If you have been to any of our recent Cisco Live events around the globe, you have undoubtedly experienced the engagement and energy that surrounds Cisco DevNet. Whether you are spending time in the DevNet Zone, workshops, break-out sessions or hands-on labs, you can’t help but leave a little smarter and a lot more energized about the exciting transitions that Cisco is leading in the industry.
DevOps, automation, process digitization and design thinking are more than just industry buzzwords – they are actionable opportunities to deliver real value to the companies that dive-in and embrace them. But how?
The DevNet Experience
DevNet is all about providing developers (you) with the tools, resources, and the code you need to build innovative, network-enabled solutions. Now, you might be thinking, “…but I’m not a developer…”. That’s ok; our Cisco SEs have gone through this transition as well. Today, the word developer is a broad term. It can refer to those who develop traditional applications and online services, and it can also refer to those who use a variety of programmatic tools to create, develop and deliver new outcomes.
Like networking engineers who are using APIs and modern scripting tools to automate deployments and routine operations tasks.
…or data center engineers who are creating and orchestrating fast and flexible public and private clouds.
…or collaboration engineers who are connecting people and systems to deliver compelling digitized processes.
Cisco DevNet is here to help all of us in our individual digitization journeys. At an event (or available 24/7 at developer.cisco.com), Cisco DevNet helps you learn modern development tools and how to incorporate them into your toolbox of skills to enable you to become a “developer” of new outcomes and experiences for your company.
DevNet Express
We realize that not everyone can make it out to one of our Cisco Live events, and because we don’t want you to miss out on the experience, we created an internal partnership and joint-venture between the Cisco DevNet and Worldwide Systems Engineering organizations. Through this partnership, we are bringing the DevNet experience to your community through our workforce of expert Systems Engineers in an event format we call DevNet Express.
A DevNet Express event is a one to three-day event led by Cisco SEs where we provide you with the opportunity to “Listen, Learn and Put into Practice” these modern development and engineering skills. If you have never coded before (or perhaps not since your college days of punch cards, assembly or C++), don’t worry. We have you covered. We start off these events with foundational development skills training, to acclimate you to the latest languages and tools (and these aren’t the tools from your college days). Then, we dive into track or technology-specific modules, where you will apply your new skills in working with Cisco APIs to do some old and some new things. In all of this, you are in the driver’s seat. These are hands-on, guided-learning exercises with challenging missions that will get your started in the world of APIs and programmability.
Join Us
We have trained over 220 of our global Systems Engineers to deliver these DevNet Express events, and they are happening in cities and locations near you. In just eight months (from December 2016 to July 2017), our SEs have hosted 59 events in 25 countries getting almost 1,500 participants started with APIs and programmability. The energy has been amazing!
See what your peers are saying about these events on social media by following #DEVNETexpress on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and then check out the list of upcoming events on the DevNet Events page and register for one near you.
-Michael Koons
P.S. – If per chance you don’t see an event near you, ask your local SE to host one. We’ll help him or her make it happen.
Stay connected with me on Twitter @KoonsCisco
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Great article Michael! As a Developer Evangelist for Cisco DevNet, we’ve worked hard to put together the training content, live tech labs and interactive activities for DevNet Express, and are really excited to be able to bring it home to the IT leads that can really take advantage of it!
Great overview of #DevNetExpress Mike! Having been involved with these events both as a #CiscoSE and now from the DevNet side I can honestly say it’s one of the best things we have going on today. The energy, excitement and downright fun everyone has at an event is amazing. My favorite example was the “24 hours of DevNet Express” we had where in the same week we were delivering content in the North America, Europe and Australia. Nonstop coding for all!
Thanks Mike, Ruth, Chris, Iftach, Stella, Hank, David, Steve, Marcos and Armen. You helped take this project from idea to successful implementation Nearly 2,000 attendees and counting!
Great article Mike! As a Cisco SE I’m glad to be part of this transformation delivering DevNet Express events! DevNet team created excellent content, in a nice collaborative format and with everything in a package, automated and ready to go. With all of that no surprises the very positive feedbacks from SEs, partners and customers. #DevNet Express was in many places Latin America in the last months: São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Quito, Lima, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, San Jose. More to come! Stay tuned!
So glad to see this information about DevNet Express. Very proud of the partnership between DevNet and Cisco SEs on this program. I love to follow the #DevNetExpress hashtag on twitter to see where all the events are happening each week.
We have tremendous engagement with local DevNet Express events. Tremendous energy and enthusiasm. The first event we held students stayed back until 7:30pm working on labs and talking about what they had learned and how it might apply to them.
Many see this as a CareerChanger.
I’m one of the 220 SEs who were trained last year, and part of the team that has been redelivering DevNet Express classes in the Pacific NW.
The WWSE/DevNet folks behind DevNet Express have the process down and take out all the guesswork, allowing us SEs to focus on the teaching.
The Student SE DevNet feedback loop is leading to iterative improvements of the content.
Parter students are telling us this is some of the best training they’ve received in the last decade.
Customer students are going back to their network and immediately putting their new skills in action, automating small repetitive tasks.
What an awesome program! I look forward to many more classes in the future.
I think the DevNet Express Events are excellent, especially the new Data Center Infrastructure Programmability Track, although I might be a little biased.
It takes a team, the content creators, the logicians, the instructors, the proctors, the dCloud team, the DevNet team, the administrators and more all come together to provide these terrific events.
DevNet Express is such a great initiative led by Cisco DevNet. As a developer evangelist who participates in proctoring/speaking at these events, this is one of the greatest experiences ever. The feedback after many of these events has been extremely well. We take every comment very seriously and use every piece of constructive criticism to improve the content of the curriculum and the flow of the event to make it a better experience for our future events. Thank you everyone for supporting these events by attending and learning how to do amazing things with Cisco APIs and tools! Hope to see everyone at the next DevNet Express events. 🙂
Great article. I hope it helps more people get involved with the DevNet Express events. I’ve had the opportunity to help teach 5 or 6 of them and the feedback has been tremendous. People ask for more training like this one. It is a very hands-on challenging event that really pushes people forward and allows them to see a whole new world or career path. Thanks to the DevNet team and the CiscoSE organization for your leadership and guidance. I’m excited for what is coming in the next few years.
I help out with presenting and writing content for DevNet Express. This article really captures how awesome these events are. We’ve received a lot really amazing feedback from prior attendees, particularly on how comprehensive the training is. However, what makes it a truly unique event is how it’s delivered in a fun and interesting way that makes people stay engaged all the way through. Next time, come join us!!!
The article is a very good description about my experiences with DevNet Express. As a Collaboration Engineer at a Partner I get through DevNet Express a compete new view how the APIs provided by Cisco and some simple scripts can make my daily worklife easier.
Thanks to the DevNet Express team for all the efforts they put i to those events.
So True.
I’d like to add that I’m currently documenting success stories. Success stories where SEs (and their account team) were able to close business that may have been far more difficult to accomplish without the skills you can learn with DevNet.
Enabling the Cisco SEs to focus on the training by boxing up the process, website, registration, signage, prizes, training material (and ‘taking out the guesswork’ as Francois put it) has been one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever been responsible for. With Stella from the DevNet team our aim is answer the questions from the SEs before they’re even asked!
We look forward to going from strength-to-strength with Chris and Iftach from WWSE – one great partnership!
There are no upcoming DevNet Express sessions. Is that correct?
Excellent description of #DevnetExpress, Mike! You capture the excitement and fun.
However, for anyone who hasn’t attended, to really know DevnetExpress, you have to experience it. Trust me, you will be glad you did.
There are so many opportunities to take advantage of programmability in technology to accelerate deployments, offload menial tasks or gain visibility. Let DevNet and Cisco SEs help you on your journey.
Like Mike says above, Check out the upcoming events http://devnetevents.cisco.com/events and register https://devnet.cisco.com/registration.html. Events are all over the globe and will be popping up somewhere near you or reach out to your local SE.
Check out the list of upcoming events and register at: http://devnetevents.cisco.com
We are updating the list of upcoming #DevNetExpress events. Please bookmark the page, and check back often! developer.cisco.com
Lots of upcoming events…http://devnetevents.cisco.com/
With coding and programming increasingly on the list of fundamental skills for SEs, events like these become crucial opportunities to kickstart learning. I know I spent a _lot_ of time trying to figure things out for myself that they covered in the first two hours.
For me, the DevNet Express event held before CLUS this year was so valuable. It must have been a real challenge to tailor material to engineers who have such a diverse background of experience with programming, but I think everyone who attended – first time coders or veterans – came away knowing more than when they started.
DevNet Express events are a great way to learn new concepts and extend your knowledge. The classroom setting with instructors delivering short blocks of theory followed by hands on exercises is a great way to ensure that the concepts being introduced are internalized and stick long after the course ends. The collaborative nature of attendees working with and helping each other enhances the experience since there is no better way to learn than by teaching someone else.
It’s been an enlightening experience to see the range of experience levels that attend a DevNet Express event, from experienced developers to coding newbies. I think that the community environment at a #DevNetExpress event helps people realize that they are not alone in the learning experience. Newbies to experts get something out of these events. Maybe that’s because, as Mike points out in this article, it’s not about the buzzwords. It’s about wrapping your head (and hands) around the technology.
Great article on DevNet Express (DNE). The next area to expand will be with our channel organization.
Great tip about asking your local SE to host a #DevNet Express! I wonder if people know they can do that.
Hi Mike- Great post! Thank you for the great collaboration between your SEs and DevNet! The SEs are our not-so-secret weapon, and the fact that they’re offering DevNet Express around the world provides tremendous value to our developers!
As a Devnet Express content contributor and trainer, I have the privilege to experience live and tune the materials we’re setting up for new comers to Cisco APIs.
These events are definitely a key asset for our partners and customers to start their journey with Cisco APIs, with a good balance of listen and practice through instructor-led hands and missions to fulfill.
It’s so rewarding to see how these contents are being adopted by the SE community, and run world-wide.
Excellent article! Having been involved with the DevNet Express events from the very beginning (and in each spark room), I can really see the benefits it brings to participants first hand. Really inspiring to the see the multiple groups working together for a common goal. Great to work with this group of people.