Network Automation Skill-builder: Skill No.4 - LABS

Practice Makes Perfect! Many have reached out to me recently asking where to get practical experience to gain automation skills. As Network Engineers we realise that with only a theoretical understanding of a subject, we would not be able to function as an Engineer. The same can be said for Automation. The new-

age Network Engineer is required to have a vast scope of skills. There are so many automation tools out there: Ansible, Salt, Puppet, Chef. If only there was a simple recipe one could follow to become an automation engineer. If you are planning to do Network Automation you need to practice! For the prominent certification exams that are out there I would say that there are some great online tools, available for FREE. A place I would highly recommend if you are working toward certification is the Cisco DevNet Learning Labs. You will find labs to all kinds of needed skills in there — Python, Git, Ansible, Postman, to name a few. I like it because it is a one-stop-shop. I have to say though, that if you want to become an expert in any one of these tools, you would need deeper study on the specific tool at hand. It does however give you a good grasp on the practical skills you would need to get started honing your automation skills. I believe you need to use a lab environment hand-in-hand with your studies. It helps to solidify and clarify the thoughts you have studied. Don't wait too long into your studies to start playing around in a lab. Have you set up a dev environment for yourself where you can just sit down and start practicing? Here is a link to help you setup a Development Environment on your Windows PC. So what tools do you think are important for next-generation Network Automation Engineers? Let me know what you think and what you enjoy learning. I'm spending time deepening my Python and Linux Skills. Learning is a journey not a destination.