Changing application environments are placing new demands on your IT infrastructure. With application workloads deployed across a mix of virtualized and nonvirtualized server and storage infrastructure your network must provide constant connectivity security and visibility across bare-metal virtualized and cloud computing environments. For example:

• Application instances are created dynamically so provisioning modification and removal of application network connectivity also need to be dynamic.
• With business units demanding accelerated application deployments your IT department needs to provide a shared IT infrastructure that addresses time-to-market needs and an increased return on investment (ROI).
• When you deploy a mix of custom open-source and off-the-shelf commercial applications your IT department must manage security and quality of service (QoS) for environments that support multitenancy.
• With applications transitioning to a less monolithic scale-out multinode model your IT infrastructure must scale with the speed of business and provide support for both 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity.

The Cisco Nexus® 9000 Series Switches include modular and fixed-port switches that overcome these challenges with flexible agile low-cost Cisco® Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI™).