ObjectBased Approach to Cisco ACI : The Logic Behind the Application Centric Infrastructure

Configuration tasks in the Cisco ACI are often done using a built-in GUI in APIC (Application Infrastructure Controller) or REST API Client. Both methods use REST API calls with JSON or XML data formats. Using REST calls, we can create a new object, modify an existing one, get information about the object, or delete the object. So how do we define an Object? Each object represents an individual setting (policy), a set of settings (policy group), or a set of settings bind to an interface or group of interfaces (profile + selector) as an example. Object, in turn, is created under the class. As an example, objects which define interface settings such as speed and CDP Policy, belong to the infrastructure class. Classes, in turn, are organized by Packages. As an example, classes Tenant, Ctx (VRF), and BD (Bridge Domain) all belong to Fabric Virtualization (fv) Packages. The relationship between classes depends on their location in the Management Information Model (MIM) structure. The first chapter explains the initial ACI installation process. The rest of the book explains how to create a logical overlay network for the application using Web and App servers including filters, and external Layer-2 connections as well as Layer-3 connections using BGP. The last two chapters introduce VMware vCenter and APIC integration and Multi-Pod architecture.