NetBrain-Cisco ACI Integration Previews

by Jan 22, 2018

Cisco® Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI™) is an industry-leading secure, open, and comprehensive Software-Defined Networking (SDN) solution. It radically simplifies, optimizes, and accelerates infrastructure deployment and governance, and expedites the application deployment lifecycle. Keeping applications as the focal point, Cisco ACI abstracts all the underlying infrastructure up to the business metrics.

Customers who are used to operating their data centers in a network-centric context often struggle to transition to an application-centric way of operating data center. Enterprises are looking for a gradual transition toward the application-centric approach.

NetBrain integration with ACI (currently in beta phase, scheduled for release later this year) has been developed to enable our joint customers to take this journey toward application-centric data centers powered by Cisco ACI. NetBrain’s core technologies Dynamic Network Mapping and A-B path discovery provide a network-centric and application-centric view of your data center in an intuitive single pane of glass view. This side-by-side presentation of network and application contexts enables users to visualize their data center architecture in both contexts, thus enabling them to transition to application-centric model. The mapping combined with other NetBrain technologies, such as Executable Runbooks, also provides enterprises with powerful troubleshooting capabilities.

At the upcoming Cisco Live! Barcelona (Jan. 29 – Feb. 2, 2018), we will showcase the NetBrain–Cisco ACI Integration Solution with the following key capabilities:

• Visualize both logical and physical connectivity
  Having different views (network and application) for the same network helps users quickly correlate the layers of abstraction and drill down into the level of details needed for quick troubleshooting.

• Quickly locate the ACI objects in both the network and application context
  Easily find a network device or endpoint in both networking and application contexts.

• Visualize the hybrid network
  Through this integration, users will be able to leverage dynamically created maps to easily visualize the entire network, including the ACI fabric, the endpoints connected to the fabric, and the topological connections between the fabric and the external network.

• Map paths end-to-end path between ACI fabric and the external network
  Discover and visualize application paths hop-by-hop across the entire network.

• Correlate rich data on a map using dynamic data views
  Data coming from diverse sources are organized into customizable data views that can be dynamically turned on and off over any map.
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• Automated troubleshooting and on-demand monitoring of ACI and external network elements
  Leverage Executable Runbook technology to automate troubleshooting procedures and capture results for fast root cause analysis and efficient collaboration.

At the Cisco Live! event, in addition to the continuous demonstrations, we will host several special presentations with our partner, Ravi Balakrishnan, Senior Marketing Manager from Cisco, to showcase the power of this integration.

• Achieving Agile Network Operations: How Automation Can Improve Visibility Across Hybrid Infrastructures
  Jason Baudreau, NetBrain Director of Product Marketing, Ravi Balakrishnan, Cisco Senior Marketing Manager, Wednesday, January 31 at 13:40, Partner Theater, Session ID  BRKPAR-2509.
• Introduction to NetBrain – Cisco ACI Integration
  Tracy Jiang, NetBrain VP of Product Strategy, Tuesday, January 30 at 11:00, 14:00, 16:00; Wednesday, January 31 at 11:00, 14:15, 16:00; Thursday, February 1 at 11:00, 14:30, 16:00. Once per day, Ravi Balakrishnan, Senior Marketing Manager at Cisco, will co-present.

Stop by our booth (G4) at the Cisco Live! World of Solutions and check it out!