We’ve lastly arrived on the third and last installment of this riveting weblog sequence. Whereas some could also be unhappy on the disappearance of additional sleep they acquired from studying this (my prose is normally an excellent treatment for insomnia), on this weblog, we’ll be overlaying the shiny new DCNAUTO specialization and applied sciences close to and expensive to my coronary heart. Identical to the weblog on AUTOCOR and ENAUTO 2.0, I hope that this can assist make clear the explanation and intent for the big transforming of the examination matters to help and support you in your research.
A fork within the street
The unique DCAUTO examination had the “shortest” checklist of examination matters (primarily based solely on my unscientific evaluation of the quantity of textual content on a PDF), however that doesn’t imply that the examination was easy. It lined a broad set of applied sciences with disparate terminology and spanned a number of (usually) separate groups (server/compute groups normally are separate from the datacenter networking groups).
However even when you had been in a company that had ACI and UCS, more often than not you’re employed with just one know-how or the opposite, not each. This complication was solely exacerbated by the truth that the Unified Computing System (UCS) Supervisor Platform Emulator (UCSM-PE) couldn’t be related to Cisco Intersight; solely sure builds which had been accessible solely to particular groups like Cisco DevNet for his or her Sandbox might accomplish that.
This lead to an enormous inner determination: How do we offer an automation certification that focuses on the datacenter, covers the community know-how accessible at this time, consists of platforms and units, and covers the evolving realities within the datacenter (like Kubernetes and containers)? We had some powerful selections to make, however the result’s the DCNAUTO 2.0 (word the “N” for networking)
Give it to me straight, what has been faraway from DCAUTO?
Primarily based on this picture, you’ll be able to see that a big chunk of the unique blueprint has been eliminated/modified ultimately(the highlighted sections). In some instances, the matters had been eliminated for a similar as they had been in ENCOR 2.0; matters like Git, primary APIs, or Python digital environments had been eliminated as a result of both (a) they’re assumed information (b) lined within the core examination or (c) will be changed with different applied sciences which will work higher with bigger workflows (e.g. growth within a container with mapped volumes can exchange digital environments inside Python).
Inside area 2.0, we eliminated lots of the particular API and SDK duties as they pertain to ACI. Whereas these two strategies of automation are nonetheless legitimate, a lot of the event and integration effort throughout the datacenter has been targeted on Infrastructure as Code (IaC) instruments. With the ability to automate platforms and applied sciences with instruments which have multi-platform help is vital as a result of these datacenters are more and more heterogeneous. So understanding use these instruments throughout the community infrastructure turns into a essential talent.
Area 3.0 acquired a light-weight contact of modifications, principally targeted on refining and trimming down superfluous device-centric automation and app-hosting strategies. Whereas these capabilities are nonetheless built-in to our huge datacenter switching portfolio, we tried to concentrate on the most typical use-cases and applied sciences. Bear in mind, the main target of the brand new blueprints is to create practicality and applicability into exams, so we needed to trim away among the esoteric or much less used options and performance.
And also you dropped compute?!
Sure.
I suppose you’ll be searching for a purpose on this one, too. Imagine me, it wasn’t a straightforward determination. We went forwards and backwards on this and there have been sturdy arguments to each side, however finally, most of the time, the compute and server groups are fully completely different than community infrastructure groups, and the practitioners inside these groups had vastly completely different skillsets, making the crossover to be that rather more tough.
Reasonably than weakening the depth of the check (and the sensible functions gained from it) to help added breadth, we determined to drop the compute automation fully. I can already hear the sighs of reduction from community automation of us, however I do know there are a number of of us that may miss the inclusion of Intersight and the UCSM APIs (my former compute Developer Advocate counterpart included).
Sufficient about what was dropped, what do we have to examine?
Throughout the datacenter, there are a number of key applied sciences that we selected to concentrate on. As with the AUTOCOR and ENAUTO 2.0, reference the highest paragraph of the examination matters checklist to get an understanding of the in-scope platforms. These platforms shouldn’t come as a shock, but it surely’s useful to set context round your research.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
The datacenter should be:
- Agile
- Multivendor
- Even multicloud
This implies click-ops or particular person automations for various platforms gained’t at all times be accepted. The unifying issue to all of that is one thing like Ansible or Terraform, whereby the syntax throughout platforms and clouds is similar and the one distinction is the modules/collections or suppliers in use.
The DCNAUTO examination displays this, as 25% of the examination falls throughout the IaC area. This requires you to be acquainted with the instruments and management options in addition to the platforms lined by the blueprint.
On-box automation and programmability
With the dimensions and scale of recent datacenter networks, platforms are sometimes used to handle the material. Nonetheless, there could also be both particular community automation options or day 0 provisioning that dictate a “box-by-box” course of. Due to this, we’ve included particular examination matters to validate a learner’s information round these “community aspect” automation duties in Area 3.
When it comes to particular community aspect programmability, we’ve included:
- NETCONF help, as YANG fashions comparable to OpenConfig are utilized in massive, probably multi-vendor or web-scale datacenters, because it normalizes configuration throughout quite a lot of units
- Familiarity with NETCONF and ncclient, which can be utilized to ship XML-structured payloads to a tool by way of code written in Python
- Understanding the day-0 provisioning of a tool outdoors of the usage of a controller, and the on-box programmability strategies accessible throughout the Nexus platform
- Information round NXAPI and the circulate of making bespoke templates (which might then be utilized as coverage) inside Nexus Dashboard rounds out the area
Operations (together with Linux Networking!)
One of many bigger shifts (throughout all new CCNP-Automation exams) has been the concentrate on operational facets of an automation resolution. In any case, what good is deploying a change with out understanding the impression of that change on the community? That is no completely different throughout the datacenter and a few would argue that it’s extra vital; datacenters are finely tuned devices to maneuver information in a short time from place to position. If it doesn’t work, it’s typically costing massive sums of cash.
On this examination, we’ve not a lot “eliminated” matters, however shifted them in complexity. The unique DCAUTO examination had components that touched on model-driven telemetry and understanding subscriptions to information., together with next-generation protocols like gNMI and gRPC. We additionally embrace digital twins and pyATS validation, as we now have in different exams. To not be forgotten, we additionally cowl the power to retrieve well being info by way of Python towards units as properly.
Lastly, we additionally added the requirement to troubleshoot packet flows from Linux-based hosts operating containers. Everyone knows that containers are the brand new VMs, however the hosts operating these containers don’t use the identical instruments and terminology as a Sort-1 Hypervisor; we should perceive how Linux networking works and the way it’s configured.
This consists of how interfaces, subinterfaces, and bonded interfaces are created, in addition to how customary bridges are outlined and the connection between digital Ethernet (veth) interfaces on the host degree and interfaces outlined throughout the container runtime. These expertise are now not non-compulsory and we felt it vital to know them properly sufficient to repair them once they break.
We needed to toss in some AI, too
Identical to with the remainder of the skilled automation specializations, some AI wanted to be included throughout the examination matters checklist; it’s being talked about in all places and our certifications must be no completely different.
- Understanding the safety implications of utilizing AI throughout the datacenter is vital to guard the huge quantities and worth of that information. Right here there may very well be unintended penalties round information publicity and as a vector for exfiltration.
- As agentic AI turns into mainstream, understanding how these brokers join to varied platforms, units, and controllers is a baseband process; one thing that everybody ought to perceive.
- With the prevalence of automation and orchestration throughout the datacenter, describing and understanding how generative AI can be utilized to speed up prototyping and iteration over community automation options will now not be an non-compulsory talent. It ought to validated for any automation skilled.
Bringing all of it collectively
By way of this weblog, and the earlier ones on the AUTOCOR and ENAUTO 2.0, I hope you’ve gained a bit bit extra perception into the certification and the precise exams (each core and focus). This isn’t simply associated to the exams and matters themselves, but in addition the mindset shift and completely different method in creating the examination matters checklist, shifting from software program engineers which might be studying “community” to community engineers which might be studying “automation.” It sounds delicate, however the final result will be fairly completely different. By way of this distinction, we hope that you just discover that the brand new exams align to your automation work in a way more impactful manner.
As at all times, completely happy studying! When you have any questions, please contact me on X (@qsnyder) or by way of the Cisco Studying Community message boards.
Efficient February 3, 2026, the 300-635 DCNAUTO examination will likely be up to date to v2.0 and renamed, “Automating Cisco Information Middle Networking Options v2.0.”
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