Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) is a data center architecture that enables a physical infrastructure to be abstracted and controlled as a logical data center. The ACI approach is based on the concept of a policy-based data center, where all infrastructure components are centrally managed and orchestrated according to application requirements.
ACI uses a controller, called the Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC), to manage the network. The APIC provides a centralized point of control and management for the ACI fabric. It is responsible for configuring and monitoring the ACI fabric, and it provides an API that allows applications to interact with the ACI fabric.
ACI includes a number of features that make it well suited for modern data center deployments. These features include:
Multi-tenancy: ACI supports multiple tenants, each of which can have its own policies and network resources.
Application abstraction: ACI abstracts the underlying physical infrastructure, making it possible to deploy applications without knowledge of the underlying infrastructure.
Automation: ACI includes a number of features that enable automated network provisioning and configuration.
Scalability: ACI is designed to be scalable, both in terms of the number of devices that can be managed and the number of applications that can be supported.
Cisco ACI is a data center architecture that enables a physical infrastructure to be abstracted and controlled as a logical data center. The ACI approach is based on the concept of a policy-based data center, where all infrastructure components are centrally managed and orchestrated according to application requirements.
ACI uses a centralized policy model to manage network resources, and this policy is applied to a group of network elements called an endpoint group (EPG). An EPG is a logical grouping of endpoints, which can be physical or virtual, that share a common set of requirements.
ACI uses a controller, called the Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC), to manage the network. The APIC provides a centralized point of control and management for the ACI fabric. It is responsible for configuring and monitoring the ACI fabric, and it provides an API that allows applications to interact with the ACI fabric.
ACI includes a number of features that make it well suited for modern data center deployments. These features include:
Multi-tenancy: ACI supports multiple tenants, each of which can have its own policies and network resources.
Application abstraction: ACI abstracts the underlying physical infrastructure, making it possible to deploy applications without knowledge of the underlying infrastructure.
Automation: ACI includes a number of features that enable automated network provisioning and configuration.
Scalability: ACI is designed to be scalable, both in terms of the number of devices that can be managed and the number of applications that can be supported.
