Applying DevNet Associate Skills to Real World Tasks – June Webinars

Nothing says summer fun like studying network automation. Am I right!?!

Okay, maybe it’s not quite as much fun as amusement parks, beaches, mountain hiking, or camping, but that doesn’t mean you can’t also have fun studying for a DevNet Certification between those other activities.  And I’ll be hosting a series of FOUR webinars in June 2021 focusing on applying the skills of a DevNet Associate to real world tasks, use cases, and problems that come up everyday for a network engineer turned network automation engineer.

The webinars are part of the DevNet Associate Prep Program, a completely FREE program from Learning at Cisco that provides you with:

• 50+ hours of free self-study resources
• 6 on-demand webinars focused on each of the DEVASC exam topics
  • New webinars will be added to the catalog, like the 4 for June 2021
• A DevNet Associate practice quiz

You can signup to join the prep program to gain access to all this material, register for the new webinars, and receive notifications when new updates are available.

June 2021 Webinars – DevNet Associate Skills in Action!

But what about these great new webinars you ask?  When thinking about what theme to use for the series, I wanted to approach the sessions applying the automation skills we are learning to real problems.  That’s not to say it isn’t important to learn Python, git, and REST API fundamentals, but we have lots of content in the catalog and classes that do that already.  Instead I wanted to show putting these skills together in ways that would be well within the capabilities of a someone preparing for their DevNet Associate.  Nothing helps teach and solidify any skill like making it part of your daily work.  And you do NOT need to wait to earn the certification to get started.

And anyone who has seen me present knows that I like a good story.  So checkout what we’ll be exploring in these sessions.

• June 2nd – Automating a Network Inventory with Python
  • It’s 3pm on Friday. You are already looking forward to your weekend and binging the latest season of your favorite show that just dropped. Your boss shows up and tells you he needs a full network inventory by Monday at 8am. He apologizes for ruining your weekend as he heads out to a concert. Can your newly learned network automation skills save your weekend?
• June 8th – Enforcing Interface Configuration Standards through Automation
  • You are walking out of root cause analysis readout meeting from last weeks network down situation when the network architect walks up. Like so many before, this outage was partially caused by inconsistent configuration in the network. It’ll be a big project to fully resolve, but she asks if you can come up with a way to update interface descriptions across the network based on the CSV “Source of Truth”.
• June 16th – Software Defined Network Inventory – Adding ACI and SD-WAN
  • Your work on an automated network inventory report for your switches and routers was such a big hit that the manager of the SDN team would like you to add the hardware from the ACI and SD-WAN networks to the report. This will be your first chance to explore the REST APIs for these tools!
• June 22nd – Building a Troubleshooting Assistant
  • You knew being the new engineer on the team would mean getting some “boring work” but this latest assignment is pretty bad. A network interface connected to a critical system has been flapping unexpectedly. You’ve been told to drop everything and just watch for that interface to flap. And whenever it goes down, you need to gather some details before it goes back up. Surely you can automate this?

The best way to signup and join me for these webinars is to join your fellow network automation learners in the DevNet Associate Prep Program.  You’ll get reminders and notifications for each of these webinars, access to all the materials already available in the catalog, and future updates as new content and offers are available.

If you are already a member of the program, or are in a hurry to register, you can also jump right to the webinar registrations here.

Summing up

I hope to see you all in our prep program webinars.  And in the meantime, here are a handful of resources to checkout for more details on the DevNet Associate Certification

• DevNet Associate Topics and Blueprint
• FREE DevNet Associate Training Plan
  (login required, but content is free)
• DevNet Certifications Learning Network Community
• DevNet Associate Fundamentals Course on DevNet

And always, let me know what you think or any questions you have in the comments or over on Twitter (@hfpreston)

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