Object-based Approach to Cisco ACI:

 A Guide to Understand the Logic Behind Application Centric Infrastructure 

This book will be soon available

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About this book

 

First of all, I wrote this book for myself because I wanted to understand the logic behind the Cisco  Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) solution better. Fabric Access Policies, Tenants, VRFs, Bridge-Domains, EPGs, and Contracts are basic building-blocks (Objects) of Cisco ACI. This book translates the GUI-based configurations into JSON data-format to make it easier to understand the relationship between objects and how the APIC configuration can be build using REST API calls. The book is meant to be neither a design guide nor a best practice guide. Instead, it should give readers a clear idea of ACI logic and lower the learning curve when you step into the ACI world. There are also a couple of CLI examples but not many. The reason why I left out the CLI –based configuration is not that I don’t see it as a useful tool for managing ACI. I think that it is a very powerful troubleshooting tool. However, I have used the ACI simulator and its CLI is very limited. I am running ACI Simulator as VM in ESXi host but it can also be used tested in Cisco DevNet sandbox:

 https://devnetsandbox.cisco.com/RM/Topology. ACI Simulator is available as an always-on or reserved mode. The reserved ACI Simulator also includes a Windows client with Postman REST API Client so you can also test to do the configuration with it. I left out Multi-Site and Multi-Pod chapters as well as layer 4-7 integration because I wanted to focus on the ACI basics and keep the number of pages in the book reasonably small. 

Chapter 1:  Fabric Installation 1

Introduction 1

Initial Fabric Setup 2

Adding Switches to Fabric 4

Date and Time Policy - GUI 8

Pod Policy Group - GUI 14

Pod Policy Group – REST API 16

Pod Profile - GUI 17

Backup Server - GUI 21

Backup Server – REST API 22

Export Policy - GUI 24

Chapter 2:  Fabric Access Policies 27

Introduction 27

VLAN Pool 32

Adding VLAN Pool by using GUI 32

APIC REST API 35

Adding VLAN Pool by using REST call with JSON Format 37

Physical Domain 40

Creating Physical Domain by using the REST API 40

Creating Physical Domain by using GUI 41

Attachable Access Entity Profile - AAEP 44

Creating AEP by using REST API 45

Creating AEP by using GUI 46

Interface Policies 47

Creating Interface Policies by using REST API 48

Creating Interface Policies by using APIC GUI 50

Interface Policy Group 53

Creating Interface Policy Group by using REST API 54

Creating Interface Policy Group by using APIC GUI 55

Leaf Interface Profile 57

Creating Interface Profile by using REST API 59

Creating Interface Profile by using APIC GUI 60

Leaf Switch Policy Group 63

Creating Interface Policy Group by using REST API 65

Creating Interface Policy Group by using APIC GUI 65

Leaf Switch Profile 67

Creating Leaf Profile by using REST API 69

Creating Leaf Profile by using APIC GUI 71

Useful Tools 75

APIC Object Store: Visore 75

APIC MIM (Management Information Model) 77

Chapter 3: Tenant Networking: VRF and Bridge Domain 79

Introduction 79

Tenant Cfg with REST API 81

Tenant Cfg with APIC GUI 81

VRF Cfg with REST API 83

VRF Cfg with APIC GUI 83

BD Cfg with REST API 85

BD Cfg with APIC GUI 88

Chapter 4: Application Profile and EPGs 93

Introduction 93

AP Cfg with REST API 95

AP Cfg with APIC GUI 96

EPG Cfg with REST API 97

EPG Cfg with GUI 99

Chapter 5: Filters, Contracts, and Subjects 105

Introduction 105

Filter and Filter Entries Cfg with REST API 107

Filter and Filter Entries Cfg with APIC GUI 109

Contract and Subject Cfg with REST API 110

Contract and Subject Cfg with GUI 112

Using Contract Between EPGs with REST API 116

Using Contract Between EPGs with GUI 117

Chapter 6: Binding EPG to Interface and Domain 121

Introduction 121

Binding Domain to EPG with REST API 124

Binding Interface and VLAN Id to EPG with REST API 124

Binding Domain to EPG with APIC GUI 126

Binding Interface and VLAN Id to EPG with APIC GUI 128

Chapter 7: Automatization basics 131

Object Store Browser 131

Chapter 8: Basic Object Monitoring 143

GUI Based Monitoring 143

CLI Based Basic Monitoring 149

Introduction 149

Network – VRF and Bridge-Domain 150

Chapter 9: External L2 connection 155

Introduction 155

Extending EPG 157

GUI Based Configuration 158

External Bridge Domain 160

GUI Based Configuration 162

Create external Bridge Domain 162

Create New EPG 163

Associate EPG with Extended BD 165

Associate EPG with Static Ports 166

Add Contract Between EPGs 168

Chapter 10: External L3 connection (L3OUT) 173

Introduction 173

ACI Internal BGP 174

BGP Route Reflector Policy 174

Pod Policy Group 178

Pod Profile 181

Summary 182

ACI external BGP 183

Fabric Access Policy 183

Tenant L3OUT - BGP 199

BGP Peering - GUI 200

BGP Peering – REST API 205

Advertising Internal Subnets 210

Verification 212