[caption id="attachment_6745" align="alignnone" width="1200"]Application Centric Infrastructure Image Credit: MENA eSolutions[/caption]

Today, as businesses are moving rapidly to digital transformation, they are actively looking at infrastructure for their applications. Previously, application delivery architectures were focused on delivering applications with the help of client-server software or through web server, app server, and database layers. While Software Defined Networking (SDN) aims at making networks agile and flexible, Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) holds much promise.

It configures and displays the entire application ecosystem, including the distinct application delivery lines servicing the application like web, application, and database, and where each line exists. Embracing application-centric infrastructures, administrators will be able to manage a system for specific application delivery, instead of managing individual servers, switches, routers, and firewalls. This approach delivers numerous advantages over existing traditional architectures, such as automated load balancing, on-demand provisioning, and the ability to scale network resources to match upgraded application and data needs.

ACI can detach the physical infrastructure like switch ports from logical identity such as VLANs and IP subnets with application-based policy. This approach is inimitable and can stimulate application deployment times from weeks to minutes, while lessening operational overhead by 40-70 percent. Simply, this infrastructure frees the application and the business, so it is no longer bound by network complexity. It also accomplishes this with application policies. 

In the context of application-centric automation, Nutanix Calm, a provider of application automation and lifecycle management, removes the complexity and repetitive nature of resource delivery via comprehensive app-centric automation. With its app-centric automation, companies can improve agility, streamline operations, and centralize control. Calm also delivers application automation and lifecycle management for the Nutanix and public clouds, as part of the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform. It orchestrates the provisioning, scaling and management of applications across multiple environments in order to make the entire IT infrastructure more agile and application centric. 

Application Centric Infrastructure and SDN

ACI defines as a network virtualization platform based on the application and presents unique capabilities on an Agile, Open, and Secure architecture that minimizes operational intricacy and dramatically expedites IT service delivery. On the other hand, SDN (Software-defined networking) is a network architecture that separates the control functions from the forwarding functions, which enables greater automation and programmability in the network. It enables cloud-like computing within a network that lets network administrators to respond quickly to changes in business requirements through a centralized control console that is withdrawn from the physical hardware of the network. 

Moreover, as ACI delivers automated provisioning and troubleshooting of network end points, as well as accelerated data center application deployments, Cisco offers ACI for Data Center. Cisco ACI is a comprehensive solution, that is delivered on an agile, open, and highly secure architecture. It minimizes TCO, automates IT tasks, and speeds up data center application deployments. 

Comprehensively, application centric infrastructures help network administrators in navigating the transition to new technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and others that are now dominating network, storage, and application conversations.