Cisco updates ACI platform, adds Docker support

Cisco has announced a new software release for its Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) to enhance its SDN portfolio built on open APIs, open standards and a broad ecosystem for customer choice and flexibility.

New software capabilities enhance ACI with micro segmentation for both physical (bare metal) applications and multi-vendor virtualized applications (VMware VDS, Microsoft Hyper-V)and extend ACI across multi-site environments to deliver policy-driven automation across multiple datacentres.

Cisco delivers support for both physical and virtual endpoints, and now extends support for Docker container endpoints through integration with the Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) and Project Contiv.

ACI now supports automated service insertion for any third party layer 4-7 service. Cisco also added new support for cloud automation tools like VMware vRealize Automation and OpenStack, including open standards-based Opflex support with Open vSwitch (OVS). New members of the ACI ecosystem enable the automation of entire application suites, including Platform as a Service (PAAS) and Software as a Service (SAAS).

Cisco ACI now delivers consistent policy-driven automation across multiple datacenters to enable application mobility and disaster recovery through the new multi-site application in the ACI toolkit; supports service insertion and chaining for any service device, without the need for a device package for policy coordination with the Cisco APIC.

Additional software capabilities provide: support for NX-OS style Command Line Interface (CLI) for APIC, Basic and Advanced GUI modes, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) support for APIC, and trouble-shooting wizard enhancements such as Heat Map. General availability is Q4 CY 2015.

Adding to its support for Microsoft AzurePack for private cloud, Cisco now offers full policy-based cloud automation with VMware vRealize Automation and also OpenStack deployments. Cisco isextending ACI policy directly to the hypervisor using Opflex on Open vSwitch (OVS). OpFlex provides the policy-based integration between OpenStack and APIC. These will be generally available in Q4 CY 2015.