Easy methods to be a community engineer within the age of automation
I’ve been concerned with community engineering for the higher a part of 20 years now and I’ve noticed huge adjustments within the trade throughout these 20 years, from Body Relay and ATM turning into out of date to Ethernet taking up and turning into a pervasive expertise. However apart from me getting older and totally different transport applied sciences going by way of existential crises, the most important improvement in all these years was the emergence of community automation and programmability. That is the change that has in all probability affected probably the most what it means to be a community engineer as of late.
Sure, totally different applied sciences and protocols come and go in classical community engineering, however automation requires a very new set of expertise. These new expertise differ in complexity and value from studying how you can write YAML information and dealing with Ansible, to writing HCL information for Terraform configuration, to being totally proficient in a programming language resembling Python or Golang. The idea and basis for all these new expertise comes from software program improvement. This has all the time been tangential to community engineering, however with the arrival of automation is taking a entrance row seat.
Relying on the scale of the networks and environments you’re engaged on, and the way your organization is organized, it could be you that has to turn out to be a proficient software program developer and convey automation into your group. Or, you might need to work with software program builders and clarify to them how the community is working, what must be accomplished to automate what you are promoting processes and workflows in a language and with ideas that they perceive and that they will simply flip into supply code.
You aren’t alone
If all of this sounds formidable to you, don’t despair, you aren’t alone in your automation journey. We now have a unbelievable group of engineers at totally different phases of their careers which might be more than pleased to share their laborious realized automation classes with you. I host a weekly stay stream on Wednesdays at 9:00AM PT referred to as Simplifying Community Automation with NetGru that’s being broadcast stay and recorded on the Cisco DevNet YouTube channel and LinkedIn account.
In two current episodes I’ve had the privilege of internet hosting Julio Gomez, Principal Gross sales Architect at Cisco. We’ve mentioned how functions have advanced over time – from monoliths to micro providers architectures, containerized functions and Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, telepresence (not the Cisco one), mirrord, Okteto, and extra. Most significantly, we talked about how you can be a community engineer on this new world surrounded by all these thrilling applied sciences. Listed here are hyperlinks the place you’ll be able to watch these recorded episodes:
Mark your calendars to tune in to the weekly stay stream
Simplifying Community Automation with NetGru
Wednesdays at 9:00AM PT
Broadcast stay and recorded on the Cisco DevNet YouTube channel and LinkedIn
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