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Hank Preston

Distinguished Architect

Learn with Cisco

Hank started his career in network engineering like many, by cracking open a CCNA book and learning all about subnetting, the OSI model, and CLI interfaces. He fell in love with the deceptive simplicity and elegance of network communication and TCP/IP and dove in head first. His journey was one that included many network designs (and debates about designs), miles of copper/fiber cables, late night change windows, and even later night troubleshooting calls (it’s always the network… even when it isn’t :-). Along the way he picked up certifications in routing/switching, wireless, and security, culminating with earning CCIE #38336 in February 2013 and later becoming the first Cisco DevNet Expert #20220001. After spending a couple of years exploring the world of “Cloud”, “DevOps” and “Applications”, the talk of SDN, automation and programmability caught his ears, and he decided it was past time to return to networking full time. Hank's day job is putting NetDevOps theory into practice as the Principal Engineer for Learning and Certifications at Cisco. Helping engineer and operate the platform used by engineers around the world to learn the skills to be better engineers when they operate their own platforms. It's kinda circular and meta.

Articles

September 20, 2021

DEVELOPER

Learn to Build a Troubleshooting Assistant at DevNet Create

1 min read

Want to explore new ways to apply network automation skills to real world network operations and engineering activities? Register to attend Hank's session at DevNet Create.

May 27, 2021

6

DEVELOPER

Applying DevNet Associate Skills to Real World Tasks – June Webinars

3 min read

Are you a network engineer turning network automation engineer? Join the DevNet Associate Prep Program for completely FREE access to materials and webinars to take your skills to the next level.

May 6, 2021

DEVELOPER

How to Deal with Multiple Keys in a RESTCONF URL

3 min read

Do you have a question about network programming or NetDevOps? Why not "Ask Hank?" In this blog, let's try to demystify RESTCONF use for everyone.

April 22, 2021

2

DEVELOPER

NetBox as Inventory Source of Truth for Cisco NSO

6 min read

Both Cisco NSO and NetBox offer robust APIs and well formatted data models. See how to keep the device inventory in your Cisco NSO servers accurate based on your NetBox based Source of Truth.

February 26, 2021

2

DEVELOPER

How can I automate device configurations using CML2?

13 min read

Cisco Modeling Labs is a great tool for learning all aspects of networking, including automation. Hank discusses options for making the setup and management of your lab topology fast, easy, and automated.

January 19, 2021

1

DEVELOPER

Read-Only YANG Leaves: Where Does the Data Come From?

5 min read

DevNet's Hank Preston digs into another user's question related to model driven programmability. Do you have a question about network automation? You can Ask Hank!

January 11, 2021

2

DEVELOPER

Native, IETF, OpenConfig… Why so many YANG models?

5 min read

Which YANG model to use for your project? Ask Hank takes a look at your options, and how model driven programmability is a foundational technology for the automation engineer.

December 22, 2020

1

DEVELOPER

How can I automate a MAC address interface report?

8 min read

Hank's back to answer another question from the community. This time we use automation to associate ARP data, MAC addresses, and network interfaces.

December 17, 2020

3

DEVELOPER

Dear Hank… Help Me with RESTCONF URL Creation

4 min read

Got a network automation question? Ask Hank. Here, a network engineer wants to understand how the URLs for RESTCONF are constructed from the YANG models, and how to use the feature for updating IP addresses.