About this Course

This course is a 5-day ILT training program designed for systems and field engineers who manage and implement the Cisco Nexus 9000 Switches in ACI mode. The course covers the key components and procedures you need to know to understand, configure, manage Cisco Nexus 9000 Switches in ACI mode, and how to connect the ACI Fabric to external networks and services.

New topics now included in this version: 

• Inter-Tenant Communication
• Inter-Tenant Contracts
• Programmability with ACI Cobra SD

Audience Profile

This course is for systems engineers, technical architects, and product specialists in data center technical sales roles. Students include those who need to gain experience with understanding, configuring, and designing the data center networking environment with Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches.

At Course Completion

Upon completing this course, you will be able to meet these objectives:

• Describe the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switch ACI
• Discuss the ACI fabric
• Review Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switch hardware
• Configure the ACI controller (APIC)
• Configure ACI L4-L7 service integration
• Integrate the APIC hypervisor
• Understand the programmability and orchestration of the ACI network
• Discuss ACI connectivity to outside networks
• Implement ACI management
• Describe migration options with ACI

Prerequisites

To fully benefit from this course, students should have the following prerequisite skills and knowledge:

• Students should be familiar with Cisco Ethernet switching products.
• Students should understand Cisco data center architecture.
• Students should be familiar with virtualization
• Good understanding of networking protocols, routing, and switching:
  • Recommended CCNA Certification
  • Recommended attendance of Cisco IP Routing Class (ROUTE)
  • Recommended attendance of Cisco Switching Class (SWITCH)

Course Outline

Module 1: Introducing Cisco ACI

• Lesson 1: Describing the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switch ACI Solution
• Lesson 2: Describing the Cisco ACI Fabric
• Lesson 3: Describing Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switch Hardware
• Lesson 4: Module Summary
• Lesson 5: Module Self-Check

Module 2: Cisco ACI Configuration

• Lesson 1: Configuring Cisco APIC
• Lesson 2: Configuring Layer 4 Through Layer 7 Services
• Lesson 3: Configuring APIC Hypervisor Integration
• Lesson 4: Module Summary
• Lesson 5: Module Self-Check

Module 3: Cisco ACI Programmability and Orchestration

• Lesson 1: Demonstrating Cisco ACI Network Programmability
• Lesson 2: Cisco ACI Network Orchestration
• Lesson 3: Module Summary
• Lesson 4: Module Self-Check

Module 4: Cisco ACI External Connectivity, Management, and Migration

• Lesson 1: Configuring ACI Connectivity to Outside Networks
• Lesson 2: Implementing ACI Management
• Lesson 3: Describing Migration Options with ACI
• Lesson 4: Module Summary
• Lesson 5: Module Self-Check

Labs:

• Hardware Lab 1: Explore the Fabric Inventory
• Hardware Lab 2: Configure Basic Network Constructs
• Hardware Lab 3: Configure Policy Filters and Contracts
• Hardware Lab 4: Deploy a Three-Tier Application Profile
• Hardware Lab 5: Register a VMM Domain with Cisco ACI
• Hardware Lab 6: Configure VMware ESXi Hosts to Use the Cisco APIC DVS
• Hardware Lab 7: Associate an EPG to a VMware vCenter Domain
• Hardware Lab 8: Associate a VM to an EPG Port Group
• Hardware Lab 9: Deploy a Service Graph with Application Profile
• Hardware Lab 10: Configure Cisco APIC Using the REST API
• Hardware Lab 11: Export Contracts Between Tenants
• Hardware Lab 12: Configure Cisco APIC Using the Cisco APIC REST to Python Adapter (ARYA)
• Hardware Lab 13: Configure Cisco APIC Using the Cisco APIC Python API
• Hardware Lab 14: Configure Cisco APIC to Communicate to an External Layer 3 Network
• Hardware Lab 15: Configure Cisco APIC to Communicate to an External Layer 2 Network
• Hardware Lab 16: Configure Cisco APIC for Bare Metal to Bare Metal Communications
• Hardware Lab 17: Monitor and Troubleshoot ACI
• Hardware Lab 18: Configure APIC RBAC for Local and Remote Users