ALE: the leaf ports that connect to the spine If we connect a 40G FEX to a 10G leaf, we need to use Breakout cables, which are cables with a QSFP on a one side and 04 10G SFP on the other side. And it is a Cisco cable. A FEX connects only to leafs. … Read more My Cisco ACI FEX Study Notes

Below are my study notes about the integration of Openstack with ACI. I begin with defining some concepts. Then I describe NAT feature within Openstack and I finish with discussing networking plugins. Openstack is a group of technologies that provide enterprise cloud computing capabilities. has the following minimal components or node types: a compute node … Read more Integrating Openstack with ACI

ACI VLAN Pools: Definitions A VLAN Pool defines one or more groups (one or more blocks) of VLAN IDs. A single VLAN Pool can be associated to many or all domains configured in the APIC. A VLAN Pool is used internally by the fabric to map endpoints to EPGs. Remember that the concept of VLAN … Read more At Last, The Secret To ACI VLAN Pools Is Revealed

Here are the steps to configure OSPF routing between ACI fabric and an external router. The part on the external router is not mentioned in this blog post, since I focus here only on ACI. If our network design involves BGP Route Reflectors, then we need to have a BGP Route Reflector Policy set before … Read more OSPF Configuration in ACI Made Simple – Even Your Kids Can “almost” Do It

MP-BGP Definitions MP-BGP is the protocol leveraged by ACI fabric nodes to propagate learned external routes into the fabric. MP-BGP and iBGP use the same Autonomous System Number (ASN) runs on all fabric nodes (leafs and spines) to propagate routing information received from external routes within the fabric. It is optional to configure one spine … Read more Make Your ACI MP-BGP CONFIGURATION A Reality