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Kubernetes (K8s) Infrastructure Connectivity for ACI Network Designs for the Modern Data Center - BRKDCN-2663#

Cisco Live Europe 2025 (Amsterdam) digest Program Core pick Amsterdam · 9–14 February 2025

Abstract

Speakers: Camillo Rossi (Cisco)

  • Why: The session explicitly covers Cilium with eBGP and no overlay — the cloud-native dataplane combination the PM tracks — compared head-to-head with Cisco's ACI CNI, which is a useful lens on where vendor CNIs sit relative to generic eBPF/eBGP ones.
  • What: An integration guide for running Kubernetes on ACI fabrics, comparing two CNI architectures: Cisco's free ACI CNI plugin versus Cilium with eBGP peering and no network overlay, ending with a demo of both. (from abstract only)
  • How: ACI CNI bridges K8s networking into the ACI policy model (endpoint groups, contracts); the Cilium path runs eBPF dataplane in the pods with eBGP advertisements into the fabric, avoiding overlay encapsulation and keeping routing native end-to-end.
  • Where applicable: ACI-based fabrics specifically for the first path; the Cilium/eBGP pattern generalizes to any BGP-capable underlay (including EVPN fabrics with a BGP peering policy). The comparison framing is valuable even outside ACI environments.