 Live from Barcelona, Spain, it's theCUBE. Covering Cisco Live 2020. Brought to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners. Everyone, welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage. It's our fourth day of four days of coverage here in Barcelona, Spain for Cisco Live 2020. I'm John Furrier, my cohost, Stu Miniman. Got two great guests here in the DevNet studio where theCUBE is sitting all week long and packed with action. Wendy Whaley, senior director, developer experience, Cisco DevNet and Parmarat, senior director. Welcome back to theCUBE. Good to see you guys. Thank you. Glad to be here. So we've had a lot of history with you guys. From day one. Yes. Watching DevNet from an idea of, hey, we should do a developer thing. And you also have DevNet Create. Yes. Which is a separate, more developer focus. DevNet is Cisco's developer environment. We've been here from the beginning. What a progression. Congratulations on the success. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's great to be here in Barcelona with everybody here learning in the workshops. And we just love these times to connect with our community at Cisco Live and at DevNet Create, which you mentioned, which is coming up in March. So it's right around the corner. DevNet Zone, which we're in, has been really robust. It's been the talk of the show every year and it gets bigger and the sessions are packed because people are learning developers, new developers, as well as Cisco engineers who are certified, are coming and getting new skills as the modern cloud hybrid environments acquire new skills as a technology shift. Yeah, exactly. And what we have in the DevNet Zone are different ways that the engineers and developers can engage with that technology shift. So we have demos around IoT and security and showing how to prevent threats from attacking the industrial routers and things like that. We have coding workshops from beginning, intro to Python, intro to Git, all the way up through advanced, like Kubernetes topics and things like that. So people can really dive in with what they're looking for. And this year, we're really excited because we have the new DevNet certifications with those exams coming out right around the corner in February. So a lot of people are here saying, I'm ready to skill up for those exams. I'm starting to dive into those topics. Well, Susie, we was on, she's the chief of DevNet, among other things. And she said, there's going to be a DevNet 500. The first 500 certifications of DevNet are going to be kind of like the Hall of Fame or inaugural or founder certifications. So can you explain what this, it means. It's not a DevNet certification badge. It's a series of different certifications. Can you go deeper in that? Yeah, just like we have our existing network certifications which are so respected and loved around the world, people get CCIE tattoos and things. Just like there's an associate and professional and expert level on the networking track, there's now a DevNet associate, a DevNet professional, and coming soon, DevNet expert. And then there's also specialist badges which help you add specific skills like data center automation, IoT, WebEx. So it's a whole new set of certifications that are more focused on the software. So there are about 80% software skills, 20% knowledge of networking, and then how you really connect up and down the stock. So these are new certifications, they're not replacing anything else. No, no, no. They're all the same stuff. They're new, they're part of the same program. They have the same rigor, the same kind of test. They actually have ways to interweave with the existing networking certifications because we want people to do both skill paths, right? To build this new IT team of the future. And so it's a completely new set of exams. The exams are going to be available to take February 24th and you can start signing up now. So with the DevNet 500, that's going to be a special recognition for the first 500 people who get DevNet certifications. It'll be a lifetime achievement. They'll always be in the DevNet 500, right? And I've had people coming up and telling me, I'm signed up for the first day. I'm taking my exams on the first day. I'm trying to get into that. Soon I always want to be on the list so I think we might be on the 500. Of course, of course, yeah. And what's really great is with the certifications, we've heard from people in the zone that they've been coming and taking classes and learning these skills, but they didn't have a specific way to map that to their career path, to get rewarded at work, to have that sort of progression. And so with the certifications, they really will have that. And it's also really important for our partners. And PAR is doing a lot of work with certifications and partners. PAR, definitely, that would love to hear a little bit. We've interviewed on theCUBE over the years some of the DevNet partners from a technology standpoint. Of course, the channel ecosystem, hugely important to Cisco's business. Give us the update as to DevNet partnering as well as what will these certifications mean to both the technology and go-to-market partners. Yeah, the wonderful thing about this is it really demonstrates Cisco's embracement of software and making sure that we're providing that common language for software developers and networkers to bring the two together. And what we've found is that our partners are at different levels of maturity along that progression of programmability. And this new DevNet specialization, which is anchored in the individuals that are now certified at that partner, allow them to demonstrate from a go-to-market standpoint, from a recognition standpoint, that as a practice they have these skills. And look, at the end of the day, it's all about delivering what our customers need. And our customers are asking us for significant help in automation, digital transformation, they're trying to drive new business outcomes. And this will provide that recognition on who to partner with in the market. Right. It's so important. I remember when Cisco helped a lot of the partner ecosystem build data center practices, went from the silos and now embracing, you've got the hardware, the software, we're talking multi-cloud, it's the practice that is needed today going forward to help customers with where they're going. It really is. And another benefit that we're finding and talking to our partners is we're packaging this up and rolling it out, is not only will it help them from a recognition standpoint, from a practice standpoint, and from a competitive differentiation standpoint, but it'll also help them attract talent. I mean, it's no secret, there is a talent shortage right now if you talk to any CEO that's top of mind and how these partners are able to attract these new skills and attract smart people. Smart people like working on smart things, right? And so this has really been a big traction point for them as well. It's also giving ways to really specifically train for new job roles. So some of the ways that you can combine the new DevNet certifications with the network engineering certifications, we've looked at it and said, there's a role of network automation developer. That's a new role. Everyone, we ask in one of our sessions, who needs that person on their team? So many customers, partners raise their hands saying, we want the network automation developer on our team and you can combine your CCNP enterprise with a DevNet certification and build up the skills to be that network automation developer. Certainly it's been great buzz. I got to get your guys' thoughts because certainly it's great for careers and you guys are betting on the people and the people are betting on Cisco. This is what's going on. It's a maturity of DevNet almost. It's like a pinch me moment for you guys but you continue to grow. I got to ask you, what are some of the cool things that you're showing here? As you mature, you still have the start here session which is intro to Python and other things, pretty elementary. And then there's more advanced things. What are some of the new things that's going on that you could share? So some of the new things we've got going on and one of my favorites is the IoT and security demonstration. There's an industrial robot arm that's picking and placing things and you can see how it's connected to the network and then something goes wrong with that robot arm and then you can actually show how you can use the software and security tools to see was there code trying to access something that that robot was using that's getting in the way of it working. So you could detect threats and move forward on that. We also have a whole automation journey that starts from modeling your network to testing to how you would deploy automation to a deep dive on telemetry and then ends with multi-domain automation. So really helping engineers look at that whole progression that's been really popular. Park, talk about the specialization. Which ones are more, I said popular or entry level. Which ones are people coming into getting certified first? Network engineering, automation first, or what's the? Yeah, so the program is going to roll out with three different levels. One is a specialized level, the second is an advanced level and then we'll look to that third level. Again, they're anchored in the individual certs and so as we look for that entry level it's really all about automation, right? I mean some things you take for granted but you still need these new skills to be able to automate and scale and have repeatable, scalable benefits from that. The second tier will be more cross-domain and that's where we're really thinking that additional skill set is needed to deliver dashboard experience, compliance experiences and then that next level again will anchor towards the expert level that's coming out but one thing I want to point out is in addition to just having the certified people on staff, they also have to demonstrate that they have a practice around it so it's not just enough to say I passed an exam as we work with them to roll out the practice and they earn the badge, they're demonstrating that they have the full methodology in place so that it really, there's a lot behind it. So that means we can't be in the 500 list then even if we pass? Well you might be able to be in the 500 list but I don't know that the cube would end up being specialized. It's good banner advertising. Yeah seriously all fun, it's all fun. Cisco live in Europe, is there a difference between European and US? Do you see any differences in geographic talent? You know the first couple years that we did it I think there was a bigger difference. It felt like there were different topics that were very popular in the US, slightly different in Europe. Last year and this year I feel like they have converged. It's the same focus on DevOps, automation, security is a huge focus in both places and it also feels like the interest and level of the people attending has also converged. It's really similar. Congratulations, it's been fun to watch the rise and success of DevNet continues to be strong. I was in the hub here in the DevNet zone behind us, packed sessions. Yes. What's the biggest surprise for you guys in terms of things that you didn't expect or some of the success, what's jumped out? Yeah I think one of the points that I want to make sure we also cover and it has been an ad event. We were hoping it would happen. We just didn't realize it would happen this soon. We're attracting new companies, new partners. So the specialization won't just be available for our traditional bars. This is also available for our non-resellers and we are finding different companies accessing DevNet resources and learning these skills. So that's been a really great benefit of DevNet overall. Definitely. My favorite surprises are when I show up at the community events and I hear from someone I met last year, what they went back and did and the change that they drove in their company. And I think we're seeing those across the board of people who start a grassroots movement, take back some new ideas, really create change and then they come back and we get to hear about that from them. Those are my favorite surprises. Yeah and I tell you, we've known for years how important the developer is but I think the timing on this has been perfect because it is no longer just oh the developer has some tools that they like in the corner, the developer connected to the business and driving things forward. Exactly. So perfect timing, congratulations on the certification. The other thing that's been great is that Cisco itself, we now have APIs across the whole portfolio and up and down the stack. So that's been a wonderful thing to see come together because it opens up possibilities for all these developers. So Cisco's API first company. We are building APIs everywhere we can and the community is taking them and finding creative things to build. Well it's been fun to watch you guys change Cisco but also impact customers. It's been great to watch. Barb, many thanks for coming on, appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. It's theCUBE's live coverage here in Barcelona for Cisco Live 2020. I'm John Furrier, Dave Vellante, Stu Miniman. We'll be right back with more after this short break.