Welcome to Tokyo, Japan.

The OpenStack Summit is a four-day conference for developers, users, and administrators of OpenStack Cloud Software. It's a great place to  learn about how Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) makes it better toBuild -Deploy -Scale -Connectyour OpenStack based applications.

Why should ACI be used with OpenStack

ACI offers a distributed scalable virtual networking solution for the openstack environment. It offers fully distributed Layer 2 well as an anycast gateway with distributed routing, DHCP, and metadata servers running within every compute node. This removes reliance on a single Neutron node for key networking services.  ACI enables distributed NAT and Floating IP distributed across the compute nodes as well.  The solution can be managed by a choice of group based policy, offering an application centric view, or Neutron API directly.

ACI offers operational benefits like hardware accelerated performance where VXLAN tunnels are automatically managed at top-of-rack so no CPU cycles need to be wasted for tunneling.  ACI provides deep operations and telemetry where troubleshooting can be done across physical and virtual environments. Capabilities like health scores, atomic counters, capacity planning can be correlated back to tenant networks.  ACI delivers an integrated overlay and underlay environment.  The user gets a fully managed underlay and an overlay with the ability to connect physical servers and multiple hypervisors.  ACI has incredibly rich service chaining capabilities that include layer 2 and layer 3 service insertion and chaining as well as a device package ecosystem for 3rd party devices or Group-Based Policy service chaining.  Finally ACI offers secure multi-tenancy both at the virtual switching layer and also enforced at the physical switch layer. This allows the physical network to be secure with the overlay and underlay even when a hypervisor may be compromised

Come visit us here at the event during any of these sessions to learn more:

Cisco -User Journey: Migrating Enterprise Applications to Openstack

Cisco IT's Cloud Design Engineer will share his experience deploying enterprise applications to OpenStack clouds, including how to identify appropriate applications, as well as how to achieve performance, security, and operational requirements.  Steve will also talk about the challenges faced, the infrastructure choices made, (including ACI), and demonstrate how Cisco uses Group-Based Policy for application modeling.

Cisco -Bringing Enterprise Grade Openstack Clouds Online Faster

Learn how Cisco is working with partners like Red Hat, NetApp, and Intel to build environments robust enough for production rollout of cloud applications. Cisco's OpenStack solutions use industry-leading Cisco UCS integrated infrastructure and advanced policy-based automation through Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) to deliver enterprise grade OpenStack solutions.

Containers Are Hot, but How Do They Network?

Containers are rapidly becoming the standard for developing, packaging and deploying applications for developers and DevOps practitioners. Why?

As more and more companies adopt microservices architecture, encouraging rapid prototyping and frequent change, there may be implications for networking in general as traditional networks haven't been designed for agility. What are they?

This panel moderated by Eric Hanselman, Chief Analyst, 415 Research will cover the inside scoop on the answers to these questions and more from those  involved with containerizing networking. Learn how vendors are able to help organizations operationalize their networks and eliminate the IT silos, given the  "don't touch the network" attitude. Hear about all about the emerging trends in containerized networking.

Cisco ACI and OpenStack

At 11:30AM Tuesday at Cisco Booth P3

Group Based Policy and OpenStack

At 12:50 Wednesday at Cisco Booth P3

Network Service Automation with One Convergence and Cisco ACI

At 3:30PM Wednesday at Cisco Booth P3

At 10:30AM Thursday at Cisco Booth P3

For More About OpenStack

1. Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure for Openstack Making Reliable Openstack Cloud for Enterprises
2. Catch These Cisco Speakers at Openstack Summit Tokyo