Keen to Get Hands-on with ACI 3.0? Now You Can – In Minutes!

Been waiting to get your hands on the new ACI 3.0 release? Of course you have. And now you can – instantly!

Here in DevNet we’ve just finished upgrading our ACI sandboxes to the latest release of ACI which offers you:

Kubernetes support – import your kubernetes cluster as a VMM domain

ACI Multi-Site (Each site serving as a single fabric)

GIR Mode – Isolating switches for maintenance windows

A new and improved APIC GUI
◦ New format and style across panes and menus
◦ New Collaborative features for sharing object information
◦ New trouble shooting features

So now, if you’ve got a Kubernetes cluster that you’re deploying containerised apps to, and you want the same kind of policy control extended to cover those, well now you can! All from one UI! (We’ll have a dedicated sandbox on the ACI-Kubernetes integration and extension coming soon).

Also, if you’re extending ACI across more than one DC location, you can do that by treating each DC as a single fabric in the one UI! Nice… You can pop switches into maintenance mode and isolate them from the production DC, while you work on them.

All this through a slicker, brighter, more intuitive User Interface (for a look-see check out the ACI YouTube Channel)

Figure 1 – New, Improved GUI for ACI 3.0!

For those of us who love coding as well as slick GUIs, we’ve also made improvements to the APIC REST API for you to check out in the sandbox. The API accepts network and policy configurations as well as providing access to management functions and more for integration with your automation tools, monitoring solutions in play and other management tooling.

You can get hands on with ACI 3.0 right now by simply logging into DevNet Sandbox and spinning up your own environment in minutes. Go right ahead…

Figure 2 – ACI 3.0 Sandbox Topology

We’re not stopping there with ACI of course, as we look to add public cloud extensibility in our coming releases. And you can bet we’ll have a sandbox for you to use and try it out on, too!

Enjoy getting hands on with ACI 3.0. Innovate away on the Sandbox and let us know what you think on the forums or feel free to reach out with any support needs. As always, it’ll be great to hear from you.

Also, hit out DevNet Microsite on ACI, to learn more about what ACI provides and the API you can use.

If you’re coming to CiscoLive Barcelona, be sure to hit the DevNet Zone and the Sandbox booth! You can meet a bunch of the team and also take part in a few fun challenges and play IoT Table Football that we’ve rigged up, using the technology available in our own sandboxes – We’d love to see you there!