CCIE Data Center - Zero to Hero

Explore the data center core concepts, including ospf labs on nexus and traditional routers. Practice etherchannel, port channels, vpc, spanning tree, arp, and lcp configurations across nexus topology.

Explore the five core data center domains—network, compute, storage, automation, and security—focusing on automation and security, SDN integrations, and practical labs that prepare you for modern data centers.

Explore OSPF v2 for ipv4 and OSPF v3 for ipv6, covering basics, LSA types, network types, and virtual networking, with hands-on commands and configuration.

Explore how OSPF operates as a link-state routing protocol, building neighbor, topology, and routing tables via the SPF algorithm, while using areas, backbone area zero, ABRs, and ASBRs.

Explore the main OSPF LSA types—type 1 and 2 internal to an area, type 3 and 4 via ABR, and type 5 external—along with neighbor formation and DR/BDR election.

Demonstrate OSPF neighbor states from down to full, select DR/BDR on broadcast networks, and run a lab to exchange databases, build topology and routing tables in area zero.

Explore OSPF network types, metrics, and passive interfaces, compare with IGP, and learn practical lab steps for configuring point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, broadcast, and non-broadcast networks.

Execute and verify an OSPF lab across area zero and area 20, configuring OSPF, setting passive interfaces, and adjusting network types to point-to-point, while validating neighbors and routes.

Master OSPF authentication and virtual links in area zero, using plain text or MD5 keys on interfaces, and configure virtual links to connect other areas.

Perform an OSPF lab to configure area zero, enable MD5 authentication, and establish a virtual link to connect area one as a transit, troubleshooting keys and neighbor adjacency.

Configure and verify etherchannel on Cisco switches using manual and LCP methods, including port-channel creation, channel-group setup, and show etherchannel summary. Learn LCP versus BGP negotiation and debugging procedures.

Explain stub, totally stubby, and not so stubby OSPF areas, including NSA types and LSA filtering. Learn to inject a default route with default-information originate and the always option.

Configure OSPF on the Nexus operating system with process ID 100, enable IPv4 routing, make VLAN ten and VLAN twenty passive, and verify neighbors.

Learn how OSPF v3 handles ipv6 addressing in a simple area zero lab, enabling ipv6 routing and verifying router IDs and LSA types.

Perform an OSPFv3 lab on a five-router IPv6 network to verify area zero configuration, inspect router IDs and neighbors, and validate self-originated prefixes with show commands.

Explore multiprotocol bgp basics, neighborship synchronization, and hands-on lab exercises to deploy bgp in data centers, covering autonomous systems, neighbor autonomous systems, and prefix advertising.

Explore border gateway protocol, the exterior gateway protocol running over any igp, using tcp port 179, to interconnect multiple autonomous systems with ibgp and ebgp.

Execute a BGP lab to build eBGP relationships, configure routers with neighbor statements and update source loopback, and verify session states and open messages using BGP summary and debug outputs.

Apply corrections in the basic BGP lab, verify iBGP versus eBGP configurations, and confirm the peers are up and running by checking the BGP summary.

Learn how to verify BGP neighbors and build BGP tables with show ip bgp neighbor. Understand the BGP synchronization rule and IBGP full-mesh requirements.

Perform a BGP neighbor lab to establish iBGP and eBGP relations across underlay IGP and indirect connections, verify with show ip bgp summary, and tune timers and passwords for convergence.

Learn the basics of PIM (protocol independent multicast) and apply them in a lab, through two videos: theory first, then the lab.

Examine PIM concepts, comparing dense, sparse, and sparse-dense modes, the rendezvous point, and flood-and-prune traffic to save bandwidth, including manual and auto RP setup.

Build and verify multicast trees with PIM, observe show ip route outputs in dense and sparse modes, and configure the rendezvous point and RP address.

Explore the first hop redundancy protocol concepts, including hrp and fhrp, usability of each frb, and how to apply them on Cisco routers or switches.

Discover first hop redundancy protocol concepts, including virtual ip and virtual mac, active and standby roles, and how priority and preemption ensure fault-tolerant gateway failover.

Configure HSRP on spine switches by enabling interface vlan, setting IP addresses on VLAN 10 and 20, and enabling preemption with spine two priority 50 for standby, then verify.

Explore VRRP theory and its similarities and differences with Cisco HSP, including the virtual IP, timers, priority, preemption, and authentication, and learn manual load balancing across gateways.

Learn about RSVP, LCP, and VPC virtual port channel through theory and labs, starting with Etherchannel focus on LCP, then RSVP labs, and finally VPC videos.

Bundling interfaces into an etherchannel increases throughput between switches while distributing traffic by application. Use manual or dynamic LCP or Pagp to form port channels with active and passive modes.

Configure Nexus switches for LACP etherchannel, VLANs 10 and 20, and trunk links. Set spanning tree priorities, port channels 100 and 200, and management IP routing.

Explore rapid spanning tree protocol (rstp) and its faster convergence through per-switch bpdu exchange, edge ports, port fast, root and designated ports, and alternate and backup ports.

Compare topology change notification in SGP and RSVP, showing how BPDU with the DC bit propagates changes, edge ports fast-forward, and rapid pvst enables faster convergence in RSVP.

Run spanning tree across three switches, create VLAN ten, and verify root, designated, and root ports using show spanning tree and detail outputs to observe rapid spanning tree changes.

Explore how nexus vpc creates a virtual port channel to maximize bandwidth and prevent spanning tree blocking in data centers. Configure domain, peers, keepalive, and peer link; verify show vpc.

Enable the VPC feature on spine switches and configure domain 200 with peer gateway and keepalive; create port channel 200 and port channel 300 with VLANs 10 and 20.

Configure left leaf with port channel 300 to the spine and port channel 100 for the VPC peer link, then port channel 55 to server, and verify dual VPC connectivity.

Explore vxlan and evpn from basics to advanced, including otv context, through a data center video series that highlights practical production use.

Begin with BGP EVPN VXLAN configuration. Watch two videos on VXLAN theory and encapsulation, then the actual lab will start.

Configure a vxlan vpn in three use cases, creating a leaf-spine vxlan fabric with border leaves and enabling l2 and l3 vpn connectivity across campus and multi-site NBFC fabric controller.

Explore vxlan theory and overview, including ethernet in udp tunnel, underlay/overlay, tunnel endpoints, and layer two multipathing in a leaf-spine fabric to scale east-west data center traffic.

Explore vxlan terminologies and concepts such as vtep, tunnel endpoint, overlay and underlay, vnid, and envy network virtualization edge, enabling multi-tenant l2 extension across data centers with encapsulation and mp-bgp.

Demonstrates vxlan encapsulation by wrapping the inner header in vxlan, udp, and outer headers to form a dynamic tunnel, with vxlan vni of 16 million and udp port 4789.

Explore vxlan types and their delivery methods, including flood and learn with multicast ingress replication, unicast forwarding, and mp-bgp based vpn, and compare evpn l2/l3 learning and control-plane advantages.

Build the underlay for a spine-leaf fabric by enabling OSPF on spine and leaf, setting router IDs, and configuring point-to-point links and loopbacks for underlay reachability.

Configure vxlan multicast with pim sparse mode on spine and leaf, define anycast ip and rendezvous point master addresses, enable multicast on interfaces, and verify neighbor readiness.

Configure the BGP underlay for a spine and leaf fabric using multi-protocol BGP with EVPN, route reflection, and VPN address families to enable VXLAN and multi-site connectivity.

Completing the underlay BGP configuration uses templates for leaves and spines, enables loopback-based update sources, and supports IPv4 unicast and evpn address families, with show ip bgp all summary.

Configure overlay vlan to vni mapping and l3 vni mapping across leafs, then create tenant configurations with auto rd and auto vpn targets for external communication.

Configure a vxlan tunnel within an overlay, building l2 vni and l3 vni using loopback one as the vtep endpoint and enabling host reachability via bgp.

Configure EVPN L2 and L3 VPN on leaf and border leaf devices, with auto route distinguisher and route target, and SBI VLAN based bridging across tenants.

Configure host access ports and vpc between leaf switches, establishing a vpc domain with a peer link and keepalive, set port channels for host and peer connections, including vlan 101.

Perform internal fabric verification across leaves and spines, test VLAN 101 connectivity between servers via VXLAN tunnels, and verify router peers and loopback endpoints.

Configure external bgp between border leaf and outside router, assign as 65002, and establish bgp within fabric as 6001. Create dot1q subinterfaces on e1/3 and advertise the 3.0 network.

Run a ping-based final verification to confirm full connectivity, verify leaf-to-leaf bgp peering, and outline filter lists on the border leaf switch to control access; the lab is fully functional.

Learn OTV terminology and how it extends layer 2 over a layer 3 backbone to connect data centers via encapsulation, decapsulation, edge devices, join interfaces, and multicast overlay interfaces.

Enable the OTB feature, define the site plan and site identifier, and configure the overlay, join, control, and data groups to extend from L2 to L3.

Configure an OTB lab across DC1 and DC2 by enabling licenses, creating VLANs, and building an overlay with a join interface, IGMP v3, and identifiers with control and data groups.

Follow the strategy plan to study DC core, HCI and ACI concepts, explore the DCC video series up to section six, and cover multi-site and multi-pod architectures.

Explore what ACI is, its policy-driven automated data center fabric, and how Cisco's implementation blends sdn concepts with a leaf-spine topology. See how it delivers centralized management, scalability, and security.

Explore the application-centric infrastructure at the heart of ACI, where leaf-spine fabric, epic controllers, and an overlay network decouple control from data, enabling rapid, programmable, and mobile subnet provisioning.

Learn how ACI topology and hardware shape an IP-based leaf-spine fabric, focusing on endpoints (physical and virtual), IS-IS automation, endpoint learning, and forwarding behavior.

Explore how the epic controller manages the data center fabric, with M3/L3 hardware, leaf connections, and encapsulation, while learning about sharding for high availability and multi-controller clustering.

Learn about EPIC hardware generations, redundancy, and high-availability design in a Cisco data center, including out-of-band management, bonded interfaces, and seamless failover within a three-node EPIC cluster.

Explore ACI topology and Nexus hardware options, including jazzes and line-card architectures, with supervisor, fabric, and throughput. Compare leaf and spine deployments, focusing on port density and datasheet.

Explore the aca object model, where every element is a managed object in a tree, integrating api and database concepts with logical, resolve, and concrete models.

Explore managed objects, including distinguished and relative names, and the containment and associative relationships that enable contracts between tenants, application profiles, and endpoint groups.

Explore ACI object programming options by examining object model interfaces, REST API, GUI, and Cobra SDK, then learn to query the AP controller and read the epic object model documentation.

Explore programming options within the ACI data center, using API documentation, Python SDK, and GUI queries to inspect relational object models, policies, and tenant health status.

Identify faults, events, and audit logs in the epic system, verify details in the system tab and dashboard, and understand health scores and fault resolutions.

Describe ACI fabric discovery and preview three upcoming videos that explain the discovery process before moving to section one.

Explore the ACA bring-up process, including establishing leaf-epic connectivity, using infra vilan for internal and external fabric extension, non overlapping endpoint pools, and LDP discovery.

Continue the bring up process by configuring bond zero inbound links with no IP, bond one for management, and dynamic fabric IPs, then verify interfaces on the epic controller.

Learn how ASA fabric discovery provisions a spine-leaf fabric, registers devices, and builds an internal ISIS topology, enabling rapid, scalable fabric bring-up.

Explore ACA policies and constructs, including access policy, public policy, and killer application profile, and learn to apply contracts between EPGs to build policies within the EPG.

Discover aci constructs that map the physical underlay to an overlay fabric with spine leaf, bridge domains, endpoint groups, and contracts managed by the epic controller.

Discover how fabric access policy fits into ACA fabric, differentiating underlay and overlay networks, and how public access policy, virtual networks, application profiles, endpoint groups, and contracts govern traffic.

Explore aci layer 2 connectivity by examining tenants, bridge domains, and epg contracts and filters; learn how interface policies and switch profiles organize policy and data plane interactions.

This lecture explains how to connect a traditional Nexxus network to an ASA environment, outlining interface policy, interface policy group, interface profile, and switch profile for endpoint access.

Configure the Nexus fabric by defining interface policies, policy groups, and attachable entity profiles, then establish physical domains, willan pools, and tenants with application profiles and endpoint groups.

Configure an application profile with web EPGs, create a bridge domain and a domain, assign subnets, then connect physical and logical networks in a bare metal lab.

Create two endpoint groups in the same subnet and establish a contract with an ICMP filter between provider app and consumer web, configuring application profile, bridge domain, and interface policies.

explore how a same epg can hold multiple subnets and gateways without a contract, while different epgs require contracts whether subnets are the same or different.

Embark on Section 01 lab with APIC 4.2 to bring up a fabric, register leaf and spine devices, and perform BGP and DNS configurations in the APIC simulator.

Explore ACI packet forwarding under the section 2.0, including ACA packet forwarding behavior and total ratings; define endpoint and interactor, examine actual packet forwarding and encapsulation inside the ACA fabric.

Define an ACI endpoint as a mac plus zero or more ip addresses, with local and remote types. Learn how leaf learning and spine queries enable destination resolution.

Explore vxlan as a layer 2 over layer 3 overlay that encapsulates traffic for scalable any-to-any communication within a fabric, supporting up to 16 million logical segments.

Explore vxlan encapsulation, detailing inner and outer headers, the udp header, and a 24-bit field that yields 16 million segments, plus how source and destination addresses shape traffic.

Explore how the ACI fabric forwards packets through leaf and spine with endpoint learning, proxy handling, and interleaf encapsulation across same-leaf and cross-leaf scenarios.

Explore how a leaf-spine fabric uses proxy and flood-based routing for vxlan overlays, learning destination encapsulation and dynamic tunnel establishment with ECMP-like path selection.

Learn how endpoint discovery and EPG grouping operate in the ACA fabric, including local and remote endpoints, VLAN concepts, bridge domains, and spine proxy tables.

Explore endpoint learning for local and remote endpoints, including mac and ip lookup, cache entries, l2 vs l3 learning, and tunnel and coop database updates.

Explore pervasive gateways, bridge domains, and epgs to define forwarding scope, differentiate L2 vs L3 traffic, and use proxies and default gateways for cross-subnet reach.

Learn the five ACI bridge-domain forwarding options: unicast routing, various flooding modes (including unknown unicast and optimized flooding), unicast flood with hardware proxy, and the drop option with encapsulation implications.

Explore how spine-proxy and arp glean handle unknown destinations across leaf-spine fabrics, detailing l2 and l3 forwarding, flooding, and proxy queries to local and remote leaves.

Explore forwarding software architecture and ethic generation, showing how the supervisor engine, line cards, and hardware abstraction layer coordinate control and data planes via EPM, policy manager, and PMC.

This lecture explains the ACI packet walk between endpoint a and endpoint b within a leaf-spine fabric, detailing how unicast routing, ARP learning, and endpoint tables enable proxy lookups.

Learn how external network connectivity extends bridge domains and private networks via L2 out and L3 out, with routing considerations for cross-domain communication.

Explore extending an ACI EPG or bridge domain to the external world, mapping external L2 to EPGs, and applying immediate or on-demand policy deployment.

Compare extending the bridge domain with extending the EPG, including internal vs external contracts and shared subnets. Emphasize learning Mac/IP and distributing extended networks across leaf switches.

Understand how the ACI fabric floods BPU frames, unknown unicast, and broadcast traffic within the EPG and bridge domain, and how SGP configuration guides resolution.

Enable the mislabelling protocol globally to detect and break layer loops, preventing service and network expansion loops. Enable MCP before connecting external networks.

Explore L3 connectivity from the fabric to the outside world via border leaves. Enable BGP and iBGP inside the fabric, assign autonomous systems, and define L3 out policies.

Configure a L3 outside lab by provisioning an external EPG network, defining an ICMP contract, and linking it to internal and external EPGs within an application profile.

Learn how to implement ASA integration with the network domain and explore distributed virtual switch integration, including ASA and AVMA integration across the new platforms.

Explore how hypervisor integration uses Aflex to deliver policy across virtual and physical worlds via a unified ACA fabric, enabling centralized orchestration and security.

Explore policy instantiation options and learn to build interface policies, policy groups, and profiles for VM and physical domains, with micro segmentation across VMware, Microsoft, RedHat, and Docker.

Examine VMware integration options, including a distributed virtual switch, a B plus shell combo, and Cisco approaches. Cover discovery through EPiK handshake, creating EPGs and port groups, and applying policies.

Demonstrate VMM integration with APIC 4.1 in the EPIC lab, showcasing the new UI, apps and integrations, and end-to-end domain, credential, and controller setup for data center networking.

Create a Web EPG as a port group, attach it to the VM, and configure the domain, bridge, and policies for immediate or on-demand deployment in a distributed virtual switch.

Learn resolution immediacy and deployment immediacy in data center contexts, including pre provisioning, on-demand, and immediate policies, and how these map to hardware programming.

Build a service graph by importing packages, mapping endpoints to consumer and provider, and deploying security services like firewall, then apply access and interface policies and the service graph template.

Execute L4–L7 service lab tasks with Ansible playbooks to create application profiles and endpoint groups, attach domain and tenant, and deploy L7 devices from a package in a data center.

Create the L4/L7 service function profile and profile group, configure external and internal interfaces with IPv4, and build and apply a service graph template linking consumer and provider through firewall.

Learn ACI management essentials, configure inbound and outbound management IPs and out-of-band access, plan for disaster recovery, and explore upgrade paths across generations using GUI-guided lab steps.

Learn to configure out-of-band management in a data center fabric by creating node management, setting management IP and gateway, and defining provider-consumer contracts and external management network profiles.

Learn how to configure syslog and SNMP, set log severity levels from emergency to debugging, and forward messages to an external server via UDP port 514.

Configure the system for the syslog lab by following the slide steps, create log sources and definition groups, and enable local and remote call home destinations with appropriate severity.

Learn to configure SNMP in the fabric by defining a monitoring group, setting up a management EPG, and applying policies to enable read queries with versioned SNMP and security considerations.

Demonstrates configuring an SNMP policy in a fabric, including creating filters and contracts, setting up out-of-band management, and verifying the configuration with monitoring.

Learn how to perform configuration backups for disaster recovery and upgrades, including creating a remote location, exporting policies, and enabling encryption with a 16-character passphrase in the lab.

Learn to set up a backup lab by adding a remote location, configuring import/export options, and exporting a configuration policy with encryption. Verify backups through policy operations and job history.

Implement Tripoli AAA and LDAP by creating a provider, defining group map rules, and linking these to the Tripoli policy within the login domain for admin access.

Explore the Cisco ACI upgrade process, from pre-upgrade backups and image stability validation to upgrading controllers, leaves, and nodes via the GUI, with scheduled upgrades.

Explore ACA multisite terminology and its key differences, emphasizing multisite technology and when to use it, with practical insights from Section six in the CCIE Data Center course.

Explain A.S.A. multipart versus multi-site in Cisco ACI, detailing shared control plane and common database across parts, fabric, and multisite orchestrator for policy deployment and disaster recovery.

Explore multi-site Cisco ACI concepts, including policy translation between sites, stretch and intercept options, and cloud encryption for back-to-back data center connectivity.

Outline a path to complete the DC core with ACI 6.0, then return to finish DC core and cover DC ACI, VXLAN, and security topics.

Welcome beginners to the Cisco HCI course; learn 6.0 with new security features and ESG, and gain a quick refresher on ACI's basic building blocks for operational engineers.

continue with the next two videos to run all labs in the ACA 6.0, completing the same process including fabric discovery and the rest of the lab.

Register fabric devices in ACA 6.0 by assigning node IDs to leaves and spines, then monitor discovery and activation as the Epic Controller completes fabric membership.

Configure the remaining basics of the data center fabric: out-of-band management, VPC peers, BGP, DNS, TCP, and NDP, then verify topology and fabric membership.

Watch the next 20 minutes to master vmm integration, understand the lab, and view workload related information in the vmm client for Cisco ACI vm integration.

Shows how to integrate HCI with ESXi using API, create a distributed virtual switch in Cisco ACI, apply interface configurations, and add hosts to enable east-west traffic management.

learn to complete vmm integration by creating interface policies, EPG and domain pools in a Cisco ACI fabric, attach leaf profiles, and integrate with VMware ESXi hosts.

Create a tenant-driven aca topology by building the student application profile with images and videos, using epg and esg, applying micro-segmentation across bridge domains, and mapping vCenter vm associations.

Map VMs to proper port groups, create the ESG, and configure an EPG with network segments and tag selectors (MAC, IP, VM name, subnets), applying policy tags.

Explore how to secure endpoints using the endpoint security group, complete related labs, and watch the next two videos to conclude this section.

Create port-based filters for 443, 80, and 3306 to secure the finance web app, then implement contracts, app profiles, and ESG groups within the tenant.

Explore how to establish provider and consumer relationships in the finance app by deploying contracts, editing topology, and verifying service flows across app, web, and DB.

CCIE data center section 1.1 to 1.10 covers cloud and management topics, highlights 21 videos, and guides skipping known content while continuing with upgrades and ACA and net flow.

Define service level agreements with performance, uptime, mean time to recover, and customer data handling, and outline cloud provider services such as storage, networking, and middleware.

Explore infrastructure as a service, where the provider manages compute, storage, and networking while you run applications, with AWS showcasing global regions and services from EC2 to Route 53.

Explore platform as a service, where the provider handles the operating system and infrastructure software, letting you run your application on top in the Azure portal.

Explore software as a service and the x as a service evolution, with examples like Google Docs and Cisco WebEx.

Explore public, private, and hybrid clouds and Cisco cloud services. Examine public cloud risks like data loss, outages, data breaches, and insecure interfaces, along with control and cost challenges.

Explore private cloud emulation inside public cloud with Amazon VPC, weighing cost, control, and security tradeoffs, noting it's not fully private and citing Azure and OpenStack as examples.

Analyze community and hybrid clouds by comparing public and private cloud pros and cons, noting scale limits and secure links between private and public clouds.

Learn Cisco inter cloud concepts, including inter cloud fabric and the director, secure connections between private and public clouds, and VM management with cloud fabric tools.

Learn how to move from traditional IT to cloud infrastructure by consolidating, virtualization, standardization, automation, and orchestration through Cisco Prime Service Catalog and UCS Director for private and hybrid clouds.

The cloud orchestrator manages heterogeneous data centers across multiple vendors, provisioning physical and virtual compute, storage, and network services, and supports multi-tenant application profile and container policies, automation, and metering.

Discover how cloud monitor measures resource usage and receives orchestrator notifications. Create billing plans, summarize data to avoid duplicates, and generate on-demand chargeback reports.

Advance the cloud journey by consolidating legacy it infrastructure, then virtualization, standardization, and automation, culminating in orchestration for a modern automated data center.

Explore orchestration and application programming interfaces, including RESTful APIs, as the fifth pillar toward cloud, enabling consolidation, virtualization, standardization, and automation across Cisco devices with CLI, SDK, and Python support.

Explore OpenStack, the open source cloud platform by NASA and Rackspace, delivering identity, compute, storage, and networking through a web dashboard or API for scalable public and private clouds.

Distinguish disruptive and non-destructive upgrades in the Nexus operating system, using in-service upgrades with redundant supervisors, stateful switchover, modular architecture, and persistent storage (database).

Explain destructive vs non-destructive upgrades, describe how to check readiness with show system redundancy status, and cover SMU patching and enhanced ISSU virtualization to minimize disruption.

Master EPLD/ASIC hardware upgrades, plan downtime, install the boot image, and manage line cards with mixed VPC bypass concepts while assessing fabric and power resources and approvals.

Explore implementing network configuration management, including out-of-band logins, syslog and SNMP configurations, and the steps to secure backups, with eight related videos to practice.

Explore infrastructure monitoring protocols such as NetFlow and SPAN, including NetFlow configuration and flexible NetFlow, and complete lab work on SPAN in subsection 1.9, leading to subsection 1.10.

Explore the evolution of netflow from version 1 to 9, comparing version 5’s limited fields with version 9’s template-based design and up to 104 fields, flexible netflow and nbar recognition.

Discover how to configure traditional and flexible net flow, including key versus non-key items, flow records, exporters, and templates, with Inbar for application visibility and IP accounting.

Configure flexible NetFlow by defining a flow exporter, creating a flow record with key fields, attaching a monitor to an interface, and verifying with show flow monitor.

Explore capturing data plane traffic with switch port analyzer techniques, including local span, remote span, and encapsulated remote span, using monitor sessions and sniffers like Wireshark to analyze mirrored packets.

Configure and verify a span monitor session to mirror traffic from a source interface to a destination sniffer, then capture and analyze SSH and other traffic with Wireshark.

Learn how streaming software telemetry delivers real-time network visibility by pushing structured data to analytics engines, using encoding (protobuf/json) and transport (gRPC/UDP) with data models and APIs.

Explore network assurance concepts through software and hardware telemetry, including ASIC‑based data, flow table and buffer/queue metrics, and the telemetry lifecycle from collection to visualization.

Advance through section two of the CCIE data center core by mastering UCS, UCS Manager, HyperFlex, and Intersight through 30 focused videos.

Learn compute basics in the CCIE data center course by exploring UCS architecture, blade servers, and service profiles; cover storage area network concepts and hyperflex with hands-on labs.

Explore the Cisco UCS architecture, including chassis, blade servers, converged network adapters, IO modules, fabric extenders, fabric interconnects, and UCS manager.

Explore chassis connectivity options for IO modules to the fabric interconnect, comparing 2208I, 2204, and 2304, and explain how NIF and host interfaces map to internal ports.

Learn the UCS bring-up by console configuring FIA and FIB, syncing independent control planes, and setting fabric name and IPs; then log into the GUI to manage the UX dashboard.

Navigate the Cisco UCS dashboard walkthrough to explore equipment, fabric interconnects, server and uplink ports, and FCoE or storage port options, then study service profiles and related policies.

Explore how Cisco service profiles map server hardware attributes into policy-driven templates, enabling one service profile per server, with configurable pools and LAN cloud network settings.

Learn to design and manage CCIE data center UCS service profiles, zones, and the initiator-target storage relationship, and configure vSAN fabrics with fabric interconnects, port channels, and domains.

Learn to create and attach a service profile in the UCS manager using service profile templates, configure policies, VLANs, and adapters, and apply to blade servers.

Attach service profiles to blade servers in UCS Manager, monitor the finite state machine to 100%, and verify policies, networks, boot order, and ESXi and CentOS deployments.

Learn UCS networking basics by creating pools and policies, building service profile templates, and attaching them to servers, with focus on the networking tab, vlans, mac pools, and US policy.

Learn to configure and deploy UCS data center services by creating pools, policies, and service profiles, monitor deployment with FSM and KVM, and prepare for storage and SAN concepts.

Compare storage area network addressing by distinguishing mac addresses (physical) from ip addresses (logical), and map wwn, ww port name, and fc id for zoning and fabric routing.

Explore hyperflex and hyperconverged infrastructure, learn about UCS, hyperflex theory, and deploy using Intersight with VMware virtualization as the backbone.

Explore hyper convergence with hyperflex, unifying networking, compute, and storage in one fabric and enabling software defined storage. Understand three-node architectures and the storage controller VM with policy driven automation.

Discover Cisco Intersight basics for cloud-based data center infrastructure, including managing UCS systems and flex pods, dashboards, licenses, and how to claim, manage, delete UCS devices, and provide feedback.

Explore Cisco Intersight, a cloud-based management plane that unifies UCS, Hyperflex, and ucaas with SaaS orchestration, embedded recommendations, and native APIs for agile data center operations.

Explore Cisco Intersight architecture for cloud-based data center management, with on-premises options and telemetry-driven analytics. Learn how continuous integration and delivery provide no disruption to customers with rolling upgrades.

Learn to claim and connect devices by pairing the UX manager with Cisco Intersight using device ID and claim code, creating an Intersight account, and using the dashboard.

Explore the Cisco Intersight dashboard to monitor server health, Hyperflex clusters, fabric interconnects, and devices, with search, licensing, and navigation to profiles, policies, and alerts.

Learn how to add and remove dashboards, add widgets from the library such as fabric interconnect health and license status, and rename or delete dashboards.

Activate the 90-day trial essential license from settings to upgrade from base to essential, unlocking policy-based configuration through service profile, firmware management, and ACL checks.

Launch UCS manager 3 from Intersight, create a bias policy, and verify it appears in the UCS manager. Create policies and service profiles in intersite.

Delete all claimed devices in the inter site by selecting them in the devices section and clicking delete, then send feedback via the help section to Cisco engineers.

Deploy Hyperflex edge via Intersight GUI, following cluster profile, node assignment, security, DNS, and network setup. Note replication factor two on two nodes; three are required for redundancy.

Perform post-installation verification of a hyperflex deployment by accessing targets, launching HyperFlex Connect, and checking cluster health. Review data stores and vCenter to prepare for data store creation.

Deploy virtual machine templates by importing an OVF, selecting the local file, data store, and VM network in vSphere, then clone and power on multiple infra servers on HyperFlex.

Explore best practices for firmware upgrade maintenance, including prerequisites, backups, security patches, compatibility, quality, and vendor support, with planning, checklists, and backout procedures to minimize downtime.

Learn how to use intersight to review health, download recommended drivers and firmware, perform pre-upgrade checks, prepare firmware install, and manage fault separation for UCS firmware upgrades.

Create a baseline policy for pre and post upgrade alerts with a one-day expiry, and perform full backups with auto backup on an sftp server, using evacuation mode.

Compare manual and auto UCS firmware upgrades: manual checks every step, while auto uses workflows to verify prerequisites, select firmware packages, and perform hardware-enabled software upgrades.

Explore storage area network concepts, terminologies, and the network ports linking storage and servers, and learn how DCNM became NBFC with NBFC courses following DC core.

Discover the fundamentals of storage area networks, learn SAN terminologies and fabric concepts, and practice port channels and MDS lab exercises to build a solid foundation.

Learn the fundamentals of storage area networks, including fabric channel and ethernet traffic, initiators and targets, and the roles of SAN switches, storage arrays, and host bus adapters (HBAs).

Explore how fiber channel links servers to storage in a storage area network, detailing node ports, fabric ports, and the fc zero to fc four protocol stack with fcp.

Explore fibre channel topologies: point-to-point, arbitrated loop, and switched fabric, and learn FC addressing with WWN, WWPN, and FCID, including zoning and port mapping for reliable storage connections.

Explore fabric path in data center SANs, applying shortest-path routing with equal-cost multipathing, MAC-based routing, and leaf-spine topology, while mapping zones and avoiding flooding.

Learn how fabric login and port login establish lossless, credit-based transfers in a san environment, map ww port names to fc ids, and enable zoning with vsan for isolation.

Convert port worldwide name to friendly device aliases to improve visibility and troubleshooting across the fabric, then configure, commit, and verify replication in the device alias and Ifcn's databases.

Understand NPV and NPIV virtualization for scalable fabrics, enabling multiple FC IDs and domain IDs with a node proxy core switch, including VMware host virtualization.

Discover a four MDS switch fabric topology, enable edge and core ports, and observe initiator to target discovery with flog and fc databases during a basic lab setup.

Perform discovery and inventory in DCNM to map SAN topology, enable NPV across switches, and configure VSAN and VXLAN with SAN analytics for data center networks.

Learn to configure a port channel in DCNM and create zoning for vSAN by defining zone sets and zone members, then verify with monitor and CLI.

Explore FCoE fiber channel over ethernet architecture and converged network adapters enabling lossless transport, data center bridging (DCB), and priority-based flow control for seamless ethernet and fiber channel coexistence.

Explore QLogic 8100 CNA with FCoE offload, NPIV, and dual NIC stack options, enabling boot from SAN on high-density blade systems with Nexus 5K integration.

Learn to configure fcoe on the nexus 5k pair, enable vpc and vsan, map vlan to vsan, and set up out-of-band management with ip and snmp.

Create the VSCs for the initiator and target, and bind them to port channels. Map the VPCs to the vSAN, then create and activate the June set to control fabric.

Explore the differences between block storage and file storage, with a focus on NFS concepts in NAS, including the client–server model, RPC, and SMB/NFS roles.

Watch and consolidate section 3.4 on software updates by reviewing previous recordings 94–96 and the newly created video, then begin section 3.5 on infrastructure monitoring.

Explore EPLD details and hardware upgrade strategies, including ASIC upgrade, downtime planning, and maintenance paths for line cards, supervisor engines, fabric modules, and power supplies.

Explore how the DCN management tool Dcnm monitors underlay and overlay networks, provides real-time topology, device and compliance visibility, and VM and host visibility for day-to-day operations.

Section four introduces data center automation basics through 25 videos, covering M script, embedded event management, and Python API integration to establish a baseline for the future automation section.

This lecture introduces section 4 on automation, detailing 4.1 scripting tools (bash, Rest API, JSON, XML) and 4.2 orchestration tech (Ansible, Puppet, Python, DCNM, PowerShell). It previews M and scheduler.

Explore on box embedded event management architecture, detectors, and policies to automate tasks with tcl, m scripts, rest api, embedded python programming, and linux integrations for proactive troubleshooting and security.

Explore an embedded event management lab that uses a syslog detector and an M script to alert on high cpu threshold and log cpu metrics to flash.

Learn how to configure the EEM scheduler within M, including event manager schedulers for applets, application extension policy, callhome, and class/thread settings with syntax and numeric ranges.

Watch three videos on enabling the index API inside the Nexus operating system through the guestshell NX-OS, then proceed to 4.1 b and 4.1 e.

Begin the lab by enabling iocs and configuring app hosting with an app id, then enable the guest shell to access the Linux kernel and run Python scripts.

Learn how to use a Python program to log into a Nexus device, enter config mode, and enable the nxapi API via automated SSH commands.

Edit a Python program to add nxapi feature using ansible, enable the feature in conf.d, and send the show index API via remote shell, printing output and handling syntax errors.

Understand how API enables machine-to-machine communication, contrasting CLI and GUI with API as the scalable alternative; learn get, post, put, delete, and JSON versus XML encoding within the protocol stack.

Explore representational state transfer, or rest, and the crud verbs get, post, put, delete, and patch, with json or xml payloads.

Learn the basics of JSON as a data encoding format, compare JSON name-value pairs with Python dictionaries, and convert between JSON strings and Python objects, with Nexus OS examples.

Explore XML as a data-describing language distinct from HTML, compare XML with JSON, and learn to parse XML with Python using SAX to produce human-readable outputs for APIs.

Explore the evolution of automation and orchestration technologies, including Ansible, Puppet, and PowerShell, and preview sections on Python and tools in the CCIE data center - zero to hero course.

Trace the shift from snmp-based device management to programmable rest-based interfaces. Highlight real-time monitoring, writable MIBs, libraries, and machine-to-machine communication with rest, netconf, and restconf.

Explore how model driven network programmability replaces traditional methods, enabling vendor-agnostic device management through open APIs, Netconf, Restconf, and gRPC with XML and JSON encodings.

Compare agent-based tools (Chef, Puppet, SaltStack) with agentless Ansible, and explain how agents pull cookbooks or playbooks from a master to enable multi vendor data center automation.

Explore Python basics and its interpreter-driven approach, widely used in networking and automation. Install and run Python on Linux, write and execute scripts, and use IDE and the Python shell.

Master Python basics: modules, blocks, statements, and dynamic objects. See Python 2 vs 3 differences, and use help, dir, and type to explore data types and plan SSH-driven device configuration.

Explore how POAP, power-on auto provisioning, automates switch boot with DHCP and TFTP discovery to fetch images, configuration files, and scripts, then install and save in NVRAM.

Discover Dcnm automation and its swagger APIs to configure, monitor, and automate underlay and overlay networks, storage, and compute across Nexus, SAN, and products, with Python integration.

Explore the Cisco UCS director installation and baseline configuration, create network, storage, and compute policies, and deploy an ESXi host with NetApp integration and vSphere verification.

PowerShell uses the power tool to manage XML-based APIs and UCS infrastructure objects, enabling sessions, methods, query filters, and commands like Get blade with outputs as objects.

Advance through section five on security topics, including aaa, rbac, and control plane policing, completing 15 videos to finish the dc core and prepare for the ccie data center.

Cover security across network, compute, and storage, with 5.1 A and 5.1 B on AAA and RBAC, ACA context, and troubleshooting, plus four videos to complete the network portion.

Learn authentication, authorization, and accounting using Cisco Identity Services to control access, apply policy rules, and audit user activity across devices and networks.

Describe access and AAA fundamentals using ISE, including EAP over LAN for supplicants, authenticator roles, and RADIUS interactions that govern authentication and authorization.

Follow a step-by-step ldap and aaa integration in a Cisco aci lab, creating app providers, group map rules, and app group maps, then apply ldap-based login in the aaa policy.

Explore endpoint groups, contracts, provider and consumer roles, and pc tag checks. Learn how vxlan encapsulation, scope, and filters govern traffic and l2 out l3 out via bridge domains.

Explore port security configurations, including MAC address limits, sticky bindings, and violation actions. Understand DHCP snooping, VLAN trust, ARP inspection, and manual MAC-IP bindings.

Learn to protect the control plane by creating a policy with class maps and a policy map, applying it to control plane to limit traffic, and validating with show commands.

Protect the control plane by policing control plane traffic on line cards, including OSPF hello flood mitigation, using ACL-based malicious traffic classes, policy maps, and verification commands.

Configure authentication, authorization, and accounting (aaa) on the UCS, set up tacacs+ and radius providers, and apply key management and user management steps via the admin tab and CLI.

Learn keychain authentication for secure remote logging to the UCS manager via certificates, including creating a key ring, certificate requests, trust points, and key management steps.

Learn how to implement role-based access control in Cisco UCS, covering roles, locale, creating users and roles, assigning privileges, and managing local vs remote authentication and expiry.

Explore storage security in section 5.3, covering triple A (authentication, authorization, accounting), radius/tacacs integration, RBAC, and port security with fabric binding to protect fabric targets and data in transit.

Implement role-based access control on the MTA switches by creating rule sets and assigning them to users, enabling roles like system admin and network admin with up to 64 rules.

Enable port security across the fabric to block unauthorized access and generate syslog alerts for SAN administration. Use auto learn or manual binding, and apply force if needed.

Learn fabric binding operates at the switch level, contrasts with port security, follow six steps to enable, activate, map switch worldwide name to domain ID, verify per vSAN binding.

Learn to configure a virtual port channel with member interfaces between spine and leaf, deploy the configuration, and troubleshoot vlan pass and bpdu guard issues during vpc setup.

Configure hsrp on ndfc for vlan ten and vlan twenty, assigning spine one active for vlan ten and spine two active for vlan twenty. Set priorities and deploy.

Configure OSPF on spine switches using the NDFC platform, enable OSPF features, create policies, and deploy interface-level OSPF with process IDs and area zero to establish neighbors and exchange routes.

Demonstrate VM integration via VMM by adding a vCenter cluster, configuring leaf 1/4 as a trunk, enabling OSPF on VLANs, and validating reachability with trace route.

Begin section three, exploring multi-site configuration with Cisco and the DFC controller, and learn how to achieve this task.

Explore multi-site data center preconfiguration for brownfield site two and greenfield site one using ndc, evpn over a spine-leaf topology with ospf underlay and bgp overlay.

Add stitches to the fabric, discover connected devices with a seed IP, and assign border gateway, spine, and leaf roles to switches, then recalculate and deploy changes across the fabric.

Learn how to deploy switch configurations in a fabric using bulk network creation, templates, and import/export workflows, including pushing config, monitoring sync status, and attaching networks to leaf switches.

Execute a fast greenfield deployment by creating a new fabric named greenfield site one, discover switches, apply templates, set device rules, and deploy interface configurations to leaf interfaces.

Create an external fabric for the core router to enable DCI interconnect with greenfield and brownfield fabrics, configure device discovery, seed IPs, and deploy router rules for topology integration.

Create a multi-site fabric from the template, configure DCI parameters and multi-site overlay deployment, and move child fabrics to build a hierarchical multi-site domain with attached networks for cross-site testing.

Deploy a three-site fabric by configuring leaf and border gateway devices with vlan 50, verify topology, and test inter-site connectivity with ping and bgp status.