Some Think Cisco ACI Is Terrible. Is It?

[Music] alright one more question here before we go to our final presentation of the day this question may make you smile but this is a question that came in from someone who works at a company who if you heard the name of the company you would you would all recognize it and here's our question why is Cisco ACI so terrible now I'm not trying to pass judgment on ACI one way or the other I have heard this comment from a lot of people who are frustrated by ACI and so I'll I'll leave it to you guys to to discuss this and and I and I have some some parting thoughts from some many folks I know who've worked with ACI closely Bryan let's lead off with you but this seems to be kind of as much philosophical is is a technical I can tell you why I think it why I think it was sort of thought it was terrible as my first experience with AC I was was just brutal I mean it eight applications we didn't quite know what applications needed to go where how it should be prioritized or and you know as sort of our first foray into into that technology so so there's that I mean that that really just started with me not knowing enough about ACI to do it correctly and that may be similar you know that may be that may be a common theme that shapes that shapes that opinion but I also think that that Cisco needs to I think they're trying to be more software syndrich and they were very much a hardware company so it's tough to take you know 20 25 years of hardware building and COI and bolt on you know bolt on these I think these these extra features for for application inspection and such but you know that's again that's one man's opinion Chris you've got some thoughts here well it's interesting what Brian was saying there about um maybe a lay a problem because although you know I think ACI has some famous forms especially with old Cody it seems like I've never used myself when I've quite a few people you have and almost consistently the people who have used it recently really liked it actually and it's mainly people who have been using it from the beginning who come away with the horror stories and it just sounds like it was maybe just a I want to say it was just a rushed product but like you feel like all the vendors are like that nowadays people of bugs but as even all of that aside I feel like so much of the problems that I've heard my colleagues say have to do with the fact that their bosses have implemented this expensive new system that they're very excited by whiz-bang it's gonna solve all the problems I worry about training anyone though just there working out their network guys right it's just another Network thing they'll work and actually no it's a completely different philosophy that's the whole point of a CRI is there there's this abstraction that it brings requires a different mindset I was talking about sanic dota pause talked with one colleague who said that of the staff in his department the people who have freshly got CCNA s found it easier to use a CI than hardened Network veterans because they weren't as bogged down with the philosophy of it and I mean if you're not gonna train people then you're gonna have problems right now yeah our data center team at in my region they don't they don't have complaints like that anymore it used to be that way so not having a tremendous amount of experience deploying it myself you know I'm in the same boat as you Chris but just hearing from from our DC team we're not hearing that it's you know this incredibly terrible thing like it used to be I mean yeah there's some inherent complexity because now instead it is configuring a couple things manually which may not be efficient you know you're configuring contracts and point groups all these other things and piecing stuff together so it might even feel like it's more work and more complex that's the only ultimate goal to work straighten automate those tasks away it's it's kind of its kind of prep time and I think for for weather seems to be a common thing you know is it almost old dinosaurs we used to plan like everything that we were gonna do on a project write out all the all the config snippets and and then for some reason I think you know these comments are correct and that and that those early days of ACI it was just files just gonna be another just gonna be another drought it's gonna be another switch and now I got a pretty GUI to to make these changes so let's jump in and it's not like that at all so I think anytime you're tackling a new technology cheese made you know we gotta read the white papers and and just in come upon myself to do to do the right thing by by learning more about the tech not just assuming that it's something that I'm already familiar with a parting thought on this is many of the folks that we've talked to in the back-channel who have deployed a CI have said early versions were frustrating they were buggy they didn't work as expected or they were just unexpected challenges with them but that later versions it's settled way the heck down it is much more stable reliable a lot more successful deployments and so you know a CI of you know a few months back or even a year back is gonna be an improvement over the very earliest versions that came out the door so you know the I decided to put the question up there as exactly as it came through which was a little harsh but but I think it led to a good discussion [Music]

Channel: Packet Pushers

Views: 2,134

Rating: 4.5384617 out of 5

Keywords: cisco aci, network automation, virtual design clinic, vdc5

Id: AUKR48XR5J8

Length: 5min 45sec (345 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 27 2019