Operationalizing The Network now available with F5 and Cisco ACI [End of Life]

The F5 and Cisco APIC integration based on the device package and iWorkflow is End Of Life.
The latest integration is based on the Cisco AppCenter named ‘F5 ACI ServiceCenter’.
Visit https://f5.com/cisco for updated information on the integration.

#ACI #SDN With the availability of the F5 device package for Cisco APIC, you can now rapidly provision the (entire) network from top to bottom. 

A key concern of IT continues to center on provisioning of network services. Whether eliminating the time consuming task of manually provisioning network attributes network device by device or trying to eliminate inefficiencies within the broader "network" service provisioning process, the goal is the same: increase the speed and accuracy with which network services are provisioned.

SDN and related technologies promise to do just that by operationalizing the network.

Last fall Cisco announced its Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) vision and then focused on the network by bringing its Application Policy Infrastructure Controller ™ (APIC) to fruition. Seeing our visions align fully on the need for operationalization of the network with a focus on the application, F5 committed to supporting Cisco APIC by delivering a device package to enable the rapid provisioning of F5's Software Defined Application Services (SDAS).

Today we're pleased to announce the availability - at no charge - of that device package. 

The availability lets customers configure application policies and requirements for F5 services across the L2-7 fabric and subsequently automatically provision the services necessary to ensure the entire stack of network services - from top to bottom, layer 2 through layer 7 - are available when applications need them.

You can download the F5 Device Package for Cisco APIC today and learn more about how F5 and Cisco work together: 

Published Aug 12, 2014
Version 1.0
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  • Mui_64918's avatar
    Mui_64918
    Icon for Cirrus rankCirrus
    Aug 17, 2014
    Using ACI model one of the main challenge is we are taking away access to Switches to the network teams, how can the network team whose bread and butter has been accessing the devices directly live without that, it is a Paradigm shift in the way network is managed and the network team has to bat for this. Also one of the main challenge is troubleshooting in an fully ACI environment. Currently we have better control of the network path and understanding of it with ACI we need to address those in detail before we can deploy those.
  • Lori_MacVittie's avatar
    Lori_MacVittie
    Icon for Employee rankEmployee
    Aug 19, 2014
    Mui, A more gradual approach is probably necessary to get the network team comfortable with the shift to automation. Phase 1 might be treated a "learning mode" for a WAF where network teams are still intimately involved with creating the APIC policies and deploying them and then also reviewing them to ensure they act in an expected manner. It's not a shift that will occur overnight. The network team has to trust the technology and the best way to achieve that is a gradual transition from manual control to automation. Lori