COOP). They also handle route reflection to the leaf switches using Multiprotocol BGP (MP-BGP).

Cisco ACI Overview
Diagram: Cisco ACI Overview.

The Leaf switches are the ingress/egress points for traffic into and out of the ACI fabric. In addition, they are the connectivity points for the various endpoints that the Cisco ACI supports. The leaf switches provide end-host connectivity.

The spines act as a fast, non-blocking Layer 3 forwarding plane that supports Equal Cost Multipathing (ECMP) between any two endpoints in the fabric and uses overlay protocols such as VXLAN under the hood. VXLAN enables any workload to exist anywhere in the fabric. Using VXLAN, we can now have workloads anywhere in the fabric without introducing too much complexity.

ACI data center and ACI networks

This is a significant improvement to data center networking. We can now have physical or virtual workloads in the same logical layer 2 domain, even running Layer 3 down to each ToR switch. The ACI data center is a scalable solution as the underlay is specifically built to be scalable as more links are added to the topology and resilient when links in the fabric are brought down due to, for example, maintenance or failure. 

 

ACI Networks: The Normalization event

VXLAN is an industry-standard protocol that extends Layer 2 segments over Layer 3 infrastructure to build Layer 2 overlay logical networks. The ACI infrastructure Layer 2 domains reside in the overlay, with isolated broadcast and failure bridge domains. This approach allows the data center network to grow without risking creating too large a failure domain. All traffic in the ACI fabric is normalized as VXLAN packets.

ACI encapsulates external VLAN, VXLAN, and NVGRE packets in a VXLAN packet at the ingress. This is known as ACI encapsulation normalization. As a result, the forwarding in the ACI data center fabric is not limited to or constrained by the encapsulation type or overlay network. If necessary, the ACI bridge domain forwarding policy can be defined to provide standard VLAN behavior where required.

Cisco ACI overview with making traffic ACI-compatible

As a final note in this Cisco ACI overview, let us address the normalization process. When traffic hits the Leaf, there is a normalization event. The normalization takes traffic from the servers to the ACI, making it ACI-compatible. Essentially, we are giving traffic sent from the servers a VXLAN ID to be sent across the ACI fabric.

Traffic is normalized, encapsulated with a VXLAN header, and routed across the ACI fabric to the destination Leaf, where the destination endpoint is. This is, in a nutshell, how the ACI Leaf and Spine work. We have a set of leaf switches that connect to the workloads and the spines that connect to the Leaf.

VXLAN is the overlay protocol that carries data traffic across the ACI data center fabric. A key point to this type of architecture is that the Layer 3 boundary is moved to the Leaf. This brings a lot of value and benefits to data center design. This boundary makes more sense as we must route and encapsulate this layer without going to the core layer.

In conclusion, ACI networks are revolutionizing how businesses connect and operate in the digital age. With their focus on application-centric infrastructure, ACI networks offer enhanced scalability, simplified network operations, and top-notch security. By leveraging ACI networks, businesses can unleash the full potential of their network infrastructure, ensuring seamless connectivity and staying ahead in today’s competitive landscape.

 

Summary: Understanding ACI Networks

ACI networks, short for application-centric infrastructure networks, represent a software-driven approach to networking that brings automation, agility, and simplicity to network operations. Unlike traditional networks that rely on manual configurations, ACI networks leverage policy-based automation, enabling organizations to manage and scale their network infrastructure efficiently. By abstracting network policies from the underlying physical infrastructure, ACI networks empower businesses to adapt to changing requirements quickly.

Section 1: The Building Blocks of ACI Networks

At the core of ACI networks lie two fundamental components: the Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) and the Nexus switches. The APIC is the central orchestrator, providing a unified view of the entire network fabric. It enables administrators to define policies and automate network provisioning, reducing human error and increasing operational efficiency. On the other hand, the Nexus switches form the backbone of the network, delivering high-performance connectivity and supporting advanced features such as micro-segmentation and traffic engineering.

Section 2: Key Benefits of ACI Networks

ACI networks offer many benefits that revolutionize connectivity for organizations of all sizes. Firstly, the automation capabilities of ACI networks streamline network management, reducing the time and effort required to provision, configure, and troubleshoot network infrastructure. This allows IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives and innovation rather than being bogged down by mundane tasks.

Secondly, ACI networks enhance security by implementing micro-segmentation. By dividing the network into smaller segments and applying specific security policies to each, ACI networks minimize the risk of lateral movement in case of a breach, protecting critical assets and sensitive information.

Lastly, ACI networks provide unparalleled scalability and agility. With their dynamic and flexible nature, businesses can quickly adapt their network infrastructure to accommodate changing requirements and rapidly deploy new services or applications. This agility enables organizations to stay ahead in today’s fast-paced digital landscape.

Conclusion: In conclusion, ACI networks are revolutionizing connectivity by offering a software-driven, automated, and secure approach to network management. By leveraging the power of ACI networks, businesses can unlock new levels of efficiency, scalability, and agility, enabling them to thrive in the digital era. Whether streamlining operations, fortifying security, or embracing innovation, ACI networks are paving the way toward a connected future.

 

Cisco ACI Overview