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Fabrics#

An ACI Fabric represents the physical and logical underlay that hosts one or more tenants and their policies. It encompasses pods, nodes, interfaces, domains, and VLAN resources that collectively provide the infrastructure on which tenant constructs operate.

flowchart TD
  FAB[Fabric]
  POD[Pod]
  NODE[Node]

  %% Fabric topology
  subgraph graphFAB [Fabric]
        FAB -->|1:n| POD
        POD -->|1:n| NODE
  end

Fabric#

A Fabric represents a single ACI deployment containing Pods, Nodes, and fabric-level policy objects. A Fabric can host multiple Tenants.

The ACIFabric model has the following fields:

Required fields:

  • Name: the ACI Fabric name.
  • Fabric ID: numeric identifier configured during APIC fabric setup.
    • Values: 1–128
  • Infrastructure VLAN ID: fabric-wide infrastructure VLAN used for APIC-to-switch communication.
    • Values: 1–4094

Optional fields:

  • Description: a description of the Fabric.
  • Infrastructure VLAN: reference to a NetBox VLAN documenting the same VLAN ID.
  • GiPo pool: reference to a NetBox Prefix representing the Bridge Domain multicast (GiPo) pool used for fabric multicast (for example, 225.0.0.0/15).
  • NetBox tenant: association to a NetBox Tenant.
  • Comments: a text field for notes (Markdown supported).
  • Tags: a list of NetBox tags.

Pod#

An ACI Pod groups a set of leaf and spine nodes within a Fabric. Pods provide a way to scale the fabric by grouping nodes into separate domains while maintaining a unified management plane. Each Pod within a Fabric must have a unique identifier and is assigned a TEP pool for internal addressing.

The ACIPod model has the following fields:

Required fields:

  • Name: the Pod name.
  • ACI Fabric: reference to the related ACIFabric.
  • Pod ID: unique numeric identifier within the Fabric.
    • Values: 1–255

Optional fields:

  • Name alias: an optional alias for the Pod name.
  • Description: a description of the Pod.
  • TEP Pool: reference to a NetBox Prefix representing the pod-wide IPv4 Tunnel Endpoint (TEP) pool.
    • Recommended: a dedicated unicast IPv4 prefix sized appropriately for the expected scale (commonly /16; smaller pools may be supported depending on APIC release and fabric scale).
  • NetBox tenant: association to a NetBox Tenant.
  • Comments: a text field for notes (Markdown supported).
  • Tags: a list of NetBox tags.

Node#

An ACI Node represents a single managed element inside a Pod. Most commonly a leaf or spine switch, and an APIC controller. Nodes are the building blocks of the fabric topology and are referenced by their Node ID within the Pod.

In NetBox, an ACI Node is primarily a documentation and association object:

  • It anchors the Node to an ACI Pod (and therefore to a Fabric).
  • It optionally maps the Node to a NetBox object (typically a dcim.Device, and in some lab/virtual setups a virtualization.VirtualMachine).
  • It can document the Node’s role, deployment type, and (optionally) the assigned TEP IP used for tunnel endpoints within the Pod.

The ACINode model has the following fields:

Required fields:

  • Name: the Node name.
  • ACI Pod: reference to the related ACIPod.
  • Node ID: numeric identifier of the node within the Fabric.
    • Values: 1–100 (APIC), 101–4000 (Leaf/Spine)

Optional fields:

  • Name alias: an optional alias for the Node name.
  • Description: a description of the Node.
  • Node object type / Node object: optional mapping to a NetBox object.
    • Supported object types are limited (Device or Virtual Machine).
    • If an Object Type is selected, the referenced Object must be set as well.
    • The referenced object must match the Pod’s scope (for example, Site/Region/Group or Location hierarchy)
  • Role: functional role of the node in the topology.
    • Values: Leaf, Spine, APIC
  • Type Type: documents the deployment type of the node.
    • Examples: virtual leaf, remote leaf (WAN), tier‑2 leaf
  • TEP IP Address: optional reference to a NetBox IPAddress documenting the node’s Tunnel Endpoint (TEP).
    • The IP must be inside the Pod’s TEP Pool prefix.
    • The IP’s VRF must match the TEP Pool’s VRF (if applicable).
    • The host mask length must match the pool mask length.
  • NetBox tenant: association to a NetBox Tenant.
  • Comments: a text field for notes (Markdown supported).
  • Tags: a list of NetBox tags.