Unified Network Fabric Connects Three Data Centres for a Farm Credit Lender
Disconnected data centres. A network that couldn't keep pace.
As part of the US Farm Credit System, this wholesale lender and business service provider supports a network of local farm credit associations across multiple states. Their infrastructure had grown across three data centres — two in Georgia, one in Columbia — but without a unified fabric to connect them. Network management was fragmented, scalability was constrained, and the complexity of running three separate environments was compounding.
The goal was clear: enhanced connectivity, consistent policy enforcement, and an architecture built for the demands ahead — not just patched for the problems of today.
The core ask: Design and implement a Cisco ACI MultiPod/Multisite solution that connects all three data centres under a single, scalable, policy-driven network fabric — with comprehensive documentation so the customer's team can manage and expand it independently.
Designed end-to-end. Implemented without disruption.
OnStak ran the engagement across three phases — Discovery & Design, Development, and Deployment & User Acceptance — each building on the last with full documentation at every stage.
Discovery & High-Level Design
Requirement gathering to understand the current network. HLD and Bill of Quantities reviewed. Final High-Level Design delivered for DC, ADC, and non-production environments — including MultiPod/Multisite and IPN/ISN design.
Low-Level Design
Full ACI Fabric LLD covering patching matrix, Layer 3 outs, VMM integration, Multi-Pod/Multisite traffic flows, service graphs, contracts, and IPN/ISN design. Every technical decision documented and validated before a single cable was touched.
Implementation Planning
Detailed plans developed for APIC/vAPIC cluster bringup, standalone/Multi-Pod fabrics, Multisite (IPN), Nexus Dashboard Cluster, Nexus Dashboard Orchestrator, fabric policies, access policies, and tenant/logical policies.
ACI Implementation & Testing
Fabric bringup executed for Multi-Pod, Multisite, and Nexus Dashboard. Comprehensive test cases conducted to verify the implementation's success and reliability before handover.
Proposed ACI Multisite design — three sites, one fabric.
The proposed architecture connects three data centre environments — CDC Lab, CDC Non-Prod, and CDC Prod — through a shared MPLS backbone with IPN/ISN inter-site connectivity. Each site runs a dedicated Spine/Leaf ACI fabric with Internal and DMZ segmentation. The ADC Prod site provides Application Delivery Controller services. All sites are managed through Nexus Dashboard Orchestrator as a single control plane.
A network that manages as one. Scales as needed. Runs with confidence.
Cisco expertise, front to back.
This engagement was delivered by Cisco-certified engineers with hands-on ACI expertise — not generalists reading the documentation. Every design decision was made by people who have implemented this architecture before, at scale, in production environments.
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