Thanks a lot for a very good write up, John! With the impending advent of SDN/NFV I personally had to brush up my Python skills majorly :-), especially client-server programming. For someone who has largely been a network engineer since 1999, I had some catching up to do. :-) But, on the positive side, it did not take me too long to come upto some sort of speed.

I have a query: is a version of the UCS Powertool available for non-Cisco partners please? For example, same as UCS has an emulator available for all.

BTW, I also recall Commodore 64's, VAX machines:-), 5¼-inch diskettes and believe it or not punch cards...even though I never really worked with those. An age thing I am sure :-)

Thank you for a very trendy and thorough discussion!

Best Regards

santanu