If you come to Cisco's corporate headquarters, chances are good that (especially if you're traveling internationally) you will fly into SFO, which is the airport code for San Francisco International Airport. This point has virtually nothing to do with the rest of what you're about to read...other than the fact that those same 3 letters -SFO -are representative of 3 key takeaways from an outstanding Infoworld product review on Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI). When you think about ACI, think about SFO:

Simple. Fast. Open.

I won't spend much space on this, as I'd much rather you go and read Paul Venezia's comprehensive and detailed look at ACI. But I do want to highlight a few brief comments on how ACI is Simple, Fast and Open.

Simple

"Implementing ACI is surprisingly simple, even in the case of large-scale buildouts."

Fast

"Assuming the cabling is complete, the entire process of standing up an ACI fabric might take only a few minutes from start to finish."

Open

"Not only is ACI an extremely open architecture..."

"Cisco is actively supporting a community gathering around ACI, and the community is already reaping the rewards of Cisco's open stance."

"This is only one example of ACI's openness and easy scriptability. The upshot is it will be straightforward to integrate ACI into custom automation and management solutions, such as centralized admin tools and self-service portals."

"This should be made abundantly clear: This isn't an API bolted onto the supplied administration tools, or running alongside the solution. The APIisthe administration tool."

Simple. Fast. Open.

Whether you're traveling to Northern California or not, if you're considering a better way to do networking, think about SFO and ACI.

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