openstack Archives - Network Engineer Blog – Giang Pham | CCIEx2 #42780 (SP,DC) | AWS

(3/3) A deep-dive into OpenStack networking with Cisco ACI Opflex integration – External connectivity

Posted on July 13, 2020September 7, 2020 by GP

In previous posts of the series, I have covered the installation of the Cisco ACI Opflex plugin our OpenStack lab and covered the basics of the plugin. Specifically, we have gone through the core benefits of the Opflex OVS agent, such as virtualization visibility on ACI, distributed routing, optimized DHCP and Metadata functions, etc.

In this part 3 of the series, I will cover the setup of the external networks to allow OpenStack instances in the created tenants to communicate with the outside world through ACI.

(2/3) A deep-dive into OpenStack networking with Cisco ACI Opflex integration – Neutron DHCP/Metadata optimizations

Posted on June 1, 2020September 7, 2020 by GP

This is part 2 of the deep-dive series into OpenStack networking with Cisco ACI Opflex integration. In the previous post, I have described the different integration modes between ACI and OpenStack (ML2 vs. GBP, OpFlex vs. non OpFlex). We have also seen the constructs (tenants/VRF/BD/EPG/contracts) that the plugin creates automatically on ACI when we create OpenStack objects, as well as the distributed routing feature of the OpFlex OVS.

In this part, we will do some deep-dive into the distributed DHCP and Neutron metadata optimization of the OpFlex agent, i.e. how the OpenStack instances get their IP addresses and metadata with the integration plugin.

(1/3) A deep-dive into OpenStack networking with Cisco ACI Opflex integration – Integration overview

Posted on May 4, 2020September 7, 2020 by GP

This is the follow-up of my previous post on the installation of the ACI Openstack integration plugin (OpFlex mode) in my lab. In this blog post, we will take a step back and discuss why we would want to integrate ACI with OpenStack in the first place, the benefits of the integration (especially OpFlex mode), the different integration modes (ML2 vs. GBP, OpFlex vs. non OpFlex) and the decision to choose one.

You may also find very good details on this topic covered in Cisco ACI Unified Plug-in for OpenStack Architectural Overview document. I am not trying to make a full clone of the whitepaper here, but will summarize some key points and provide demonstrations specific for our previous lab setup with some packet capture to illustrate the networking features that we have discussed.

Tutorial: How to install ACI integration with OpenStack

Posted on March 4, 2020May 4, 2020 by GP

Motivation

One of the main features that I’ve always been impressed with ACI is its capabilities to integrate with popular virtualization domains- VMWare, OpenStack, Microsoft SCVMM, Kubernetes, etc. There have been quite a lot of resources covering ACI integration with VMWare in great details. You can find the lab guide in any Cisco DC specialization courses such as DCVAI / DCAC9K, and many other sources you can google for yourself. However, there are not as many for OpenStack. This tutorial is based on Cisco’s official installation guide, adapted to a newer OpenStack release (Queens) on Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic. I hope it will be helpful for those who are seeking a quick and easy way to setup an OpenStack environment with ACI integration. In the future posts, I may write about some key benefits, features, and mechanisms of this ACI-OpenStack integration.