Implementing application centric infrastructure to build a scalable secure data center

Abstract

Software defined network (SDN) has been a buzzword for a decade, researchers and vendors all have their own interpretation of SDN, however, that’s no clear definition on what it is. Based on a few conversations with end customers and system integrators, what the industry needs is a system can translate intent to orchestrate the network operations.

The aim of this research is to study how to transfer a traditional network configuration from device by device to be application centric and centralized orchestrated, easily consuming the network. In a result, shorten the time to provision network such as VLAN, port group, policies from weeks to days, and removes the barrier between application and infrastructure, by implementing Cisco application centric infrastructure.

This research is not to create any new network fabric but to bridge the application requirements to IT operations which is heavily demanded in the real-world deployment. A lab implementation has been done to show how easily to setup an Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) network from scratch to achieve simplified automation, centralized visibility, flexibility, scalable performance and integrated security. A proof of concept lab has been built to migrate one of the largest ASEAN financial customer’s network to ACI and fulfil their application requirements. It is proven to accelerate application time to market and reduce risk of changes. After achieving the network automation in the data center, further research can be extended to the campus network to give IT team end to end visibility and control from users to applications.