Data centers have been going through rapid evolution: growing massively in scale and becoming increasingly sophisticated. Cisco is leading this technological revolution. In this course, Cisco Data Center Core: Implementing Automation, we’re going to examine how administrators can program, manage, and maintain their data center infrastructures using application programming interfaces: Cisco Application-Centric Infrastructure (ACI) with the Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC), as well as NX-API, REST, and a variety of automation programs. First, you will learn how the Cisco APIC and ACI architecture uses endpoints and policies to simplify the deployment of virtual machines and applications, while providing them access to network, compute, and storage capabilities. Next you will explore how to define tenants and their components in a tenant-based environment, as well as create endpoint groups (EPGs) in Cisco ACI. You'll examine different cloud computing architectures and deployment models. You’ll also learn how Cisco automation components enable you to use scripting, implement orchestration, and apply policy to configure and maintain your data center network environments. Finally, you're going to discover a variety of programmability tools that can be deployed to increase resource utilization and provide greater flexibility and scalability. When you are finished with this course, you will have the skills and knowledge needed to understand the tools used to manage, maintain, and optimize Cisco data center deployments as well as how to pass the Cisco Data Center Core fundamentals exam.