The Network Shokunin

So, why study for a Cloud Networking certification? So, that was a wake-up call! Just taken my first attempt at the AWS Networking Specialty exam and it was an experience! I've been saying to my team for some time that in order to really understand the networking within cloud environments, and to get the optimum experience for customers in those environments, you need to really appreciate how applications are deployed, and the elements in AWS and Azure you need to make those applications reliable and scalable, And if ever I needed confirmation of that, I got it this morning.  The exam has 60 questions for which you're given 3 hours to complete them.  You shouldn't need that, but my goodness, it's tough and just illustrates how the paradigm shift to Cloud highlights what we have known for years - DC (and thus Cloud) networking is all about enabling application flows. If you're planning on looking into this (and as a networker you should - whether you believe ...

So ... on 10th June 2019, Chuck Robbins in his keynote at Cisco Live US announced the biggest shake-up of the Cisco Certifications programme ever.  What had gone before was swept away under a tidal wave of SDN and programmability.  Or was it?  Let's take a bit of a look under the hood of those announcements and see what they mean for the engineers and developers on the street. Disclosure: as a member of the CCIE Advisory Council , I have been lucky enough to have had some insight into these changes as they have been developed over the last two or so years.  The Council is a group of 30 or so invited long-time CCIEs who are there to represent the voices of the Network Engineer and Network Architect in the development of the CCNA/CCNP/CCIE programme.  We have been closely involved with Learning@Cisco in developing the structure of the updated programme, and our feedback has helped shape the policy around it. The keynote serves as the announcement that Cisco a...

So - Chuck Robbins in his keynote speech at CLUS 2019 presented a whole new track of examinations for a new perspective. Over recent years, the DevNet programme has blazed a trail with bringing development abilities to the next generation of network engineers, promoting programming and automation with all Cisco products.  Social media has been abuzz with incredible training and insights from the DevNet evangelists as we move into a new programmable networked world. So, we say "welcome" to the new DevNet certification programme - designed for the developer who wants to build tooling and applications that need to interact with the network.  Built along the same lines as the new versions of the traditional engineering certifications, Cisco are introducing Associate, Specialist, Professional and (to follow) Expert level certs ... Who are they for? If 80% of what you do or want to do is around development methodologies, programming, APIs, then the DevNet certification pr...