Cisco ACI Power Workshop – 3 days (ACI-PW-IND)

This ACI Power Workshop is a fast-paced technical delivery that provides essential skills to configure, operate, and troubleshoot the ACI environment . The initial part of the course covers the basic concepts required to deploy ACI and is accompanied by a series of step-by-step labs.  This class enables Network Engineers with skills and insight to operate and manage a new or existing ACI environment.

Objective

  • At the completion of the class students should be able to: 
    • Validate Underlay Fabric Access policies 
    • Configure Tenant Policies 
    • Configure Layer 2 outside connectivity to the ACI Fabric 
    • Operate and manage ACI Fabric

Suggested Pre-requisites

Before commencing this class, you should have an understanding of: 

  • Networking Layer 2 & Layer 3 concepts (Ethernet and TCP/IP) 
  • Basic PC (Windows/Linux) System administration (ping, IP address assignment) 

Duration

3 days

Outline

 

DAY1: ACI Overview

  • ACI concepts and terms
  • Endpoints, EPGs, BDs, VRFs
  • Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) Basics
  • VTEPs, VXLAN, COOP, ISIS, BGP
  • Role of the APIC and dynamic configuration
  • GUI navigation

ACI Components and Topology

  • ACI Component Overview
  • Nexus 9000
  • APIC Introduction
  • ACI Configuration Components and Topology

ACI Access Policy model

  • Access Policies
  • Leaf Profiles
  • Interface Profiles
  • Interface Selectors
  • Interface Policies
  • Interface Policy Groups
  • Attachable Access Entity Profile (AAEP/AEP)
  • Domains
  • VLAN Pools
  • Configuration Strategy

Lab 1: Exploring the Graphical User Interface

Lab 2: Build Access Policy Chain for BMHs

DAY2: ACI Tenant Overlay Model

  • ACI Logical Model
  • ACI Tenant Policy design elements and the implementation options
  • EPGs, Contracts, Subjects and Filters
  • How to design Contracts
  • Design Options
  • Enforcing Policies
  • Strategies for allowing full communication between EPGs

ACI Fabric Operation and Forwarding

  • Endpoints, EPG, EP Learning, COOP and How it all works
  • BD, VRF forwarding scope and detailed options
  • Spine-Proxy and ARP Glean
  • Endpoint Learning & Lookup
  • Fabric Forwarding
  • Troubleshooting ACI
  • Upgrading ACI

Lab 3: Configure Tenant and Basic Network Constructs

Lab 4: Configure a Two-Tier Application Profile

Lab 5: Build Contracts between EPGs

DAY3: ACI Virtual Machine Management

  • Virtualization Primer
  • ACI Hypervisor Integration Overview
  • ACI Hypervisor Integration with VMware
  • Integration with VMware VDS
  • ACI VMware Configuration Management

ACI – Connecting to Existing L3 Infrastructure

  • L3 Operations
  • MPBGP and RR
  • Route Redistribution
  • L3Outs
  • External EPGs (L3 EPGs)
  • Advertising Internal Routes Externally
  • OSPF

Lab 6 : VMM Integration

Lab 7: Configuring External Connections