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Hank Preston

Network Programmability Evangelist

DevNet

Hank’s two passions are technology and theatre. Bringing them together drives him towards a borderline obsession on creating entertaining presentations, labs and demonstrations that breakdown complex technology topics for audiences. After spending several years working on and behind the scenes on stage productions, what started as a hobby turned to a profession when Hank entered the IT industry with a focus on web and database development and engineering.

Drifting from development into infrastructure engineering brought him to Cisco as a Systems Engineer, focusing on Data Center and Cloud Architecture for large enterprise customers.

And after six years as an SE, Hank has taken up the mantle of a Developer Evangelist with DevNet where he can focus full time on reminding everyone that technology can and should be fun to work with.

Hank holds a Master Degree in Information Systems as well as several certifications including CCIE R/S 38336 from Cisco.

Find Hank at:

twitter: @hfpreston

GitHub: http://github.com/hpreston

Articles

January 20, 2020

DEVELOPER

CLEUR Preview! Source of Truth Driven Network Automation

It’s a new year and a new decade, so it’s time for a NEW BLOG about network automation. I am getting ready for Cisco Live Europe 2020 and want to give everyone a preview of some of what I’ll be talking about in my session How DevNet Sandbox Built an Automated Data Center Network in…

October 29, 2019

DEVELOPER

Network Service Based Automation Part 2 – Building Services

Break out the popcorn and candy for the conclusion to my exploration of Network Service based automation and how we’re using it within DevNet Sandbox as part of our own internal automation strategy.  In Part 1 the focus was on what consuming network services was like after they were built, and…

October 8, 2019

DEVELOPER

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

One of the common types of network engineering sleuthing is discovering what changed when the network is behaving differently, but everyone is saying “nothing changed.” In large networks this can be like looking for that needle in a haystack without a magnet… long, tedious, and rew…

September 30, 2019

DEVELOPER

Network Service Based Automation Part 1 – The Experience

Welcome back to my series on how we are putting network automation to work in the DevNet Sandbox.  This time around I wanted todive into some of the deep technical bits on how we’re using automation to configure and manage our network in a “Network Service” based model.   For this…

September 11, 2019

DEVELOPER

Preparing to Automate a New Data Center for DevNet Sandbox

You don’t need to look hard to see that DevNet is growing, and as DevNet grows, DevNet Sandbox must grow. DevNet Sandbox provides engineers and developers access to Cisco, partner, and open source infrastructure, and software as a service from “the cloud.”  For a variety of reasons…

August 27, 2019

DEVELOPER

Some Real World Network Automation Lessons Learned

Eight months ago I joined the DevNet Sandbox Engineering and Operations team. 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. A big reason for my interest in joining this team was to see what it was like to apply the…

August 5, 2019

DEVELOPER

How Do I Get Started Learning Network Automation? – Revisited

Back in March of 2018 I wrote the blog “How Do I Get Started Learning Network Programmability?” to help answer, well that question.  It was (and still is) one of the most common questions I get asked.  It’s been a wicked ride this last year and half in network automation, I figured…

March 20, 2019

DEVELOPER

Detecting Network Abuse with Automation

Network automation can be used for many things. The other day Jon Hudson posted a question on Twitter. “Can anyone point me to a Troubleshooting example in an automated network?”.  This was a timely question as I had actually just done that exact thing in the DevNet Sandbox network to he…

March 15, 2019

DEVELOPER

NetDevOps Live! Season 2 Shines a Spotlight on Network Automation

NetDevOps Live! Season 2 Starts April 2019 Oh yeah, we’re back and better than ever.  After a relaxing off season made up of multiple Cisco Live events and other conferences, we are back with NetDevOps Live! Season 2.  And in Season 2 we are taking a look at network automation from start to fi…