Speed and agility are synonymous with digital business. But the static nature of conventional networks is ill-suited to the dynamic computing and storage needs of today’s data centres.
While automation tools have sped-up compute and virtualisation processes, the network has been left behind. Virtual machines (VMs) can be spun up in minutes. Manual configuration of network devices using command line interface (CLI) can take days or weeks.
Software defined networking (SDN) was conceived to resolve this mismatch. It separates network intelligence and configuration from physical connections and hardware so that new servers and network connectivity can be provisioned much faster than before.
Yet SDN can mean different things to different people. Some see it as network automation. Others see it as the integration of network and applications via APIs, or as a way to control individual packet flows across the network.
In actual fact, it’s all of these things – and more. But the confusion surrounding SDN has meant there’s a perception it’s complex. That there’s too much new stuff to learn. And that network admins must forget all they’ve learned previous.
This is not the case.
To prove it, we’ve teamed with WhiteSpider to bring you a webinar providing practical examples of successful SDN deployments at three UK customers.
Based on Cisco’s SDN architecture, known as Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), these deployments were all driven by four common goals:
- Reduce complexity & minimise risk
- Achieve operational efficiency when managing large and disparate infrastructures
- Enhance performance with seamless integration across virtualised and physical resources
- Future proof by migrating to a modern, programmable and streamlined network
ACI makes IT more agile by providing programmatic, policy-based automation for network, application, security and virtualisation teams. It has been embraced by more than 2,700 customers globally, as well as a growing ecosystem of 65 partners.
Join Cisco’s ACI specialists and WhiteSpider’s CTO Phil Lees on Thursday 11 May at 1pm to learn how ACI can help you manage your data centre, speed up application deployments and deliver services more quickly.
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