When the network is up and data is flowing as it should, life is beautiful. But when too much traffic causes bottlenecks, it’s frustrating. And when it prevents critical apps from working properly, it can be disastrous.
Let’s face it, not all the traffic on your company’s networks is equal. You need network management solutions that are smart enough to handle your priorities.
That’s where Cisco ACI architecture comes in. It integrates cloud computing and data center management based on your network policies. Here’s how it works.
What Is Cisco ACI Architecture?
ACI is short for Application Centric Infrastructure. When a network is “application-centric,” it’s based on the application. So, success is measured by user experience (UX), application uptime, and responsiveness.
Cisco ACI centralizes cloud computing and data center management. It automates network provisioning across multiple on-premises and cloud instances or multi-cloud environments.
Using Cisco ACI architecture eliminates a lot of legwork. There’s no need to configure each physical and logical component manually. You define user groups, specify interfaces, and set policies from a central console. This simplifies and accelerates the application deployment process while reducing configuration errors.
The main component of Cisco ACI architecture is the application policy infrastructure controller (ACIP). Cisco’s ACIP integrates network switches, policy enforcement, and network monitoring. So, it can control the flow of services and traffic through the underlying Nexus switches.
Cisco’s ACIP makes application deployment across multiple sites possible. And there’s no need for complex data center interconnect (DCI) infrastructure. This both saves time and resources.
How SDN Works with Cisco ACI
Software-defined networking (SDN) was initially developed to address network security issues. Today’s SDN is also a network monitor. It offers total visibility across your Cisco ACI architecture.
Modern Cisco SDN solutions give you new tools that work across sites. You can gather and analyze data beyond just the performance data collected by the ACIP. SDN gathers statistics from virtual devices like firewalls and load balancers. It also monitors physical devices like servers and edge gateways. It even tracks stats from cloud providers.
SDN uses real-time network inventory and topology to keep up with rules changes that affect traffic and performance. It also uses traditional network monitoring tools like SNMP to poll both logical and physical devices. That allows you to monitor network traffic as it enters and exits the interface.
SDN can also poll and collect logs from the use hypervisor server and edge gateways. Some have APIs that make it possible to monitor cloud providers too.
The essential function of SDN is to bring all the monitoring data to a central point. Then it compares the data to predetermined performance baselines. It alerts you when something’s off.
Keeping Up With Tech
Cisco ACI architecture is rapidly eliminating the need to install a legion of new computational storage devices in order to launch a new application.
SDN solutions allow you to keep tabs on your Cisco ACI like never before. It’s real-time network monitoring that enables rapid deployment and optimized agility and performance.
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