Consultancy question ! what challenge ACI solve for Enterprise

[Ibrahim Jamil]

Hi Guys

Consultancy question ! what challenge ACI solve for Enterprise

thanks

[Sergiu.Daniluk]

Hi @Ibrahim Jamil 

Not sure for what exactly you are looking for, but from a marketing standpoint, the ACI advantages are very well presented in the whitepaper:

Optimize your network

●      Operational simplicity, with common policy, management, and operation models across application, network, and security resources

●      A flexible and yet highly available network that allows agile application deployment within a site, across sites, and across global data centers while removing the need for complex Data Center Interconnect (DCI) infrastructure

●      Centralized network management and visibility with full automation and real-time network health monitoring

●      Seamless integration of underlay and overlay

●      Open northbound APIs to provide flexibility for DevOps teams and ecosystem partner integration

●      A cloud-ready SDN solution

●      Common platform for managing physical and virtual environments

Protect your business

●      Business continuity and disaster recovery

●      Secure networking with a zero-trust security model and innovative security features such as microsegmentation

●      Security at cloud scale, accelerated by hardware

Accelerate path to multi-cloud performance

●      Single policy and seamless connectivity across any data center and public cloud

●      Any hypervisor, any workload, any location, any cloud

●      Cloud automation enabled by integration with vRealize, AzurePack, OpenStack, OpenShift, Kubernetes, and Cisco UCS^® Director

Cheers,

Sergiu

[Ibrahim Jamil]

Thanks Sergiu

[Ibrahim Jamil]

mmmm , did the above convince the executives to buy ACI ???

[Sergiu.Daniluk]

It all depends on the requirements. If you only have one single DC, with not a lot of services, then ACI might not be justified. A vxlan fabric might be more then enough. If you have a big DC, with a main and DR, then yes, you can show the importance of automation, business continuity, day2 operations etc. Also, let;s not forget that ACI is a VERY complex technology. And I want to emphasis on very. If you or the company do not have the resources to operate the ACI fabric, it might be better to look for a more traditional approach (standalone vxlan).

In order to take a good and educated decision for your environment, I think it would be good to make a list of the current challenges you have in the network and see if the ACI can address them.

Best regards,

Sergiu

[Ibrahim Jamil]

Hi Sergiu

very nice explanation , pls bro elaborate more on the below or if y provide Matrix , its very important for me to initiate sales meeting though

I think it would be good to make a list of the current challenges you have in the network and see if the ACI can address them.

Thanks

[Sergiu.Daniluk · Accepted solution]

I am referring to the challenges customers are having with their network. These are the most common:

• Workload IP Mobility
• L2 Elasticity between DC
• Network Service Localization (any service anywhere)
• Business Continuity without interruption
• Disaster Avoidance - ability to absorb the impact in case of a disaster in main DC and provide an acceptable level of service
• Reduce OPEX
• integrations with other technologies (integration with VMware, with K8 etc etc) and service chaining
• Day 2 operations (ability to easily identify the problems when incidents happen)
• Having the network cloud-ready
• Automating the configuration of the fabric while adding new services

These are just some things on top of my mind, but I am sure there are more on the list. You need to ask the customer what are their challanges, or if you are the customer then you should think at your day to day work + business requirements.

Hope it helps,

Sergiu

[Ibrahim Jamil]

Hi All

Hi Sergiu

Can u pls elaborate mote on the below points mentioned above

while removing the need for complex Data Center Interconnect (DCI) infrastructure

Business continuity and disaster recovery

Thanks

[Sergiu.Daniluk]

Hi @Ibrahim Jamil 

While removing the need for complex Data Center Interconnect (DCI) infrastructure

In DC environment, most of the times when you have two or more data centers (most of the times you'll see two - a main DC and a second one acting as DR), the servers and services require extending the L2 domain between the two DCs, using a DCI technology.

So far, there are more DCI protocols/technologies you can adopt, depending on the needs/size/available devices:

1. good old back to back VPC https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/switches/nexus-7000-series-switches/118934-configure-nx7k-00.html  This solution works fine most of the times, you have multiple active links and STP are not blocking them, but you still have to take a lot of things into considerations, like HSRP isolation, root election etc.

2. OTV - https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Data_Center/DCI/whitepaper/DCI3_OTV_Intro/DCI_1.html

A very good DCI technology which works very good, but it has it's limitation in terms of connectivity, underlay requirements, scalability, and most important hardware (only N7K supports it)

3. VXLAN multi-site: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/nexus-9000-series-switches/white-paper-c11-739942.html now we arrived to more modern and up-to-date technologies used for DCI - vxlan. This is an awesome overlay protocol which becomes a de-facto in most of the new DC deployments (either on standalone NXOS switches or ACI). Even more, it is now present in campus as well (campus EVPN).  The drawback of this technology is the complexity of the configuration. In a large DCs, you absolutely need a tool to automate the config (DCNM, NSO etc).

4. ACI Multi-Pod / Multi-Site - all the advantages of vxlan multi-site is integrated in the ACI technology, while hiding all the complexity of the configuration.

Business continuity and disaster recovery

Through the use of different features available in ACI (one example might be Intersite L3Out in ACI Multi-Site) you can include a lot of disaster recovery mechanisms.

Hope it helps,

Sergiu