In Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), a context is a collection of VPN routing and forwarding (VRF) instances or IP address spaces. Each customer, or tenant, can have one or more contexts. Endpoints and endpoint groups (EPGs) define the application within each context.

An EPG is a collection of endpoints that provide a similar function, such as an application tier or a set of services. The endpoints within an EPG are defined by network interface card (NIC), virtual NIC (vNIC), port group, IP address, or Domain Name System (DNS) name.

A contract is a collection of rules and policies that define how endpoints and EPGs can communicate. For example, a contract can be created so that a web server can be accessed only by Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or HTTP Secure (HTTPS).

An Application Network Profile (ANP) is a collection of EPGs, their connections, and related policies. To create an ANP, you should perform the following steps:
1. Create EPGs.
2. Create policies that define connectivity rules.
3. Create contracts between EPGs by applying policies.