In today’s modern networks the interaction between applications and network infrastructures is increasingly important for service providers, content providers and enterprise businesses. The more network operators can interact with the network the more optimization to applications can be offered, which ultimately can offer new services that can generate incremental revenues. In the past decade, large scale network operators have invested heavily in network infrastructure because of exploding growth in IP traffic. During the same period, their legacy revenues either stalled or declined, while new revenue streams did not make up for the loss. With these type of infrastructure that lack to any advanced interaction with applications, especially, the applications and network infrastructure have been running in isolation. For example, the network infrastructure has no insight into which types of applications are being transported, in turn this can impact the SLAs expected by the end users. Although Traffic engineering techniques, such as Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) traffic engineering, is commonly deployed by some service provider networks. However, they came with limitations such as scalability, operational complexity, and more. Although, with MPLS-TE the interaction between applications and network infrastructure was noticeably enhanced, it was not to the degree that meets the latest service providers and large enterprises challenges. For example: The sheer number of application flows is increasing, as a result of 4K video, mobility, cloud services, and the Internet of Everything. Application flows have increasingly dynamic and changing traffic patterns. Applications flow control in the WAN is no longer sufficient to deliver a best-in-class customer experience; end-to-end control is now required. Legacy traffic engineering techniques are struggling to deliver the expected outcomes. Therefore, network operators need a new approach to bring applications and network interaction to the next level, particularly in the software-defined network (SDN) era. At the time of this article writing, Cisco addresses the above challenges with its Application Engineered Routing solution innovation that is specifically aimed at solving the issues and limitations highlighted above. This solution has three main components: Applications SDN controller (Cisco WAN Automation Engine WAE) Network infrastructure. The most vital element of this solution is how these components work together as integrated manner, as following: The applications communicate their requirements, such as bandwidth, latency, SLAs, and preferred path to the SDN controller. The SDN controller collects essential data from the network, such as the topology, link states, and traffic matrix - including link utilization and latency. The SDN controller takes into account the application requirements and the overall state of the network, then computes a specific network path and encodes it as a list of segments. The SDN controller programs a single per-flow state at the first-hop router in front of the application. The specified flow is classified, and the list of segments is inserted in the packet header. From then on, the requirements of the application flow are delivered end to end by the multidomain network, from the data center through the WAN, and from Metro network on to the end users, without any further per-flow state programming, neither for forwarding nor for reclassification. The below figure summarizes the aforementioned points.   In addition, if the state of the network changes or the application communicates new requirements, the SDN controller computes a new network path, encodes it as an updated list of segments, and reprograms a single per ‑ flow state at the first-hop router in front of the application. Other parts of network do not need to be changed. The question here is, how this segment routing concept works? Segment Routing  Segment Routing has been designed with SDN in mind and offers the right balance between distributed intelligence, centralized optimization, and application-based policy creation. Also, Segment Routing offers a simplified operational, optimized scalability, and more efficient utilization of the installed infrastructure. Cisco has been at the forefront of this routing innovation since years, through thought leadership, standardization, product creation, and deployment. Segment: A segment is a 32-bit identification for either a topological instruction or a service instruction. A segment can be either global or local.  The following instructions could be used in a segment: Service Context Locator IGP-based forwarding construct BGP-based forwarding construct Local value or global index Global Segment: Any node in the segment-routing domain understands the instruction associated with a global segment. Any node in the domain installs the related instruction in its Forwarding Information Base (FIB). Global segments fall in a subspace of the segment (or label) space called the Segment Routing Global Block (SRGB). The SRGB is usually defined as the range 16000 to 23999, and all the nodes in a network are allocated the same SRGB; Local Segment: The instruction associated with a local segment is supported by only the node originating it. No other node installs a remote local segment in its FIB.   IGP Segments: IGP (OSPF or IS-IS) can allocate segments for different purposes. E.g. A node segment is a segment allocated to a loopback that identifies a specific node In the scenario illustrated below, the “16008” is the node segment of router Y, and allocated to the loopback of router Y, so when a packet injected by the head end router X to the network with top segment 16008, it will reach Y by the shortest-path. In this scenario ECMP path is used to reach Y.   Adjacency Segment: An adjacency segment is a local segment signaled by IS-IS or OSPF; it is used to steer traffic onto an adjacency or a set of adjacencies. BGP Prefix Segment: The BGP prefix segment is a global segment signaled by BGP associated to a prefix that is used to steer traffic along the ECMP-aware shortest path to the BGP prefix BGP Peering Segment: The BGP segment is a local segment signaled by BGP Link State (topology information) to a SDN controller; it is used to steer traffic onto a BGP peer or over specific links. However, Path computation in large, multidomain networks is a complex task and requires special computational components and cooperation between the elements in different domains. In IP/MPLS networks, this functionality is referred to as a Path Computation Element (PCE), as defined by RFC 4655. Cisco WAN Automation Engine WAE, acts as an external PCE Server, providing a centralized traffic-engineering database (TED). Nodes, endpoints, and applications that wish to request network paths that differ from the standard Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) shortest path can make Representational State Protocol (REST) API queries to WAE, which in turn calculates a network path matching the specific requirement. WAE then programs the network path to the network. In networks utilizing SR, Path Computation Element Protocol (PCEP) is the protocol commonly used between WAE and the multivendor nodes.  With this approach, network operators can achieve and advanced level of interaction between the applications and the underlying infrastructure enabled by the Cisco SDN controller (WAE) and segment routing technology.     For example, the scenario illustrated in the figure below, The Cisco WAE is acting as an external PCE Server for centralized SR path calculations. If an application requests 500 Mbps of end-to-end bandwidth over a low latency path, the IGP shortest path isn’t capable to provide this level of routing capability. However, WAE calculates the next-shortest path that fulfills the requirements and then uses PCEP to signal a list of segments to the head-end router (router X in the example).  The WAE as the SDN controller (PCE) will consider lower-latency path which would be translated into the segment of link with peer ID 166. Also, the PCE may learn the topology using BGPLS,IGP, SNMP, etc. Note that with Segment Routing, the head-end router is the only router in the network that needs to be programmed by the controller (WAE), and it is the only place where this network state is maintained.   This was one example of the various scenarios this solution can optimize such as, advanced traffic engineering (without the complexity of RSVP-TE) and efficient MPLS VPN forwarding.  Kind regards,  Marwan Alshawi For more information about Cisco WAN Automation Engine: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/routers/wan-automation-engine/index.html http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/routers/wan-automation-engine/solution-overview-c22-731815.html   ... View more

In today’s modern networks the interaction between applications and network infrastructures is increasingly important for service providers, content providers and enterprise businesses. The more network operators can interact with the network the more optimization to applications can be offered, which ultimately can offer new services that can generate incremental revenues. In the past decade, large scale network operators have invested heavily in network infrastructure because of exploding growth in IP traffic. During the same period, their legacy revenues either stalled or declined, while new revenue streams did not make up for the loss. With these type of infrastructure that lack to any advanced interaction with applications, especially, the applications and network infrastructure have been running in isolation. For example, the network infrastructure has no insight into which types of applications are being transported, in turn this can impact the SLAs expected by the end users. Although Traffic engineering techniques, such as Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) traffic engineering, is commonly deployed by some service provider networks. However, they came with limitations such as scalability, operational complexity, and more. Although, with MPLS-TE the interaction between applications and network infrastructure was noticeably enhanced, it was not to the degree that meets the latest service providers and large enterprises challenges. For example: The sheer number of application flows is increasing, as a result of 4K video, mobility, cloud services, and the Internet of Everything. Application flows have increasingly dynamic and changing traffic patterns. Applications flow control in the WAN is no longer sufficient to deliver a best-in-class customer experience; end-to-end control is now required. Legacy traffic engineering techniques are struggling to deliver the expected outcomes. Therefore, network operators need a new approach to bring applications and network interaction to the next level, particularly in the software-defined network (SDN) era. At the time of this article writing, Cisco addresses the above challenges with its Application Engineered Routing solution innovation that is specifically aimed at solving the issues and limitations highlighted above. This solution has three main components: Applications SDN controller (Cisco WAN Automation Engine WAE) Network infrastructure. The most vital element of this solution is how these components work together as integrated manner, as following: The applications communicate their requirements, such as bandwidth, latency, SLAs, and preferred path to the SDN controller. The SDN controller collects essential data from the network, such as the topology, link states, and traffic matrix - including link utilization and latency. The SDN controller takes into account the application requirements and the overall state of the network, then computes a specific network path and encodes it as a list of segments. The SDN controller programs a single per-flow state at the first-hop router in front of the application. The specified flow is classified, and the list of segments is inserted in the packet header. From then on, the requirements of the application flow are delivered end to end by the multidomain network, from the data center through the WAN, and from Metro network on to the end users, without any further per-flow state programming, neither for forwarding nor for reclassification. The below figure summarizes the aforementioned points.   In addition, if the state of the network changes or the application communicates new requirements, the SDN controller computes a new network path, encodes it as an updated list of segments, and reprograms a single per ‑ flow state at the first-hop router in front of the application. Other parts of network do not need to be changed. The question here is, how this segment routing concept works? Segment Routing Segment Routing has been designed with SDN in mind and offers the right balance between distributed intelligence, centralized optimization, and application-based policy creation. Also, Segment Routing offers a simplified operational, optimized scalability, and more efficient utilization of the installed infrastructure. Cisco has been at the forefront of this routing innovation since years, through thought leadership, standardization, product creation, and deployment. Segment: A segment is a 32-bit identification for either a topological instruction or a service instruction. A segment can be either global or local. The following instructions could be used in a segment: Service Context Locator IGP-based forwarding construct BGP-based forwarding construct Local value or global index Global Segment: Any node in the segment-routing domain understands the instruction associated with a global segment. Any node in the domain installs the related instruction in its Forwarding Information Base (FIB). Global segments fall in a subspace of the segment (or label) space called the Segment Routing Global Block (SRGB). The SRGB is usually defined as the range 16000 to 23999, and all the nodes in a network are allocated the same SRGB; Local Segment: The instruction associated with a local segment is supported by only the node originating it. No other node installs a remote local segment in its FIB.   IGP Segments: IGP (OSPF or IS-IS) can allocate segments for different purposes. E.g. A node segment is a segment allocated to a loopback that identifies a specific node In the scenario illustrated below, the “16008” is the node segment of router Y, and allocated to the loopback of router Y, so when a packet injected by the head end router X to the network with top segment 16008, it will reach Y by the shortest-path. In this scenario ECMP path is used to reach Y.   Adjacency Segment: An adjacency segment is a local segment signaled by IS-IS or OSPF; it is used to steer traffic onto an adjacency or a set of adjacencies. BGP Prefix Segment: The BGP prefix segment is a global segment signaled by BGP associated to a prefix that is used to steer traffic along the ECMP-aware shortest path to the BGP prefix BGP Peering Segment: The BGP segment is a local segment signaled by BGP Link State (topology information) to a SDN controller; it is used to steer traffic onto a BGP peer or over specific links. However, Path computation in large, multidomain networks is a complex task and requires special computational components and cooperation between the elements in different domains. In IP/MPLS networks, this functionality is referred to as a Path Computation Element (PCE), as defined by RFC 4655. Cisco WAN Automation Engine WAE, acts as an external PCE Server, providing a centralized traffic-engineering database (TED). Nodes, endpoints, and applications that wish to request network paths that differ from the standard Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) shortest path can make Representational State Protocol (REST) API queries to WAE, which in turn calculates a network path matching the specific requirement. WAE then programs the network path to the network. In networks utilizing SR, Path Computation Element Protocol (PCEP) is the protocol commonly used between WAE and the multivendor nodes. With this approach, network operators can achieve and advanced level of interaction between the applications and the underlying infrastructure enabled by the Cisco SDN controller (WAE) and segment routing technology.     For example, the scenario illustrated in the figure below, The Cisco WAE is acting as an external PCE Server for centralized SR path calculations. If an application requests 500 Mbps of end-to-end bandwidth over a low latency path, the IGP shortest path isn’t capable to provide this level of routing capability. However, WAE calculates the next-shortest path that fulfills the requirements and then uses PCEP to signal a list of segments to the head-end router (router X in the example). The WAE as the SDN controller (PCE) will consider lower-latency path which would be translated into the segment of link with peer ID 166. Also, the PCE may learn the topology using BGPLS,IGP, SNMP, etc. Note that with Segment Routing, the head-end router is the only router in the network that needs to be programmed by the controller (WAE), and it is the only place where this network state is maintained.   This was one example of the various scenarios this solution can optimize such as, advanced traffic engineering (without the complexity of RSVP-TE) and efficient MPLS VPN forwarding.  Thanks to Orhan Ergun for doing the tech review of this post  Kind regards,  Marwan Alshawi For more information about Cisco WAN Automation Engine: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/routers/wan-automation-engine/index.html http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/routers/wan-automation-engine/solution-overview-c22-731815.html ... View more

  https://supportforums.cisco.com/document/12268456/cisco-aci-architecture-simplified   ... View more

SDN Overview Software defined networking can be defined as a new approach to design, implement and manage networks that is based on the concept of separating the network control plane and data plane, where the control plane provides an abstracted centralized view of the network. The control plane you can think of as the brain of the network where the all the intelligence happens such as routing function ( path peering, path selection etc.)   Control plane on the other hand, you think of it as the muscular part where all the heavy load of the traffic forwarding happens.  With the classical networking approach, both of these functions as co-exist on the same network device.  Using the SDN approach, as highlighted earlier these two functions are separated, in which the control plane is Centralized and the forwarding plane is ket distributed.    As a result, SDN provide the ability of administering traffic and deploying services centrally to address changing business needs, without having to touch each individual switch or router in the forwarding plane. OpenFlow can be considered as the first (SDN) standard that is managed by Open Networking Foundation (ONF) which facilitates the communications interface defined between the controls and forwarding layers of SDN architecture. Moreover, SDN facilitates innovations and enable efficient services automation by providing open, application programmatic interfaces (APIs). Why SDN According to ONF, the main key benefits of OpenFlow based SDN: OpenFlow-based SDN creates flexibility in how the network is used, operated, and sold. It promotes rapid service introduction through customization, It lowers operating expenses and results in fewer errors and less network downtime because it enables automated configuration of the network and reduces manual configuration. OpenFlow-based SDN enables virtualization of the network, and therefore the integration of the network with computing and storage. As a standard way of conveying flow-table information to the network devices, it fosters open, multi-vendor markets. However, OpenFlow based SDN lack to scalability, visibility, security and associated with complexity and disjoint overlays. Cisco introduced a new approach and architecture that is driven from SDN with more emphasis on the most important part in the Data center which is the application, called Application Centric infrastructure ACI . This article will discuss Cisco ACI approach and architecture. What is Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) in the data center is a holistic architecture with centralized automation and policy-driven application profiles. ACI delivers software flexibility with the scalability of hardware performance that provides a robust transport network for today’s dynamic workloads. ACI is built on a network fabric that combines time-tested protocols with new innovations to create a highly flexible, scalable, and resilient architecture of low-latency, high-bandwidth links Key characteristics of ACI include: Simplified automation by an application-driven policy model Application Velocity. Any Workload. Anywhere. Centralized visibility with real-time, application health monitoring Open software flexibility for DevOps teams and ecosystem partner integration Investment protection by integrating with the existing fabric infrastructure e.g. Nexus 7000 Scalable performance and multi-tenancy in hardware ACI architecture Elements Cisco ACI architecture is a combination of high performance Hardware and software innovation and intelligence integrated with two important concepts from SDN solutions; overlays and centralized control. However the ACI utilize different approach and offer capabilities that goes beyond the typical SDN offering or what is known as Openflow based-SDN Cisco ACI Solution architecture consists of: A centralized policy management and Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) The new Cisco ACI high performance Fabric Hardware A Cisco Application Virtual Switch (AVS) for the virtual network edge Software and hardware innovations Integrated physical and virtual infrastructure An open ecosystem of network, storage, management, and orchestration vendors Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) The Cisco ACI fabric is designed as an application-centric intelligent network. The Cisco APIC policy model is defined from the top down as a policy enforcement engine focused on the application itself and abstracting the networking functionality underneath. APIC approach within ACI architecture The Cisco APIC policy use an object-oriented approach based on promise theory. Promise theory is based on declarative, scalable control of intelligent objects, in comparison to legacy imperative models, which can be thought of as heavyweight, top-down management. With this declarative model, using a centralized policy controller, you can define the policy centrally and push it out and the endpoint should have the intelligence to abide by that policy. Therefore, these network nodes are not treat as dumb devices, because the intelligence solely resides in the controller, instead the the controller will tell the network node(s) what dose it needs to provision, change delete etc, but not how to be done.   The APIC centrally push policies to the underlying infrastructure using an extensible policy protocol designed to exchange abstract policy between a network controller and a set of smart devices capable of rendering policy called OpFlex. Cisco is proposing OpFlex as an informational RFC to the IETF and plans to lead the standardization process through that forum. At the same time, Cisco is working with the open source community to provide an open source implementation ACI Farbic ACI Fabric is based on an IP fabric supporting routing to the edge with an integrated overlay for host routing All end-host (tenant) traffic within the fabric is carried through the overlay Decoupling of endpoint identity, location, and associated policy, all of which are independent from the underlying topology Full normalization of the ingress encapsulation mechanism used: 802.1Q VLAN, IETF VXLAN, IETF NVGRE Fabric provides a pervasive SVI, which allows for a distributed default gateway ACI Fabric Hardware Innovation Cisco is innovating across its Nexus switch portfolio to expand deployment options and help ensure investment protection as networks evolve from traditional deployments to cloud deployments Portfolio additions include: Two new ACI-ready Nexus 9000 series switches: the Nexus 9336PQ fixed switch and the Nexus 9396TX, an enterprise-class Top of Rack switch. The Nexus 9336PQ offers advanced scalability in the industry's smallest spine form-factor, designed for small to medium ACI spine deployments. The Nexus 9396TX offers 100M/1G/10G copper-based front panel port connectivity for top-of-rack deployments in both traditional 3-tier network designs and Cisco ACI enabled deployments. The N9K-X9736PQ non-blocking line-card enables the Application Centric Modular Spine for the Cisco Nexus 9500 platform. The ACI line-card with 36 non-blocking 40GbE QSFP+ ports will help organizations to create large-scale spine-leaf deployments. The Nexus 7000 Series Switches add support for several open source tools and standards enabling programmability and automation/SDN capabilities for virtualized and cloud deployments. The Nexus 6004X Switch offers a new chassis that delivers added VXLAN capabilities with the same eight slot form factor and feature set as the current Nexus 6004   Multi-Hypervisor-Ready Fabric Integrated gateway for VLAN, VxLAN, and NVGRE networks from virtual to physical Normalization for NVGRE, VXLAN, and VLAN networks Customer not restricted by a choice of hypervisor Fabric is ready for multi-hypervisor Automatic virtual endpoint detection and policy placement Network policy tracking based on VM mobility Investment protection with ACI The Cisco Application Policy Model can be extended to both physical and virtual workloads in existing Nexus infrastructure through the Cisco Application-centric Virtual Switch (AVS), an APIC-enabled Nexus 1000V virtual switch, or by deploying Nexus 9000 switches as a remote leaf within customers' existing data centers. The Nexus 7000 Series switches and ASR 9000 Router will also be integrated into the ACI fabric   New Cisco Services for ACI The new Cisco Services for ACI are designed to help customers achieve their business and technical objectives, while reducing risk. http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/data-center-virtualization/application-centric-infrastructure/index.html#~product-services   Marwan Alshawi CCDE #2013::66 EMCCAe ... View more

  https://supportforums.cisco.com/document/12253966/business-driven-approach-modern-data-center-solutions-cisco-unified-data-center   ... View more

Overview The modern business requirements and market trends are increasingly adding new demands on data centers that were designed for a different era and a different set of requirements. Therefore, since few years a significant and rapid changes have been occurring to the networks architectures in general and Data centers in particular where many new concepts, methodologies and architectures have been introduced to address the high demand and changes of the new business needs and its applications requirements such as mobility, BigData and Cloud services. As a result, currently there are several data center products and solutions that can be used to achieve different goals and in some situations these products and architectures can overlap to achieve the same result. Consequently understanding the business goals and its vision and use it as a main driver to select the desired solution becomes very critical not only to meet the current business requirements but also to deliver business value with a future vision. This Article will not discuss specific requirements and what is best technical suitable architecture for it, however it will cover the high level approach that need to be considered in order to produce the best fit for the design requirements that can deliver a value to the business using Cisco Unified Data center solutions. In other words instead of considering certain product or using a specific architecture then try to find how it can deliver value to the business the selection will be purely business driven where IT become a strategic business enabler. IT Challenges   Every organization or enterprise has business goals and to achieve these goals there must be different strategies set by the enterprise to facilitate achieving these goals. IT strategies considered a main facilitator to modern businesses these days and it must be aligned with the business needs and goals to deliver the desired value and become the enabler to the business goals. It’s commonly known that the data center network sits at the core of the IT and therefore it is key to know how IT can deliver services and value back to the business, however the new business demands and technology trends are changing the role of IT and introducing new challenges to application availability while yesterday’s data centers were not designed to address. Based on Cisco’s studies, below are some of the new trends and considerations of modern business requirements: Mobile devices and applications abound. The Internet of Things (IoT) will triple the number of devices generating traffic on IP networks. Mobile devices are now ubiquitous, and they will download 77 billion apps in 2014. IP traffic is increasing dramatically. Global data center traffic will quadruple over the next five years, and global cloud IP traffic will increase six fold. Traffic flows are becoming unpredictable. The traditional data center was designed primarily for north south traffic flows, but today, 76 percent of traffic is east west, within the data center. Businesses increasingly rely on distributed database and enterprise applications. Fully 80 percent of enterprise applications are delivered as a service today. Server workloads are changing. Nearly two thirds of workloads will be processed in the cloud by 2016 Taking into considerations the above market and business trends, it is obvious that Mobile and virtualized workloads, cloud applications, big data, dynamic policy, heterogeneous devices: these are the features of the modern IT environment. In this new environment, bandwidth needs are far more demanding and traffic patterns far less predictable than they used to be and as mentioned earlier many of the existing data center networks were designed primarily toward relatively static and predictable traffic flows, mostly on premises IT consumption, and a much narrower set of devices and applications The question to be asked now, is your current DC network capable to transform to meet these new demands? What approaches should you start consider to? Identify the Requirements This phase is the most critical one however I noticed many designers at this stage mainly and sometimes only focus on the technical requirements such as routing protocols, layer 2 switching technologies, more features..etc while they overlook the goals and trends from the business point of view, a good design must be driven from the business requirements and aligned with the IT strategies to enable and facilitate the selected solution to: Deliver the scale and performance necessary to support the enterprise applications and virtual and cloud workloads of next generation data centers   Simplify services provisioning and operations in any network architecture Provide an intelligent data center network foundation that adapts to the needs of your applications, instead of the other way around taking into consideration business continuity polices Later on the business requirements can be mapped to functional requirements and constrains   For example: “An enterprise need to upgrade its DC to support the ability of separating its business units applications and traffic flows within the data center and minimize TCO, Opex and response to applications changes “ This is a business need that is based on business structure and internal governance decisions.  An IT strategy is required to enable and facilitate this requirement By mapping this requirement into a functional requirements it is clear that a multi-tenant solution can be used, but at the same time there are other considerations here from the business point of view to be met which can be considered as constrains to the design, are lower cost and speed-up the response time to any application change ( e.g. provisioning of new services ). Based on that, an architect can make a decision and need to ensure that the decision is capable of supporting the functional requirements and taking into considerations the given constrains As a result of this interdependency, this type of requirement cannot be met by a product or a set of features, however it needs a unified end to end solution that uses a holistic approach that can transforms the DC architecture to IT as a Service (ITaaS) model How Cisco Unified Data Center Solutions enable IT to transform from cost center to a strategic business enabler As discussed above yesterday’s data center was never designed for today’s virtualized workloads, unpredictable traffic patterns, and the increasing capacity demands. As a result the existing traditional Data Centers are becoming a limitation to the new business requirements and market trends because the used architectures are very silo-based and not designed to integrate into an automated, on demand model. Cisco believes “it is important to take an approach that doesn’t look at technologies, processes, and people in isolation” The Cisco’s holistic Unified Data Center approach that is founded on a unified fabric-based design that has been developed, from the ground up, to integrate technology silos, reduce costs, and improve productivity that can address the challenges of today’s Data Centers. The concept of "fabrics" has emerged over the past few years as a means to converge separate storage, networking and server technology in the data center. The Cisco Unified Data center vision encompasses the entire data center, from compute, to networking, to management in any environment to suit the different business needs and offer flexibility to provide resources within the fabric to workloads as needed.   Cisco delivers and accomplishes this through a reliable, consistent, and simple architecture in conjunction with built-in policy, network features, management, and programmability.  All of these aspects together enable IT to change from cost center to a strategic business enabler, becoming IT as a Service. Cisco’s Unified Data Center is composed of infrastructure solutions designed for ITaaS and Cloud and are grouped into three main categories; each offers a selection of products to fit various data center needs. Unified Fabric Solutions The Cisco Unified Fabric Switching portfolio offers one of the broadest data center LAN and SAN switching portfolios in the industry spanning from the Hypervisor to the data center core. Cisco Unified Fabric provides flexible network solutions deliver network services to servers, storage, and applications, providing transparent convergence, scalability, and sophisticated intelligence. Solutions include: Cisco multilayer data center switches, Cisco Nexus® switches, Cisco Catalyst® switches, Cisco NX-OS Software, vPC and FabricPath, I/O consolidation Unified Computing Solutions Cisco’s next-generation data center system unites computing, network, storage access, and virtualization into a cohesive system designed to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) and increase business agility.  The Cisco Unified Computing System™ (Cisco UCS) is built with: Blade servers, Rack-mount servers, Fabric interconnects , Virtual interface cards Unified Management Solutions Management solutions simplify and automate the deployment of IT infrastructure and operate across physical and virtual resources. Unified computing management:  Single management interface for hardware and software components and configurations e.g. Cisco UCS™ Manager Automation and orchestration:  Allows policy-based, on-demand provisioning; quickly develop self-service portal and IT service catalog e.g. Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud Data center network management:  Optimize the overall uptime and reliability of your network to improve business continuity e.g. Cisco Data Center Network Manager   In conclusion we realize that organizations have greater demands than they ever have before with new types of business and applications requirements where traditional data center products and architectures cannot support. In order to provide a suitable solution for next generation applications and business needs such as mobility and virtualization a good understanding of the organization’s business model, goals and strategy is required to provide an integrated end to end solution driven by the enterprise business needs that look at the Data center from a holistic approach. Cisco Unified Data Center is the most cost-effective data center solution that is built from the ground up for physical, virtual, and cloud implementations and it’s capable to deliver a unified architecture across compute, network, storage and management with every element integrating with the others.   Regards, Marwan Alshawi CCDE #2013::66 EMCCAe   ... View more