DevNet Certifications – How To Prepare for the Service Provider Automation and Programmability Exam

The network world is changing, and the skills that were valued a decade ago aren’t the ones that will carry your career into the future. This is what makes Cisco DevNet such an important resource for network professionals, and the new DevNet Certifications such a valuable proof that you’ve acquired the software and programming skills required to build and manage modern networks.

The DevNet Certifications are designed for both network professionals and software developers to optimize and write applications for the network of today and help people choose the technology skills they want to develop and grow. As more and more network configuration changes are being automated, the daily tasks, adds, moves, changes can (and must) be automated.

There are a couple of different ways you can approach this exam:

On its own – providing DEVNET Certified Specialist

As the second exam (with DEVNET CORE) — providing DEVNET Certified Professional

As part of a re-certification for your Cisco Certified CCNP

More information about DevNet certifications is available on the DevNet website.

Cisco Certified DevNet Specialist – Service Provider Automation and Programmability

There are certifications that let you focus on topic areas including IoT, Data Center, Collaboration, and Enterprise Networking.

In this blog and in my December 3rd webinar, we’ll focus on helping you study and prepare to pass the Cisco Certified DevNet Specialist – Service Provider Automation and Programmability exam. You can register to join the Dec 3rd webinar now.

With blueprints for the DevNet associate, professional, and specialist exams now available, let’s take a look at the details for the Cisco Certified DevNet Specialist – Service Provider Automation and Programmability exam and to highlight useful DevNet resources for your study and exam preparation. This certification validates a candidate’s knowledge of implementing service provider automated solutions including programming concepts, orchestration, programming OS, and automation tools.

Let’s take a deep dive into some of the exam sections:

1.0 Network Programming Foundation

A portion of understanding automation is to recognize the fundamentals of programmability. In this segment, you will be tested on your knowledge of Git, Python, basic understanding of APIs and how they work, as well as a basic understanding of automation tools such as Ansible and Puppet on Cisco IOS XE or IOS XR platforms.

Study material

What is REST? What are APIs

A brief introduction to Git

Intro to Python Part 1

Intro to Python Part 2

Coding 202: Parsing JSON using Python

2.0 Automation APIs and Protocols

In this section, you will be tested on your comprehension of the Yang models, NETCONF and RESTCONF, and your ability to read and construct JSON and XML data structures to satisfy each protocol’s requirements. You should be able to compare common data types such as JSON, XML, YAML, plain text, gRPC, and protobuf.

Study material

What and Why of Model Driven Programmability

Introducing YANG Data Modeling for the Network

Exploring IOS XE YANG Data Models with NETCONF

Exploring IOS XE YANG Data Models with RESTCONF

Introduction to XML

3.0 Network Device Programmability

Device programmability gives you that speed, consistency, and agility.  Deploy device configuration and validate operational state using ncclient. Compare gNMI with NETCONF,  Construct a Python script using NETCONF with YDK and or a Python script using RESTCONF with JSON. Diagnosing/troubleshooting the network status using model-driven telemetry, this section will prepare you to influence a variety of key network automation tools.

Study material

Ansible NETCONF modules with IOS XE routers

Intro to Ansible for IOS XE – Mission

4.0 Automation and Orchestration Platforms

Automation and Orchestration can help your business automate complex tasks so they can be carried out in minutes, with minimal or zero manual effort. Orchestration software controls the automation tasks that make up your company’s service delivery workflows.The Cisco Network Service Orchestration (NSO) Service can help you automate the network and set up service orchestration. You should be able to Describe NSO architecture, identify the benefits of NSO and construct a Python script to configure a device using NSO RESTCONF API.

Study material

NSO for network engineers

NSO in operations

NSO as a provisioning tool

NSO service development

NSO basic training from Cisco IT 101

NSO basic training from Cisco IT 102

NSO basic training from Cisco IT 103

NSO basic training from Cisco IT 104

The full list of exam topics can be found here on the Cisco certification website page and the exam overview here.

Join me for a webinar on 3rd December to take an in-depth look at the DevNet Automating and Programming Cisco Service Provider Solutions certification exam.

Make sure you check out DevNet’s new certification track offering courses, exams, and real-live Cisco certs for coders and developers. You can read all about the DevNet Certifications launch at Cisco Live in Susie Wee’s blog.