Cisco APIC 1.0 with UCSD 5.2 v2 Demo Available in dCloud

[arobotti]

Overview

Cisco UCS Director unifies and automates end-to-end IT converged infrastructure management processes by abstracting the complexity of individual devices, hypervisors, and virtual machines.

The Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (Cisco APIC) is the unifying point of automation and management for the Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) fabric. The Cisco APIC provides centralized access to all fabric information, optimizes the application lifecycle for scale and performance, and supports flexible application provisioning across physical and virtual resources.

This demonstration uses UCS Director to automate the deployment of a 3-Tier Application environment into ACI, UCS, VMware and creates an ASA L4-L7 Device with Service Graph.

It is available to all users in Cisco dCloud today - check it out now!

What's New

• New APIC Simulator 1.0(3f)
• Updated device packages for ASA to 1.1
• APIC configuration backed up and restored for saved sessions
• Upgraded UCSD to 5.2.0.1

Scenarios

• Use UCS Director to Create an APIC Tenant
• Use UCS Director to Add an ASA to an Existing Tenant
• Use UCS Director to Build a Virtual 3 Tier Application
• Use UCS Director to Build a Virtual/Physical 3 Tier Application
• Use UCS Director to Build a Virtual 3 Tier Application with ASA Service Graph
• Use UCS Director to Build a Virtual/Physical 3 Tier Application with ASA Service Graph
• Rollback of a UCS Director-Provisioned Configuration
• Advanced Operations

The Demo Guide also includes an overview of the configured systems, for advanced users who do not need to walk through the step-by-step scenarios.

Requirements

Required	Optional
Laptop	None for this release.

Components

• Cisco APIC Simulator 1.0(3f)
• Cisco UCS Director 5.2.0.1
• Cisco UCS Manager 2.2(3a)
• Windows 8 workstation
• 2 x VMware ESXi 5.5 hosts
• VMware vCenter Server 5.5
  • Cisco ASAv (9.3)
  • Cisco NetScaler 1000V (10.5)
  • 3 Tier App templates

Features

Virtual 3 Tier Application	This workflow creates all the APIC objects including EPG, Contracts, Application Profiles, etc for the three tiers (Web, App and DB) of an application. It then creates the VMs and associates them with the APIC-generated Port Profiles.
Virtual/Physical 3 Tier Application	This workflow creates the Tenant, EPG, Contracts etc in APIC and clones the VMs needed in the new application (Web and App tiers), then joins the VMs to the newly created port profiles in VC. It also creates the UCS Service Profile for the DB tier in USCM and attaches the VLAN selected in APIC EPG to the new SPs.
Virtual 3 Tier Application with ASA Service Graph	This workflow creates all the APIC objects including EPG, Contracts, and Application Profile for the three tiers (Web, App and DB) of an application. It then creates the VMs and associates them with the APIC-generated port profiles. Upon completion of the VMs, it creates and attaches an ASA service graph, pushing the configuration to the ASA and attaching the newly-created Port Profiles to the ASAv VM.
Virtual/Physical 3 Tier Application with ASA Service Graph	This workflow creates the Tenant, EPG, Contracts, etc in APIC and then clones the VMs needed in the new Application (Web and App tiers), then joins the VMs to the newly created Port Profiles in VC. It also creates the UCS Service Profile for the DB tier in USCM and attaches the VLAN selected in the APIC EPG to the new SPs. Finally, it creates and attaches an ASA service graph, pushing that configuration to the ASA and attaching the newly created Port Profiles to the ASAv VM.

Topology

[radcisco]

Great document

[radiqa1624]

I agree

[radcisco]

thank you

[#5]

Thanks guys! If you run the demo, please come back and leave a comment about your experience - we definitely want to hear from the users!

[#6]

Hello Arobotti,

I have made two attempts to complete this LAB and it is failing at this Module:

Virtual 3 Tier Application on

Step:Step 3 (Create dCloud Tenant using session details)

Execution of task resulted in error

Is there a workaround to this

thanks in Advance
William

[arobotti]

Hi William, I'm sorry, I just saw this. If you haven't already, please click the Support link in the dCloud taskbar and open a support case. The Support link is on the top right-hand side of the UI window, right next to the drop-down that allows you to select a data center.

I do know that this sometimes happens if you've run several scenarios without removing any of the objects, because the tenant already exists when you're trying to create it. But whether that is the case in your specific situation is something our dCloud Support team can help you determine. If you have any trouble getting in touch with them, please PM me your contact information and I'll have them reach out.