What does Cisco ACI mean?
Cisco ACI (Application Centric Infrastructure) is a software-defined networking solution, designed to help organizations manage complex environments by delivering network automation—increasing operational efficiencies. Organizations use Cisco ACI to improve security for on-premises, private clouds, public clouds, and data centers.
What is Cisco ACI used for?
Cisco ACI integrates software and hardware; the hardware for Cisco ACI is based on the Cisco Nexus 9000 family of switches; and the software and integration points include: Additional Data Center Pod, Data Center Policy Engine, and Non-Directly Attached Virtual and Physical Leaf Switches.
Cisco ACI utilizes a declarative control system where end users can specify what they want the end result to be and the network devices interpret it and do what they need to return that result in regards to application policy infrastructure. ACI in the data center is a holistic architecture with centralized automation and policy-driven application profiles that apply to the ACI fabric. Application Centric Infrastructure delivers software flexibility with the scalability of hardware performance.
Benefits of Cisco ACI
- Cisco ACI is responsive & easy to configure;
- It makes allocating application infrastructures within the network environment much easier;
- There’s no fabric flood; and
- It enables bespoke automation of modules with multi-tenancy features.
