ACI Fabric Access Policies Part 2: Physical Domain

 Physical Domain

This section explains how to create a Physical Domain (Fabric Access Policy). It starts by mapping the REST call POST method and JSON Payload into Fabric Access Policy modeling. Then it explains how the same configurations can be done by using the APIC GUI. Phase 2 in Figure 1-15 illustrates the APIC Management Information Model (MIM) from the Physical Domain perspective. I have already added the object Phys-Standalone_ESXi_PHY into the figure. The format of the RN for this object is Prefix1-{name}, where the Prefix1 is “phys”. This gives us the RN “phys-Standalone_ESXi_PHY”.

Figure 1-15: Fabric Access Policy Modeling: Physical Domain (click image to enlarge).

Creating Physical Domain by using the REST call

The previous section explained how to use API Inspector and Notepad ++ for studying the REST call. In this section, I am not going to show the API Inspector output but you can use it if necessary. Figure 1-16 shows the REST call POST URL and JSON payload. The URL prefix is the same as what we were using when we create the object vlann-[ESXi_VLP]-static, and that’s what we are using in every becoming examples. The object Phys-Standalone_ESXi_PHY belongs to class DomP which defines physical domains and which belongs to the phys package. The class is not included in the URL so the “suffix” of our URL is “uni/phys-Standalone_ESXi_PHY.json”. Note that the data format identifier is needed, that is why we have “.json” included at the end of the URL.

The REST call payload part starts by defining the class of the new object (physDomP) following by attributes used with it. The object has also a relationship with the object vlanns-[ESXi_VLP]-static. Even though the term “Children” is used here, it does not mean that the object vlanns-[ESXI_VLP] is the child object for the object phys-ESXi_PHY. It describes that the vlan range defined in the object vlanns-[ESXi_VLP]-static (300-399) can be used in interfaces that are mapped to the physical domain phys-ESXi_PHY. The mapping will be explained in becoming sections. The “infraRsVlanns” defines the relation to VLAN Pool and the “tDN” describes the target DN of an object with which we are creating the relationship. The relationship between objects tells that changes in the object will affect another object. In our example, this means that if the VLAN range is changed it affects the interfaces that are attached to the physical domain Standalone_ESXi_PHY. 

Figure 1-16: REST call: Creating Physical Domain.

By studying the APIC MIM and the URL and payload of the REST call it should be easier to understand also the GUI-based configuration.

Creating Physical Domain by using GUI

Navigate to the Fabric page and select Access Policies. Select sub-folder the Physical Domain under the Physical and External Domain folder in the Policies folder-tree. Click the tool icon in the Physical Domain window.

Figure 1-17: Creating Physical Domain.

Give the name to the domain. By doing this we are creating the object  phys-Standalone_ESXi_PHY. Select the VLAN Pool ESXi_VLP from the drop-down menu. By doing this we are forming the relationship between these two objects Note that by clicking the expand icon, you can see details of the VXLAN Pool.

Figure 1-18: Attaching VLAN Pool to Physical Domain.

Figure 1-19 shows the relationship between objects phys-Standalone-ESXi_PHY and vlanns-[Standalone_ESXi-VLP]-static and from-[vlan-300]-to-[vlan-399].

Figure 1-19: Verifying Physical Domain and its Attached VLAN Pool.

To be continued on the next post which is about Attachable Access Entity Point (AAEP)...