Cisco's DevNet Comes of AgeCisco's DevNet Comes of Age

I've been following Cisco's developer efforts since the company acquired Metreos in 2006 and kicked off the Cisco Technology Developer Program, or CTDP. The ensuing years brought failed attempt after failed attempt to build up developer environment, so by the time Cisco launched its DevNet program in 2014, my first reaction was to chortle, with the thought, "Here we go again."

However, four years later, I admit to having been wrong.

Suzie Wee, Cisco

DevNet has flourished, as evident at this week's Cisco Live customer and partner event (see related No Jitter post, "Cisco Opens Up on Programmable Future"). CEO Chuck Robbins gave a nod to the DevNet community during his opening day keynote, and DevNet CTO Susie Wee, the mastermind behind this incarnation of Cisco's developer efforts, discussed the state of the program from the mainstage on day two.

DevNet Success Factors
During her presentation, Wee proudly reported that DevNet just hit a significant milestone, with 500,000 registered users -- both application developers as well as a significant number of network engineers who are using the programmability to do their jobs better. For example, instead of using a command-line interface (CLI) to do something like create a VLAN, a network engineer could instead set up an API call. This is an important difference, as an API call is faster, can be embedded into applications, allows for the use of standard orchestration tools, and removes all the human errors plaguing companies today.

Some of DevNet's success is attributable to the fact that Cisco is building all new products with APIs. The rise of software-defined networking ushered in a new era for networking, and almost all new network devices, from Cisco and its competitors, have exposed APIs to make the infrastructure more programmable. If Cisco required developers to write custom scripts that needed to infuse CLI commands, it'd have a hard time getting their interest. So, it's building its products with programmability in mind.

The other factor contributing to DevNet program's early success is its assumptions that most network engineers have never programmed a lick in their lives and that app developers know nothing about networking. The intersection of networking infrastructure and software development can be intimidating on both sides, and DevNet has programs to address each.

For example, network engineers can work through an introduction to programming module to learn the very, very basics of programming -- and then make an API call. This introductory course has been, and remains, the most popular module on the DevNet portal, Mandy Whaley, DevNet director of developer experience, said during a briefing with industry analysts. Not every network engineer is going to be a developer, but all of them need to be software-fluent, and Cisco has structured DevNet to help them get there in a non-intimidating way, she said.

Similarly, Cisco offers DevNet courses that introduce networking to application developers who've probably never worked with any kind of network protocols. The network can be a valuable source of data for next-generation applications to use, but developers need to be made aware of what's there and how to make use of the data, protocols, and features.

Continue to next page: Next Steps for DevNet

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Next Steps for DevNet
Now that the community has hit 500,000 developers -- a "critical mass," Wee said -- it's time for Cisco to facilitate interaction among them. Developers and engineers have great ideas of "what's possible" and should be able to share their code for others to leverage.

At Cisco Live, the company announced a one-stop shop, called DevNet Ecosystem Exchange, that gives partners a place to share applications and solutions built for Cisco platforms. The portal launched with more than 1,300 solutions, Cisco said. In addition, it launched the DevNet Code Exchange, a similar portal but focused on developers rather than partners. It contains a curated set of sample code, adapters, tools, and SDKs created by Cisco and the DevNet community.

Had Cisco rolled out these portals at program launch, or even last year, it's unlikely that they would have had any impact -- the community was too small. At 500,000, that's enough members to create the critical mass required to make the community work, as Wee had pointed out. The 1,300 solutions in the DevNet Ecosystem Exchange is a good proof point of that.

Cisco also said it's added APIs to its DNA Center network monitoring dashboard so partners and developers can build applications and solutions that sit on top of or interoperate with it. This is a critically important step for Cisco, as DNA Center has become the management console for all of its products. I believe, over time, DNA Center will be as important to Cisco as vCenter is to VMware. Any company that wants to work with VMware knows that vCenter integration is a must. Similarly, DNA Center will be that for Cisco.

Worth noting is that the DevNet team was instrumental in developing the DNA Center APIs. This might seem like a "no kidding" statement, but even though Cisco had talked the talk of software, it previously hadn't walked the walk -- meaning, it hadn't had its developer team create the APIs for its products.

The DevNet area at Cisco Live was packed, like it was at Cisco Live EMEA earlier this year and like it was at Cisco Live last year. It seems that the people who work hands-on with Cisco equipment every day finally understand it's time to reskill, and DevNet gives them the tools to make this happen.

DevNet is here, and this time the developer community is real.

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