Cisco recently released an update to its Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI), software-defined networking (SDN), offering. This integration includes more integration with Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Cisco boasts the breadth and versatility of ACI, describing the industry’s only SDN solution that automates network security and workloads across heterogeneous domains like physical (bare-metal), virtual machines, containers, public clouds, and containers.
Cisco ACI 5.0 extends the company’s “ACI Anywhere” initiative. It follows up on last year’s announcement of Cisco Cloud ACI For AWS. The new version tightens the ties to AWS, particularly AWS Transit Gateway which connects Amazon VPCs, AWS Accounts and on-premises networks to a single gateway.
Cisco announced that Cloud ACI now supports AWS Transit Gateway automation to enable efficient and high-performance interconnects between multiple Amazon AWS VPCs. “The ACI 5.0 release supports automation in the TGW lifecycle and automated route-programming using TGW route-tables. This is for all combinations East-West-South traffic patterns.
[Click on the image to see a larger version.] ACI Integration with AWS Transit Gateway. Source: Cisco Cisco, along with Microsoft Azure, has made it a point of working with the AWS cloud. In fact, Cisco announced in early 2019 the arrival of ACI to the AWS clouds.
The company stated that it delivers operational simplicity, application agility, and protection in the data centre — all delivered in an open approach that integrates seamlessly with all hypervisors or container frameworks on which applications can be deployed. ACI Anywhere extends ACI to any workstation, any location, and any cloud. Virtual ACI supports remote edge locations and bare metal clouds. Cisco now has Cloud ACI capabilities that allow for automation, management and security to AWS, Microsoft Azure, and their Infrastructure as a Service environments.
Cisco plans to integrate more AWS services with the Microsoft Azure cloud. This includes support for VNET Peering, which allows customers to connect multiple networks within the Azure Virtual Network. The Azure backbone allows for low-latency and high-bandwidth interconnects among virtual networks. Azure enhancements include shared service deployments and native and third-party L4-7 services automation functions.
Cisco also announced new functionality for 5G wireless implementations, and other details.
You can find more information at the ACI website.
