Cisco Cisco ACE Application Control Engine Module Prospecto
Solution Overview
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Cisco Application Control Engine in the Virtual Data Center:
Simplify Provisioning and Maintenance
Simplify Provisioning and Maintenance
Cisco Application Control Engine management integrated with VMware vCenter simplifies provisioning
and streamlines maintenance operations.
What You Will Learn
Data centers are evolving from a model in which a physical device is deployed for applications to a virtualization
model that abstracts the underlying data center hardware. Although many benefits are gained by migrating to a
virtual data center, deploying a virtual data center infrastructure also involves some challenges. The Cisco
®
Application Control Engine (ACE) product family addresses many of the core challenges facing the virtual data
center. The Cisco ACE in the Virtual Data Center (AVDC) solution addresses application deployment in a VMware
environment.
Challenge
By far the most common activities related to administration of application servers are the initial creation of the
servers and applications, the provisioning of traffic flows to the applications and servers, and the ongoing timely
maintenance of the applications running on the servers.
While widespread use of virtual machines based on VMware as the application servers brings many significant and
valuable advantages, it also introduces an additional layer of management and thus additional complexity to
provisioning and monitoring tasks. To be able to gain the advantages of virtualizaton, organizations need simplified
and secure methods for delegating common maintenance tasks and monitoring applications. Each of the following
challenges of virtualization must be overcome:
●
Complexity in provisioning tasks: The integrated capability within VMware vCenter to add a newly created
virtual machine to an existing server farm simplifies the end-to-end provisioning of application servers,
decreasing deployment time.
●
Low visibility: Application owners and server administrators can see the traffic flow going through the Cisco
ACE to their servers, saving them from having to open other tools to use in the administration and
troubleshooting of their applications and services.
●
Change-control complexity: With the Cisco ACE VMware vCenter plug-in installed, virtual machine
maintenance and traffic management maintenance tasks can both be performed from a single pane. The
normal tasks of removing target servers from the traffic flow (suspension) and managing servers can now be
performed from one location instead of two, and by one process instead of two separate processes.
●
Control of securely delegated access: Since the Cisco ACE VMware vCenter plug-in provides a
transparent interface to the Cisco ACE environment through the Cisco Application Networking Manager
(ANM), the full strength and security of Cisco ANM role-based access control (RBAC) can be used. As a
result, individual users can be restricted to see only those servers that they have rights to manage and
allowed to perform only those Cisco ACE tasks for which they are authorized.
Business Benefits
Cisco ACE in the virtual data center meets these challenges, making it possible to gain the advantages of
application deployment in a VMware environment.