DevNet Associate In 30 Day Challenge Week 1

Just over a week has gone since I started the challenge and it’s definitely been tougher than I expected, trying to fit it in with work, out of hour changes and other personal commitments has been a challenge but luckily have had a pretty free weekend.

These are the topics that I’ve gone through this week, I’ve mainly just followed the blueprint as that’s the structure Nick Russo’s Pluralsight is laid out.

• Software Development and Design
• Understanding and Using APIs

I haven’t massively struggled with anything except these following sections;

• Identify the advantages of common design patterns (MVC and Observer)
• Compare software development methods (agile, lean, and waterfall)

I find the hands off topics hard to remember and take in as I’m more of a hand’s on learner, I’ll be going over these topics again this week to fully grasp them.

I made a quick YouTube video of how easy it is to use the DevNet Sandbox and connecting to the Always On Catalyst Center, I then show you how to quickly use Postman to create a POST and GET request against the Catalyst Center.

One thing to that I have been focusing on is utilizing classes where possible in code, especially if you have specific objects that you want to reuse, classes make this super easy.

Take the below code as an example;

class Router:

    def __init__(self, model, swversion, ipaddress):
        self.model = model
        self.swversion = swversion
        self.ip_address = ipaddress


rtr1 = Router("IOSv","15.1", "10.0.255.1")

print(f"The Router Model is {rtr1.model} and the software version is {rtr1.swversion}, the IP is {rtr1.ip_address}")

In the above code we create a Class called Router, we then use the __init__ method to initialize the attributes of the object. We then pass self which allows the Class to access the specific attributes we specify in this case we want the model, software version and IP address.

I then create a new variable called rtr1 which calls the Class, I pass in the three pieces of information that it is expecting which are model, swversion, ipaddress. I then access these specific attributes by calling them within the print statement.

By using a Class it allows you to scale out e.g. if you need to make a change or add more features you can just do this within the Class and all the other objects that have been created from the class will automatically have these new features.

Week 2 Learning Plan

This week I’m going to be utilizing the DevNet Sandbox heavily, the plan is to get to grips with the API’s of the different technologies that are talked about in the Exam Topics, so my main focus will be on 3.0 Cisco Platforms and Development.

• Meraki
• Cisco DNA Center
• ACI
• Cisco SD-WAN and NSO

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you at the end of week 2 🙂