--- title: "Best practices for integrating Calico with Cisco ACI" source: "https://www.tigera.io/blog/best-practices-for-integrating-calico-with-cisco-aci/" --- [Technical Blog](https://www.tigera.io/category/technical-blog/) # Best practices for integrating Calico with Cisco ACI By [Alex Pollitt](https://www.tigera.io/blog/author/alexpollitt/) on May 31, 2020 • 2 min read In enterprises that have adopted Cisco ACI (Application Centric Infrastructure) to provide their network fabric, there are still choices to make about what to do for pod networking when running Kubernetes.  The obvious choice is Calico, which has widely established itself as the de facto standard for high performance, scalable, and reliable networking and network security for Kubernetes. Calico’s networking is incredibly flexible, with the ability to run in a variety of modes, including IPIP or VXLAN overlays independent of the underlying fabric, or non-overlay modes peering with top of rack routers on-prem or tightly integrated with cloud provider networking in public clouds. Given this flexibility, it’s trivial to run Calico on top of any network fabric, but if you want the highest possible performance for a production network, what’s the optimum way to configure Calico and Cisco ACI to work together? In this white paper you’ll learn the current best practices for integrating Calico with Cisco ACI based top of rack (ToR) routers in a robust dual ToR architecture. The result is a high performance non-overlay Calico network, with Calico network policy enforcement, where pods are first class citizens within the underlying fabric. The white paper lays out detailed instructions for the required ACI configurations, plus associated Calico configuration to make the two work together seamlessly. You can read the full white paper here: [Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure Calico Design White Paper](http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/data-center-virtualization/application-centric-infrastructure/white-paper-c11-743182.html) If you liked this white paper, you may also like: - [Topology Aware IP Address Management for Kubernetes](https://www.tigera.io/blog/topology-aware-ip-management/) - [Everything you need to know about Kubernetes networking on AWS](https://www.tigera.io/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-kubernetes-pod-networking-on-aws/) - Free online training at [projectcalico.org/events](http://projectcalico.org/events) or subscribe to [Calico Essentials](https://info.tigera.io/rs/805-GFH-732/images/Calico-Essentials-Datasheet.pdf) for personalized training & workshops - Learn about [Calico Enterprise](http://docs.projectcalico.org/calico-enterprise/) [Best Practices](https://www.tigera.io/tags/best-practices/)[Partner/Integration](https://www.tigera.io/tags/partner-integration/)[Project Calico](https://www.tigera.io/tags/project-calico/) ## Related posts [![EU Cyber Resilience Act: Europe Just Put Your AI Agents on a 24-Hour Clock](https://www.tigera.io/app/uploads/2026/10/EU-Cyber-Resilience-Act-AI-Agents-featured.png)](https://www.tigera.io/blog/eu-cyber-resilience-act-europe-just-put-your-ai-agents-on-a-24-hour-clock/) #### [EU Cyber Resilience Act: Europe Just Put Your AI Agents on a 24-Hour Clock](https://www.tigera.io/blog/eu-cyber-resilience-act-europe-just-put-your-ai-agents-on-a-24-hour-clock/) By [Alister Baroi](https://www.tigera.io/blog/author/alister-baroi/) on Oct 5, 2026 In short, the EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) puts binding cybersecurity requirements on any software sold as a product in the EU, and it does not carve out AI agents. Since 11th September 2026, any... [Read more](https://www.tigera.io/blog/eu-cyber-resilience-act-europe-just-put-your-ai-agents-on-a-24-hour-clock/) [![The Clearinghouse For AI Agents Has A Blind Spot](https://www.tigera.io/app/uploads/2026/09/Lynx-Clearinghouse-Blog.png)](https://www.tigera.io/blog/clearinghouse/) #### [The Clearinghouse For AI Agents Has A Blind Spot](https://www.tigera.io/blog/clearinghouse/) By [Dillon Barry](https://www.tigera.io/blog/author/dillon-barry/) on Sep 23, 2026 Jamin Ball’s recent piece, “Systems of Record Won the SaaS Era — Clearinghouses Will Win the Agents Era,” is the cleanest articulation I’ve seen of where the durable moat goes next. His argument is simple... [Read more](https://www.tigera.io/blog/clearinghouse/) [![The Safest Place to Run an AI Agent Is On a Cluster That Doesn’t Trust It](https://www.tigera.io/app/uploads/2026/08/The-Safest-Place-to-Run-an-AI-Agent-Is-On-a-Cluster-That-Doesnt-Trust-It.png)](https://www.tigera.io/blog/the-safest-place-to-run-an-ai-agent-is-on-a-cluster-that-doesnt-trust-it/) #### [The Safest Place to Run an AI Agent Is On a Cluster That Doesn’t Trust It](https://www.tigera.io/blog/the-safest-place-to-run-an-ai-agent-is-on-a-cluster-that-doesnt-trust-it/) By [Alister Baroi](https://www.tigera.io/blog/author/alister-baroi/) on Aug 27, 2026 Every organization running AI agents has already made a hosting decision. Most made it by accident. The sales team switched on the agent built into their CRM. Engineering is piloting a coding agent in a... [Read more](https://www.tigera.io/blog/the-safest-place-to-run-an-ai-agent-is-on-a-cluster-that-doesnt-trust-it/)