cisco aci fundamentals

Short overview about Cisco Aci Fundamentals and what's good to know about.

The Cisco ACI story begins with the idea of application-centric infrastructure: a single platform that can give you the agility you need to deliver new applications quickly while still providing the security and isolation required by production workloads. This is the challenge that Cisco set out to solve with the introduction of the Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) architecture.

Read more related to Cisco ACI: Cisco aci apic ordering guide
Cisco ACI is built on the idea of a single, centralized policy model that can be applied consistently across the entire data center infrastructure. This policy model is based on the concept of application-centric networking, which views the network as a set of resources that can be consumed by applications. By application-centric networking we mean that the network is viewed as a set of resources that can be consumed by applications. In this view, the network is not a series of point-to-point links, but rather a set of endpoints that can be connected in any way that is required by the application.

The ACI policy model is based on the concept of subjects and objects. A subject is an entity that can take action, such as a user or an application. An object is a resource that can be acted upon, such as a file or a printer. A policy is a set of rules that defines how a subject can interact with an object.

The Cisco ACI policy model is implemented using a set of objects and attributes that are used to represent the application-centric view of the network. The following figure shows the Cisco ACI object model.

The Cisco ACI object model is used to represent the application-centric view of the network

The Cisco ACI object model includes the following objects:

Applications: An application is a set of one or more logical units that are used to provide a service.

EPGs: An EPG is a collection of one or more ports that are used by an application.

Contracts: A contract is a set of rules that defines the communication between two EPGs.

Filters: A filter is a set of rules that is used to allow or deny traffic between two EPGs.

Bridge Domains: A bridge domain is a layer 2 forwarding domain that contains one or more EPGs.

Tenants: A tenant is a logical container for one or more applications.

The Cisco ACI object model is used to represent the application-centric view of the network

The Cisco ACI object model is used to represent the application-centric view of the network. The object model is used to define the relationships between the objects in the Cisco ACI fabric. The object model is also used to define the policies that are used to control the behavior of the Cisco ACI fabric.

The Cisco ACI object model includes the following objects:

Applications: An application is a set of one or more logical units that are used to provide a service.

EPGs: An EPG is a collection of one or more ports that are used by an application.

Contracts: A contract is a set of rules that defines the communication between two EPGs.

Filters: A filter is a set of rules that is used to allow or deny traffic between two EPGs.

Bridge Domains: A bridge domain is a layer 2 forwarding domain that contains one or more EPGs.

Tenants: A tenant is a logical container for one or more applications.

The Cisco ACI object model is used to represent the application-centric view of the network. The object model is used to define the relationships between the objects in the Cisco ACI fabric. The object model is also used to define the policies that are used to control the behavior of the Cisco ACI fabric.

Related content