From Point Solutions to Application Centric Services: Cisco ACI and Radware


For decades IT managers have been deploying application delivery (Layers 4 – 7) and security services as point solutions.  The network provided the basic connectivity and each L4-7 had to be configured manually per each application.  Virtualizing the compute fabric enabled automation at the configuration stage; however, L4-7 and security were still deployed as point solutions.  Each application infrastructure change still required intervention in rewiring the physical network, reconfiguring network nodes and, of course, with testing application integrity end-to-end and performance.

With the introduction of a holistic architecture in the data center and its integration with automated tenant-based application delivery and security services, this has changed.

The Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) offers centralized automation and policy-driven application profiles.  It delivers automation from the network layer up to the compute application in frastructure. Integrating this ACI fabric with the Radware Alteon Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and DefensePro solutions drives this value even further through enabling automated tenant-based application delivery and security services.

How does it work?

Here at Radware, we’ve developed device packages for the Cisco ACI.  These packages enable users to insert ADC and DoS protection services per application and/or per network tenant.  The Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) automates the service insertion process while acting as a central point of policy control.

What’s in it for you?

You can now increase your data center’s agility without compromising application service level agreements (SLAs). 

  • Deploying Cisco ACI as a dynamic and automated datacenter infrastructure will continuously deliver applications without any adverse application SLA impact.
  • Your applications can move, scale-up, or scale-out while retaining the associated L4-7 and security services without any location-specific constraints.
  • Error-free deployment thanks to automated processes running Radware-certified use cases.

How it has been used:  Web Application Service Profile Use Case

Using Cisco APIC a user can automate the creation and provisioning of a web application profile. Cisco APIC offers a drag-and-drop user interface to easily insert a firewall, load balancer and other L4-L7 network services into a web application profile. This, in turn, creates a service graph in which a L4-L7 service such as load-balancing, becomes an integral part of the tenant’s web application and can become operational by APIC in minutes.

Best of breed application delivery and DoS Protection services are necessary to protect your data center and your application SLAs in today’s atmosphere of growing threats.  Choosing a vendor you can rely on, will maintain your SLAs as well as eliminate any ‘noisy neighbor’ impacts that can occur from a traffic increase of non-critical applications.  The Alteon NG is the only load balancer that guarantees application SLA for all web, cloud and mobile applications and the Attack Mitigation Service (which includes DefensePro) offers the most accurate real-time DoS/DDoS attack detection and mitigation without blocking legitimate user traffic.  The bottom line is that you can drive greater value from your Cisco ACI deployment with the integration of Radware application delivery and DoS protection services.

Ron Meyran

Ron Meyran leads the marketing activities, partner strategy and Go-to-Market plans for Radware’s alliance and application partners. He also works to develop joint solutions that add value proposition and help drive sales initiatives – designed to increase visibility and lead generation. Mr. Meyran is a security and SDN industry expert who represents Radware at various industry events and training sessions. His thought leadership and opinion pieces have been widely published in leading IT & security industry magazines and he holds a B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Ben-Gurion University and a MBA from Tel Aviv University.

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