solutions for real-world enterprise and data center
networks.
Cisco So ware-Defined Networking (SDN)
Cisco has introduced many SDN controllers in various
domains, including the data center, campus, and even
service provider domains. The following is the list of
Cisco’s SDN products:
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI): ACI was the
first Cisco SDN solution, and it has three components:
Application Network Profile: This is a collection of endpoint
groups (EPGs), their connections, and the policies that define the
connections.
Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC): This
is a centralized software controller that manages downstream
switches and acts as a management plane.
ACI fabric: This is the connection between spine and leaf
switches. In the ACI world, spine and leaf are the Cisco Nexus
9000 Series switches, which act as the control plane and the data
plane of the ACI.
Cisco Digital Network Architecture (DNA): Cisco DNA
introduces the concept of intent-based networking, which interprets
business needs into technical solutions.
Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO): This is a solution
mostly for automating tasks in service provider environments. NSO is a
multivendor controller installed in Linux that supports NETCONF,
OpenFlow, SNMP, and APIs.
Cisco Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN): SD-WAN deals with
creating and managing WAN connections in a cloud-based
environment. SD-WAN solutions have several key features—including
segmentation, centralized policies, zero-touch provisioning, and
configuration templates—that can be very helpful to customers. Cisco
SD-WAN has four main components, each with a very specific role:
vManage (for management): vManage is a GUI-based network
management system that handles the management plane. vManage
is a single pane of glass that provides various key stats. An
operations team can use vManage for day-to-day operational
activities.
vSmart (controller): vSmart is the main brain of SD-WAN, and
it manages the control plane. vSmart does all the complex work of
path calculation, route advertisement, and so on by allowing the
data plane to do only packet forwarding.
vEdge (data plane): The vEdge router’s job is to forward packets
based on the policies configured with vSmart. The vEdge keeps a