DevNet Shines at Google NEXT 2019

Following a relaxing post-conference weekend, I’ve spent the day distilling my notes and conversations from an excellent week at Google NEXT 19 in San Francisco.

Cisco was there in full force, exhibiting our latest solutions in cloud security, collaboration, hybrid Kubernetes, AI/ML and of course, the DevNet booth, spreading the word of our awesome, free developer resources.

The Announcements

First up, Cisco was awarded a “technology partner of the year” award in the container category for the second year running; awarded for the effort and contributions Cisco has made to the Kubeflow project, an open-source solution for running AI/ML workloads on top of Kubernetes. I can’t think of a better way to highlight the importance of developers in infrastructure than to mention this award! You can read more about the Kubeflow project and the award from the Cisco team that worked on it.

Tuesday’s keynote opened with an announcement; Google Cloud’s hybrid offering, “cloud services platform” is now “Anthos,” with Cisco as one of the product’s platform partners.

David Goeckeler was welcomed on stage to launch Cisco’s Hybrid Architecture for Google Cloud, allowing Google Cloud customers to simplify hybrid workloads using Cisco’s Hyperflex (HX) servers, cloud managed with Cisco Intersight, and seamlessly linked to the customer’s Google Cloud environment with Anthos.

Again, this highlights the demand for on-premise and edge workloads and the need for modern automation solutions to reduce the complexity for businesses to achieve these hybrid environments. You can read more about Cisco & Anthos in Kip’s blog post.

You’ll notice the keynote picture is from a remote monitor; as we were busy introducing people to DevNet at the Cisco booth, (which is a wonderful segue, don’t you think?)…

DevNet at NEXT

With the audience here at NEXT very much focused on all things Google cloud; it’s understandable that less people would know about DevNet than a Cisco event or networking/automation-themed conference.

Our message was simple:

DevNet curates the best developer content related to Cisco’s products, solutions and the needs of our customers in one place.

DevNet provides:

• Per-technology and Per-solution landing pages — giving quick access to the most relevant tools, resources, and content.
• Reservable sandboxes — allowing developers to test out their code against real device API’s without disturbing their real-world environments.
• Self paced learning labs — providing step by step instructions and code samples on a given product or technical topics; a perfect companion to our sandboxes!
• A curated ecosystem of existing solutions built with our API’s, and sample apps and code repositories!

What’s more, all of this is free. Which brings me to my first DevNet takeaway from 3 days of constant conversations at NEXT.

Takeaway One – How much does this cost?

Nothing! It’s free! Time after time attendees were visibly impressed, realizing that everything they had just been shown was available completely free after a simple registration.

From students to cloud network architects and experienced developers, the hardware sandboxes and learning labs were extremely well received; Conversations like this, where people want your content make the job all that more enjoyable!

Takeaway Two – Students are the future and the “Cisco Learning Cycle”

A common theme of people visiting the booth was that Cisco training and certification was their entry point into a technical or IT career. Be it ICND1, CCNA, or something more advanced, Cisco had enabled their transformation into a new career. And now, as these people become automators and developers in the new automation-first and cloud-enabled world, they were crowding into our booth for guidance on where Cisco sees these newer technology areas heading, and where it can take their careers next. They were happy customers indeed when our team pointed out that DevNet had been waiting for them this whole time!

Equally, students were keen to understand what is available from large companies like Cisco and Google. They were eager to learn about our free content, such as our Network Automation video series, and appreciated the tangible content available with our “automation first” message.

Onto the NEXT!

We’re already looking forward to the next NEXT! (pun intended!) if you can’t wait that long to talk automation, API’s and becoming the automator of the future, and you’re in the bay area, why not come along and see us at DevNet CREATE next week! Alternatively, check out DevNet’s Google & Cisco Partnership Page for all the latest on Hybrid and Edge computing as it develops!