APIC Simulator in prod environment

[Portus92]

Hi,

Quick question regarding the APIC Simulator and a production ACI environment.

I would like to deploy the APIC Simulator as a VM in our virtualization cluster, which is connected to a production Cisco ACI fabric. 

My understanding is that the simulator runs the whole ACI fabric internally (simulated leafs/spines, TEPs, GIPO, etc.), and that none of this overlay traffic actually leaves the VM. From the production fabric perspective, it should just appear as a normal VM with a management IP.

Before doing this, I just want to confirm:

• Is it safe to run the APIC Simulator inside a VM connected to a production ACI fabric?

• Does the simulator generate any VXLAN, multicast, or other fabric-related traffic externally that could interfere with the real fabric?

• Or is the only external traffic basically regular management traffic (HTTPS/SSH/ICMP) from the VM?

Thank you!

[Daniel Slyk · Accepted solution]

Hi,

You can run the ACI Simulator VM inside a production ACI fabric safely.
Treat it like a normal workload in its dedicated EPG for example.

All of the ACI stuff stays within the VM. There will be no VXLAN to real leaves,
no TEP adjacency, no IS-IS, no multicast flooding etc.

There will be only HTTPS/SSH/ICMP etc, as you mentioned.

"Some of the simulated switch ports have been mapped to the front-panel server ports,
which allows you to connect external management entities such as ESX servers, vCenters,
vShields, bare metal servers, Layer 4 to Layer 7 services, AAA systems, and other physical
or virtual service VMs." - https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/dcn/aci/apic/6x/release-notes/cisco-aci-simulator-release-notes-621.html

I hope this helps.

[Portus92]

Thank you, it helps me a lot!