Network Programmability with Cisco

ACI

Devarshi Shah Technical Marketing Engineer, INSBU

DEVNET-2000
Agenda

Introduction
System Overview
ACI REST API
ACI Python SDK
References
ACI API Layers
TEST CLI GUI

REST API

Application
API

Network
API

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System Access Methods
All access is implemented over the REST API

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Cisco ACI: Object Model
The Object Model and use of definition files
Model based network automation
Objects are hierarchically organized

Distributed Managed Information Tree (dMIT) contains

comprehensive system information
discovered components
system configuration
operational status including statistics and faults

Class identifies object type

Card, Port, Path, EPG

Class Inheritance
Access port is a subclass of port.
Full unified description
A leaf node is a subclass of fabric node.
of entities.

No artificial separation Set of attributes

of configuration, state, identity states descriptions
runtime data.
references lifecycle

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Management Information Tree (MIT)

Objects within APIC are structured in tree-based

hierarchy
Objects referred to as Managed Objects (MO)
Packages identify the functional area
e.g., fv = fabric virtualization, vz = virtual
zones, fabric = physical fabric, etc
Every object has a parent, with exception of
top:Root (top of tree)
Relationships exist between objects

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 Uniquely Identified Objects
Distinguished Names
A DN is used as a globally unique identifier for an object in the MIT

Formed by getting relative name (RN) and appending it to parent RN until reaching topRoot

A RN naming property depends on object

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Cisco ACI: REST API
The REST API exposes the object model
API schema follows Object Model containment

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Supported REST API Methods
Create, read, update and delete

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REST API: Authentication

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REST API: Create/Update Operations

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REST API: READ Operations

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REST API: Query Target Filters

self children subtree

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REST API: Subscriptions

With any query API REST client can ask for push notification for any change in the response
Push notification is sent via websocket protocol (RFC 6455)
Example:
GET http://192.0.20.123/api/class/fvTenant.json?subscription=yes

In order to receive the notifications client has to open a websocket

Example using javascript:
var Socket = new WebSocket(http://192.0.20.123/socket<current API session cookie>);

Subscription response:

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 Object Store Browsers
Moquery and Visore
The APIC CLI provides the ability
to navigate the MIT and browse
MOs and MO directories.
The mo file contains the
configurable properties of the
MO.
admin@apic3:~> cd aci
admin@apic3:aci> ls
APIC has built in object browser
admin fabric l4-l7-services system to navigate the object tree and
tenants vm-networking
inspect the state of objects
Point the web browser to Visore:
http://<apic>/visore.html
Search for a particular object or
dn (fvTenant, topSystem,
topology/pod-1/node-101)
admin@apic1:MyTenant> cat mo
# tenant
name : MyTenant
description : Created via API code
ownerkey :
ownertag :
monitoring-policy :
epg-address-pool :
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 Postman and Curl
Graphical and command line interface tools for API interaction
www.getpostman.com
Chrome plugin that enables rapid testing of REST
based queries
GET request to
http://apic/api/class/fvTenant.xml will
return the object configuration for all fvTenant classes
GET request to http://apic/api/mo/uni/tn-
common.xml will return the specific object referenced
by DN uni/tn-common as XML
POST request to http://apic/api/mo/uni/.xml
with a payload will create a tenant.
<fvTenant name="test"/>

DELETE request to
http://apic/api/mo/uni/tn-test.xml will
delete tenant test. Deletes tenant and children

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Invoking the API from a Python Program

Using the Python requests module, you can send API messages from a Python program:

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APIC REST to Python Adapter

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ACI Python SDK
ACI Python SDK

Cobra is a native Python language binding for APIC REST API

Supports lookups, creations, modifications, deletions
Objects in Cobra are a 1:1 representation of objects in the MIT
As a result, policy created via GUI/JSON/XML can be used as a programming template,
for more rapid development
All data has client side consistency checks performed
Packaged as .egg, install with easy_install

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ACI Python SDK: Authentication
Define an APIC to
which we will login
import cobra.mit.access
import cobra.mit.session

LoginSession
stores URI and
ls = cobra.mit.session.LoginSession( credentials
'http://apic', 'username', 'password')
md = cobra.mit.access.MoDirectory(ls)
md.login()
Link the
credentials to
the APIC

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ACI Python SDK: Object Lookup

lookupByDn
uniMo = md.lookupByDn('uni') Look up a restaurant by street address
(find me the restaurant at 1335 N 1st
Street, San Jose, CA)
lookupByClass
uniMo = md.lookupByClass('polUni')
Look up a restaurant by cuisine (find
me any Japanese restaurants)

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Getting started: Object Creation
Use Visore to
import cobra.model.fabric find the class
# Advice: Dont hardcode Dns.

topMo = md.lookupByDn('uni/controller/nodeidentpol')

leaf1IdentP = cobra.model.fabric.NodeIdentP(

topMo, serial='TEP-1-17', nodeId='17', name='leaf1')

spine1IdentP = cobra.model.fabric.NodeIdentP(

topMo, serial='TEP-1-19', nodeId='19', name='spine1')

Note These objects are created locally only, to save them to the APIC
use a ConfigRequest.

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Getting started: Committing configuration
Change a hard coded Dn
import cobra.mit.request into a lookupByClass() call
topMo = md.lookupByClass('fabricNodeIdentPol')[0]

# Dn is no longer hard coded.

leaf1IdentP = cobra.model.fabric.NodeIdentP(

topMo, serial='TEP-1-17', nodeId='17', name='leaf1')

spine1IdentP = cobra.model.fabric.NodeIdentP(

topMo, serial='TEP-1-19', nodeId='19', name='spine1')

c = cobra.mit.request.ConfigRequest()

c.addMo(topMo) # Add and commit the most top level object that makes sense

md.commit(c)

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Sample tenant creation with Cobra

from cobra.model.fv import Tenant

from cobra.model.pol import Uni
from cobra.mit.request import ConfigRequest
uniMo = Uni('') # Uni is a static Mo, so we dont need to look it up
t = Tenant(uniMo, 'Tenant1') # We create a tenant as a child of the universe
c = ConfigRequest() # Create a ConfigRequest to contain our new object
c.addMo(t) # Add our tenant to the ConfigRequest
moDir.commit(c) # Commit our configuration request

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Sample simple three tier app with Cobra

from cobra.model.fv import *

from cobra.model.pol import Uni
uniMo = Uni('')
t = Tenant(uniMo, 'Tenant1')
ap = Ap(t, 'Exchange')
epg1 = AEPg(ap, 'OWA')
epg2 = AEPg(ap, 'FrontEnd')
epg3 = AEPg(ap, 'MailBox')
ep = RsPathAtt(epg1, tDn=topology/pod-1/paths-17/paths-[eth1/1], mode=regular,
encap=vlan-10)
c = ConfigRequest()
c.addMo(t)
moDir.commit(c)
Note Bridge Domain configuration omitted for
brevity. Please see the Cobra SDK or APIC
Configuration Guide for a complete configuration

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References
Documentation and code examples
Cisco APIC REST API User Guide
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/aci/apic/sw/1-
x/api/rest/b_APIC_RESTful_API_User_Guide.html

SDK Source Code and Documentation

https://github.com/datacenter/cobra
https://cobra.readthedocs.io

Generic Code examples

https://github.com/datacenter/aci

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Thank You