A few weeks back, I experienced a set of events related to my heart (nothing to worry in case you were wondering) and I just realized how many times we take this critical organ for granted.

It is amazing how it adapts as our body changes, pumping blood to every cell continuously.

Since I am an IT guy, I could not avoid comparing it to the network and realize how often we take it for granted as well. Every time I forget my cellphone, or when I don't have Internet available, I really feel there's something critical missing in my daily life, don't you?

In today's digital world and as explained in the video below, it is harder than ever for businesses to keep that digital heart beating due to several factors like operational complexity (virtual, physical, container and cloud environments), threats (hackers, vulnerabilities) and constant change (manual and slow provisioning).

With the ACI 4.2 release last week, we are keeping that digital heart beating harder than ever by delivering One Network for our customers' Data Centers anywhere their business takes them.

Here's a few highlights:

Cloud-Only ACI:Cloud Networking is different if you run on AWS or Azure. We are simplifying Cloud Connectivity with Cloud ACI and Multi-Site Orchestrator, by enabling automated Inter-Cloud connectivity and consistent policy even without an on-prem ACI installation. You can see how it looks like for AWS here.

SD-WAN Integration:It is not about the Data Center only. It's about the end-to-end story (including WAN and Campus). Integrating Cisco SD-WAN to ACI makes it easier for differentiated WAN Services and common-policies through APIC and vManage.

Proactive Day-2 Operations: We often troubleshoot as a consequence of an outage event. What if the network was so smart that it told us when something could potentially go wrong? With Network Insights Resources, Advisor and Assurance running on top of the Applications Services Engine, we now know if something can go wrong before it actually happens with ACI and DCNM support.

Docker Enterprise Edition support: In addition to Openshift, Cloud Foundry and Kubernetes, Docker EE makes it to the already extensive list supported by ACI natively. This means that the same monitoring, provisioning and security is now extended all the way to the container level in multiple platforms. Just choose the one you like the most, we will integrate it to ACI and you will still have One Network to manage.

Extend your Network Anywhere:With Multi-site Orchestrator 2.2, not only can we now perform VM Mobility between our ACI on-prem sites by using VXLAN automatically, but different sites can use L3 paths from one another (Inter-site L3 Out). And this is not it. Multiple enhancements were made in the GUI to make it easier to use, configure and learn.

In today's Multicloud IT, the placement of an app should be defined by the business, not by the network limitations. One Network extending everywhere, no matter the cloud, threats or changes can get you there.  Get started today! Learn more at www.cisco.com/go/aci and www.cisco.com/go/cloud.