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

DEVELOPER

Hank Preston

What Changed In My Network?!! Let Genie Tell You

4 min read

Network behaving differently? See how to use Genie to discover what changed (even when everyone is saying, "nothing changed").

DEVELOPER

Hank Preston

Network Service Based Automation Part 1 – The Experience

21 min read

DevNet Sandbox is using automation to configure and manage the network in a Network Service based model.

DEVELOPER

Hank Preston

Preparing to Automate a New Data Center for DevNet Sandbox

7 min read

DevNet Sandbox provides engineers and developers access to Cisco, partner, and open source infrastructure, and software as a service from the cloud.

DEVELOPER

Hank Preston

Some Real World Network Automation Lessons Learned

5 min read

For the first time in about eight years, I was back in a role where I had day to day responsibilities for a production environment.

DEVELOPER

Hank Preston

How Do I Get Started Learning Network Automation? – Revisited

7 min read

Cisco Certifications offer a huge value to engineers looking to learn and prove new skills. The new DevNet Certification paths offer a new tool to help guide your learning.

DEVELOPER

Hank Preston

Detecting Network Abuse with Automation

10 min read

DevNet Sandbox is a free cloud service open to anyone interested in exploring Cisco APIs or building applications on one of the variety of platforms available.

DEVELOPER

Hank Preston

NetDevOps Live! Season 2 Shines a Spotlight on Network Automation

3 min read

NetDevOps Live! is back for another season with a look at network automation from start to finish. Preview our program beginning in April and culminating at Cisco Live in June.

DEVELOPER

Hank Preston

NetDevOps Invades DevNet Sandbox

3 min read

How do I get started with NetDevOps and automation in my real network? What does it take to leap the chasm from "dev" to "prod?"

DEVELOPER

Hank Preston

Introducing NetDevOps Live!

2 min read

Our new, weekly webinar and video series is dedicated to NetDevOps and network programmability topics, giving you expert-led lab time, and making it easy to keep up and participate.