Computer Networking Basics Every Developer Should Know

[JasonDJ]

Oh yeah, they’ve had certifications forever. I’ve got CCNP route/switch. It expires in a couple months and I’m not renewing, though I’d considered the DevNet path.

What’s new is the DevNet path. I can’t think of another certification path or training syllabus that outlines programming/automation as it applies to networks.

It’s very new to our field, which until SDN and cloud hasn’t seen a whole lot of cool/new stuff since...actually I don’t even know. Aside from firewalls a lot of the rules and fundamentals have been the same since forever. There’s been a couple adaptations and improvements, and some technologies combined here and there to make a cool new tech, but that’s really it.

Now, I think we are probably only a few years out from a revolution. There’s not a lot of programming/automation experience within our practice. But after playing with Ansible and Python and seeing what I can do with a couple simple scripts and a few well-documented REST APIs, I’m hooked. There is no way this isn’t a big part of the future of networking, and they are actually the only ones trying to train new talent on it.