>>live from Barcelona, Spain. It's the Cube covering Cisco Live 2020 right to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners. >>Welcome back. You're watching the Cube, helping to extract the signal from the noise here at Cisco Live 2020 in Barcelona. I'm stupid, and my co host for this segment is Dave Volante. John Furrier is also in the house. One of the things when we look at Cisco it has a strong strength and helping users really with their careers. And, of course, education is a key piece of that Help really dig into that ever changing topic. Talk about future of work as a great hashtag. I love following on LinkedIn and Twitter Everybody's always interested in because it affects so many people. Mike Adams Welcome back to the Cube vice president, general manager of learning at Cisco. Thanks so much. Thanks. It's >>a pleasure to >>be here. Good to see you guys again. All right, so we're here in the Dev Net. Zo, we've been watching some of the move Cisco's been making heard about the New Dev Net certifications, of course. You know, leading up to and at the show, I see lots of friends talking about the prep they're doing. The course is they're taking and, you know, all excited if they pass a certification, everything. So bring us into kind of what's new in your world. Sure on, and we'll go from there. >>So the last time we spoke in San Diego, we had just announced Cisco's new certification program, the most exciting and fundamental changes we've made to the certification program in over a decade. That was the promise that we made to the industry in 26 short days. We fulfill that promise with the launch of the new certification program right, and that includes the first software certification track for Cisco. The definite certifications. But there's some other big changes that have been incorporated into the new program as well. We have continuing education credits, which we spend a little bit of time talking about last time to allow people to maintain their certifications at every level. There's a lot of evidence that there's more value in learning new things to maintain that certification than just re taking an old test again. We also have a customer success manager certification that I would love to chat with you guys about as well because there's two big fundamental changes taking place in the industry today. One of them is very technology oriented, the coming together of network and software to unleash the capability of the network. But there's a fundamental business change that's taken place is where a business model change. And that's where Cisco has pivoted our historic services organization toward a customer success, customer experience oriented model. And we're now certifying folks to be customer success managers in the industry as well. So a lot happening around certifications, >>I said in my breaking analysis leading up to the show. You know, the ascendancy of Cisco kind attract a lot of things, but there were three. The levers that I called out one was the bet on I P. The other was the mergers and acquisition strategy which panned out, and the third was training. You know, this force of advocates, which became this the secret weapon we're now seeing sort of the next wave of that Are we in the industry changes. You guys are on top of that. I wonder if you could talk about the the force of, you know, body of work that you guys have helped create as advocates and really changing the way in which people are applying technology and beyond technology. >>Yeah, so So you're right. So for over 26 years, individual engineers and technologists have bet their career on Cisco, and they have actualized that through certifications. Those certifications in the rigor and the power of those have allowed them to demonstrate their capability to get that next job to compete and earn more for their family to do things that they never would have thought they would've been able to do otherwise, regardless of who their employer is. So one of the things that's most gratifying about the role that I'm in and the work that we do as we touch individual lives. You were talking a moment ago about hearing individual people being excited about the exam they passed. That's not a B to B conversation that's a person to person conversation, right, So that opportunity to influence that historically has been powerful. And with this new certification program that we're rolling out on a lot of the other changes that are happening, we're telling folks you can now bet your next 26 years on Cisco bet your career on us and we're gonna make sure that it's equally is valuable with the new skill software in particular there. >>And it's not. The point is that you talk to the folks who have gone through the sort of against, like CCP, obviously gold standard. Yeah, it's not trivial. It's really challenging. Is going back to college finding way work hard? Teoh make it regularly with the >>value of that certification is because we maintain the integrity of that program, and that's exactly what we're going to continue to do. So maybe using that structure and integrity and rigour that we've built over the last 26 years and now injecting new capabilities and skill into that model is really what the focus >>is. I love to hear a little bit more. Mike. You were talking about changes and different options. People have to make sure that they're not just on the treadmill of, you know, repeating the same thing. >>Yeah, yeah, I >>have to start with Dev. Net. You have to start with software skills we're hearing from our customers every single day. Fundamental networking capability and skills still critically important. But the thing they're hungry for right now is being ableto add software programming skills on top of that. And so our response to that obviously, is not only with what we do in definite here training people every day, right here behind us, but now allowing them to be able to demonstrate those skills that they have earned through a certification. So now they can take that to their employer and say, I've actually got it. I can show you can prove it. You don't have to see me do it. So that's That's one of the one of the fundamental changes that's happening right now in the industry and why it's so important to our customers and partners. >>So what's the data show? Where you seeing what's hot? What are you seeing? The demand? It's I O T and Python. I mean, lines out the standing room only back here. But what are you seeing in the data and what are you advising, folks? Toe. Sort of lean into >>Sure. Sure. Yeah. I'm glad you asked that. A couple of things. I'll sort of back up just a little bit if I can. Even on the network engineering track, if you will. We have begun to inject and embed more programming fundamentals. More software fundamental. So one way to think about it's kind of 2080. So in the network engineering track, there's still 20% of sort of software skills that we have built into each level in 80% of that traditional sort of network engineering capability. You have to demonstrate on the software side on the DEV. Net side. It's the flip, right, so it's 80% software, but there's 20% of networking engineering capability. What that does is allow all these folks to have a common language that they speak. This is about building an I T. Team of the future. It's not about having one individual that knows everything. It's about being able to assemble teams that know how to solve these problems together. So all those skills that you mentioned are really critical, as they can unlock the potential of Cisco's new programmable platform. >>Well, the other things do is it's self funding, so it's a good business, but a >>mic I'm curious when you're building these software certification, what did you learn from existing certifications out there? I think Microsoft, of course, very position in this space. The cloud providers have sort of occasions. So what did you learn in building this? And also a lot of your customers? If they're developers, they're playing in multiple environments. It's not CCTV. I know what gear I'm working on a developer. There's many environments I will play in. So so how do you frame what you're learning and how it fits in the broader it? >>Yeah. Yeah. So we do keep an eye on the industry, of course. And what other technology companies are doing around certifications? So we went to school on that a bit. You know, the Cisco certifications have been the gold standard. I think I mentioned a moment ago. For a long time we have seen sort of the increasing relevance of other technology certifications, and that was part of why we recognize that we needed to work a little harder to get back out in front to maintain that gold standard to continue to be the flagship in the industry. So we recognize that particularly on the software side, there is a broader set of skills that need to be integrated into the certification, but always with a focus on how the leverage those skills to unlock the potential of Cisco's platforms that we're building AP >>eyes on top of >>How about the security piece? Is that fit into the curriculum at this point? Yeah, >>security's pretty hot, huh? Security's pretty >>hard, and but it's complicated and it opens up a whole can of worms. And >>so security is still a very heavy focus of the new certification program. And I'll use this is an example toe to tell you about another fundamental change that we've made around the certification program. Historically, Cisco certifications have been more technology oriented, If you will, right, we have evolved the program to be more job role focus, so I'll give you an example. So let's say you wanted to prove that you have the capability to be a dev SEC ops engineer. Back to the security question that you had you would get a CCMP in security. So you get your core examine security. You would add to that concentrations in Dev Net, WebEx and Dev. Net SEC Ops, Dev ops and then the combination of those concentrations and specialists allow you to say I have the requisite skills to be an effective Dev. SEC ops engineer. So rather than having to show that through job history, I can now show that through a mix of concentrations and the certification. >>So I know we're going to be talking to Suzy and she'll be talking about the definite 100. But I'm curious when you look at the partners and you know some of your big customers. How fast do you expect this to roll out? You know what? What should we be expecting to see anything particular you have for the Cisco Channel of the You know, it's lots of certified people in their ranks. S So how are you helping to bring your customers and partners along? Sure. >>So two things I would say Number one. We have seen a real spike in certification testing over the last six months That tells us that there's a lot of value in what we're doing. It also tells me there's a lot of people that were studying for exams that want to get that in before the exam changes. And we have seen a lot of early sign ups for the exams that are going to be released on February 24th again 26 days away. We're close. And so when Susie announced The Dev Net 500 I'm telling you, the buzz around here is crazy. So anybody who's watching right now, I would tell them if they want to get that definite 500 you better go sign up for that exam right now. Go get your name on the list today. In anecdotally, I would say that's consistent with what we're seeing. We're seeing Ah, high demand for the new certifications in General and Dev Net. Specifically, partners are particularly interested because it's a way for them to differentiate their capabilities and what they do from some of their competitors. There's a definite specialist that a partner organization can earn by having a certain number of Dev. Net certified folks inside the organization that drives a lot of demand as well. >>You know, we've noticed that little uptick quite a big uptick in young people, kids in college watching our programs. So what do you tell those guys if they're interested in becoming an I T practitioner and where do they get >>started? Sure, I would tell him a couple of things. Number one, I would tell him. Bet your career on Cisco right? folks that are maybe not early in career like myself did the same thing 25 years ago, and it's paid off for us. And Cisco is committed not only to continuing to stay in the front of technology but making sure we're taking care of the needs of individual engineers and and developers out there who want to bet their careers on this. So hopefully the certification program we're launching is evidence of that, that we're going to continue to invest in them for the next decades to come. I would tell them if they're interested in being a network engineer, it's a great time to do that if they're interested in being a developer and understanding how to build and program and create applications. On top of Cisco's massively dominant infrastructure around the globe is a great opportunity to do that as well. And certifications are a great place. >>I'm curious when we look at the general cadence of release of hardware versus software. Software tends to move a little faster, so I'm curious what things your team has in place. Is it a you know, quarterly release cycle on the software side? Or how do you start to look at that. It's >>a really insightful question you asked, right, because the need to maintain current skills, particularly around new releases of software, is very different than it was 10 15 20 years ago. So I would say a couple of things right When we talk about how we enable and train and educate, often there are different ways we can. There are there are other ways that we meet that need. In addition to certifications, right certifications, almost by definition, move a bit more slowly. We want to maintain that rigger right. We always want to maintain the integrity of the program. So the training and education that we have available to folks via the Dev. Net and via the information that you can find and Cisco's website via the extensive network of our learning partners that we have, we are working to rapidly change that as new software releases come out and we will be looking to accelerate that pace of certifications. But just to be fair, certifications are always going to like, just a little bit behind that because we need to maintain that rigor. All >>right, Well, Mike, when we meet again at Cisco live in Las Vegas. We expect you to bring along some of those newly minted certificate is certified people in the environment. Thanks so much. We're really >>excited about that. Thank you. By the time you're welcome. Congratulations >>for Dave Volante. I'm Stew Minimum back with much more coverage here from Cisco Live 2020 in but in Barcelona. Thanks for watching the Cube. >>Yeah, yeah.

>> lie from San Francisco celebrating 10 years of high tech coverage. It's the Cube covering Veum World 2019. Brought to you by VM Wear and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back to the cubes. Live coverage here in San Francisco, California, for VM World 2019. I'm Jeff Davis Davis, our 10th year, 10 years covering the M world. Quite a run. Got a great stories. More stories coming, Emma days. A lot of organic growth. A lot of typos in the startup scene. Our next two guests Mike Adams, CIA Director bm wear and Ziv Kalman. Oh, vich product line manager here. Welcome to the Cube. Great to see you. Yes, Curtsy to you guys. Got a lot of activity happening around bit fusion. A lot of news to share. Exciting. I mean, in the M. And a story has been high on VM. Where we talking back? Elsie earlier. Continue to fill in on the strategy. >> Yeah, absolutely. Give us the update. Yeah, I think the key thing for us is we really want to become a key player in the A. I am l space and say that those workloads should come on visa. And with this acquisition we think, provides a great framework for a lot of the hardware accelerator devices. The best of you known of those his GP use. But we think there's four coming market with PG A's and also custom a six. So we're super excited about that. >> For the folks that don't know much about the acquisition, what was the motivation? What was the company's core product? What was the interest? Yeah, the >> company had a product called Flex Direct, and that particular product was really focused on taking, ah, similar concept that a lot of V m writes No, which was, Hey, we knew that computes space. We were trying to take these isolated islands and pull them together. Same type of thing. Here you had these expensive devices that people were buying and they were isolated. And now if we could take a single server, it's got a bunch of GP use on it. Why don't we share it? You see all these papers that come out around machine learning at the very end. It says she's I'm amazed that thes GP user so underutilized even when we're actually using them. It's kind of like buying a car and then using the radio only right? Doesn't. It just doesn't make sense. I >> got this trend of alternative processors just sort of exploding all over the place. I mean, obviously in video, sort of people know what's going on there, but but you've got arm. Now you've got the edge coming in, you know, Intel. Still dominant in the server space. But even even storage devices today use different type, not in the not Intel processors in there. It's a combination of our mo are Sometimes you know, G. P uses you say F g a Z, even though they're sort of a narrow use case. You're seeing a six make a comeback. So you got all this additional processing power, you know, going. So that's a tailwind. Absolutely, guys, and it's sort of the intersection of those to maybe talk about some of the trends you see in that regard and how you're taking advantage of them. >> Yeah, it reminds me of many moons ago when we had new chips that were coming out. We said, Jesus, hardware, flurry here, right? And now we're in a really similar spot. Ziv and I see a lot of different types of devices and acceleration devices, whether it's computer network or storage. And in this particular case, right, we just see a hotbed of all these customers that air seeing the same problem, right? And we've got great partnerships with Intel you mentioned in video and and many others. And we just want to really leverage those for these devices because you look at V sphere and say, OK, your traditional workloads. We've done those very, very well. But as we get into containers, KUBERNETES, machine Learning and I, we want these newer cloud native and newer workloads to come our way. And taking advantage of these new capabilities really helps accelerate that in a big way. >> Could you >> explain Maur on the the sphere impact? Because, you know, first of all, of'em, where community you get the feedback right away on Twitter and a lot of things. But sometimes you gotta dig in and find out what people are thinking and where there might. I think that could be future up opportunities or because it meets skepticism. Well, the the sphere native having a eye on the sphere, that's just mind blowing to me. But I mean, I can see I can see a data processor kind of vibe going on here where data needs to be processed. That seems to be a trend. What is it going on with the sphere with this? Is there what's the what's to customers? No. >> Well, I think the first thing to clarify here is that, you know, some often there is this question. Why would Iran m Ellery I work? Look specifically envy. Sphere is a platform. But then customers do run Emily and workers and public clouds. And those layers are not that different than the spirits virtualization layer, and they're running it in virtual machines. So the whole idea would be fusion specifically, is it? Actually, we can make it even more efficient to run these workloads on top of the sphere because the underlying infrastructure that you two actually, you have to accelerate these workloads there. Today they are mostly GP use, obviously, but in the futures, Michael so mentioned you a six are coming in and effigies are coming in. We are going to make those as well. That's the plan using the B fusion framework. Be more efficient to use. A lot >> of people are skeptical around running machine learning on these are not skeptical because, I mean, it's great for any time you have the opportunity to automate something or used software to make something go away. That's not the difference. You're undifferentiated, so it makes sense. But I just can't figure out where, specifically, within these fears of being targeted to use >> where envy sphere as in, Well, >> if I'm operating the sphere on top operator, I got Debs kicking around the corner. I got a cloud Mom reclaiming. Where's this fit in? Where >> this fits into essentially any place for a visa is running. It doesn't matter if it would run on via MacLeod and for any other for cloud partnerships or on the the edge of our Vesey runs. This is a core capability of the sphere, so it doesn't matter. You know where physically or infrastructure is, we would be able to expose this technology. The idea is also that you mentioned the trends in the A six as they're coming into the enterprise. There's an architectural changes also coming in, and in the server perspective, it's just it's the servers are actually getting more dense there, in there, in there in the accelerator infrastructure that they have in them. So you're seeing four to a GP using a single server. Those are very powerful machines. You can just move oil, represent a single machine again. That brings us back to be fusion and descend. The segregated model affects territory used, which is very similar by the way to centralize stories use. >> You guys are on something really big here. I think that hardware assists off load anything. Hardware system, harbor off load is gonna be a more of a bigger trend. And we saw it happen big time and hyper converge just for storage and everything. But I think as you want to stack where kubernetes gonna flourish? Yeah. I mean, imagine all the service is that he turned on Turned off. I mean, that's not I mean, men even know when it gets turned on or off. >> Absolutely offload for awhile with things like a raise, right, trying to push processing off to a bigger ray that you've got there. And then one other thing you said that I think was really important is the audience, right? If you look at a i n m l, we have traditionally haven't talked to the data, scientists of the machine learning folks. And we need to get to the I t. Folks that air supporting those workloads saying similar to some other workloads that were new and saying these were gonna come your way. And so we need to be prepared and you need to be able to leverage. So >> what's the What's the pitch to those folks? What's that? What's what you guys saying to them? Because it is a benefit for Debs and Dev Ops is to have an ops right. You got the ops down. Okay, see that and this change happening. But a dev, What's the pitch? But how do you get their attention? What's the value proposition? >> The the Actually, that's the beauty of it. It's exactly the same bottle proposition that the sphere in Vienna, where the Vienna state provides the developers and the only thing is that now we are letting the the office people to actually provide this doing this infrastructure as well in the same efficient manner. So it's your transformation. Basically, it's giving the exact same value proposition. >> Talk about the multi cloud tie in here. We've heard a lot about multi cloud and I think multi cloud in part anyway, is being able to run any application and workload anywhere. And one of things about your technology is the ability to not have to rewrite the application to take advantage of acceleration. Does it fit into multi cloud? And if so, how? >> Yeah, when we made the bet Fusion acquisition, if you look at their story, they had the any any any story as well, just like we do. And so, you know, we made announcement this week within video and eight of us and VM, where it's definitely possible of the technology that we have to extend that even further. And so, you know, the only thing I know with users going forward is they're gonna have more than one cloud, and so we just need to prepare for that and make sure that it works. And it works well across the board and the common layer. When you look at our multi cloud strategy is vey sphere is going to be at each of those layers. So if it's ties in disease here, it should be pretty easy to make it work in each of those environments. >> What was that What was the announcement you made you share? The big >> one was being able to use in video in the context of cloud in AWS. So's GPU capabilities and bring it to the service as we do on Prem. And so that was a big piece. And then we also obviously, in making that announcement talking about Hey, you know, this is a critical area for us because not only are we doing this, but we're also saying that your bit fusion will help enhance this because we think in video and bit fusion work very well together as well. >> And is that a product of service? Ah, go to market initiative. >> In the case of the coordinated us, it would be offered as part of the service. So when you can consume the compute, you know you want a GPU, it'll be there for you to help run that workload in the cloud. >> And that's available. When >> that's an nvidia in AWS kind of question. When they are making that infrastructure available, it's essentially going to be a nun. In another instance, type that the ember cloud in AWS will offer okay, I >> mean, it's a tech preview. >> What if some of the things that people should know about because again, in the pattern I'm seeing here of'em world is as in love to stack with kubernetes being that abstraction layer that guessing eyes promoting heavily on rightfully so. We're big fans communes with that for the beginning is that you're gonna have this this purpose built, um, native capability so that when you guys got this native vibe going on native to hype the sphere native TSX native, what does that actually mean? Native like Cooper, naked native on I. But what does it native mean? Explain to the audience what that actually means. >> I'll start up. Sure. You could >> elaborate 30 minutes if you want. But what is that >> true native native? The idea >> for us was used kubernetes really two ways. You know, most of the time when we were talking about Cooper Naser Containers, it's running that on top of these Fair right? What happens if you could take the DNA of that and put it actually inside of east here? Right, so not only you could run these clusters and native pods, but you could also leverage some of the value and one of the things that Cubans does really well is it handles workloads really well. So if we take an example where we have 145 e ems and they make up your app, right, normally you'd have to go to each one of those and figure out OK, let's make some changes in tweaks. And now what I can do is I can treat all of those is one workload and I can move them. I could do really interesting things with that. And that's the power one of the powers that you have with Kubernetes. >> And that's where the differentiation. Then you don't think that there's a >> Yeah, exactly. I mean you are essentially getting There are a lot of benefits our customers, our values value that the customer is getting today from V Sphere, generically speaking, and our longtime customers are familiar with the value propositions. And what we are saying is that when you're getting something as a native capability is that essentially ties into all the other capabilities that you already were know very well and you will be able to get those. But with on top on, sometimes on top orbit in conjunction with what >> is that gonna enable? Now let's talk about the enablement. >> So let's go back all the way. If you go all the way back to be fusion, for example, if you enable it is a native technology, then if you're running containers or viens on the sphere natively they can consume to be fusion technology. If you have cool, it is. It can orchestrate natively, the PM's and containers that are using the confusion to collision. Excited. Oh, so this is the whole thing, >> more efficient platform standpoint, >> and it's easier to manage as well, because you don't have to install a bunch of stuff on top of each other because it's needed. It's part of the first. >> A lot of hassle go away that people might >> take it in and you're gonna have to guess tomorrow they're going to go deep into it with >> you. Great, we're excited. So we're hearing a lot, obviously, but kubernetes at this event and and but most of the audience, they're not developers. So how can you use the sort of bit Fusion mojo to attract developers for some of these new workloads, that air come into the marketplace? >> Yeah, I mean it's all about acquiring new audiences in a case of infusions. More the data scientists. In the case of the communities, it's more around the developer. But I think let's use the kubernetes examples as a good one and what we announced with Project Pacific. Basically, the way it looks, the technology looks to them. It'll look like the kubernetes, a p I with a little bit of east for goodness from the operator perspective, the people that we know the 20,000 that are here, it looks to them like the sphere was from kubernetes Goodness. So that's the right mix is you've got to get it. So it looks exactly the smells and feels just like what they're used to. And I think that's a that's a key aspect. And then for the data Scientists with fusion, we really need to say Okay, you know you want to run these workloads, but she's you're paying really a lot of money for these expensive, isolated devices, and you could get more value by kind of grouping them up and making sure that they're used kind of in aggregate, right? >> So there's more leverage on the data science side So if I'm say hiring someone I know I'm or more to work with with >> exactly, essentially, it's it's the same story. They don't need to change their applications, their framework. Their models use the same could interface, which is the GPU interface for for the GPS computer. >> So So let's talk about that. So data scientist, you know, they always complain that most their time is spent wrangling data That's their, you know, bugaboo. And then there's a collaboration between data scientists and developers, which probably doesn't happen enough. What are you seeing in terms of the trends from the data science role? And can you help solve some of those problems? >> Well, what we are about to solve is really access access to infrastructure for them. Easy access to the infrastructure in their software stack. And the way to get there is to make the data engineers that serve these data scientists and the application administrators that surges data scientist to get easy access to the infrastructure Dany to provide the software, and that's where the sphere eventually comes in. So it's not the Celia direct relationship with the end users. It's more enabling the entire organization that actually served these end users and let them use as much infrastructure as your partners. And >> that and that and user organization. The buffer >> guys last question share what the plans are. What's next? What's your goals for the next 6 to 12 months? I'll see. Get the acquisition under your belt. Native in these fear, a lot of other cool things. I mean that I could talk about >> customers and maybe you can talk about product from a customer perspective. You know, we want engage in proof of concepts. So we want to bring them in, let them test out the software. It already works with the beast here, so I'll be running with multiple proof of concepts across the globe. We >> use cases in the U. S. Case or what? >> Yeah, I mean, it's it's pretty simple at the moment. It seems to be most people that are using GP use around ml. We have a great demo down the floor that shows people trying to run inception, three year resident 50 And how can we actually help those v EMs that are running that? So that's gonna be my focus. The next six >> years you want get some use cases come over here, bring him up to Mike. >> And from that perspective, I mean, obviously, we acquired occasion in an early stage. The technology works well. It works well enough to be product eyes. However, Veum, wherein the sphere has very high enterprise software stone standards in terms of security and management and governance. All this capabilities so that's going to be are focused on the next, you know, even almost a year to make sure that we bring it up to a level where we can confidently provide it and sell. It is a product >> you gotta engineering hye bar there absolutely thanks to Russia coming on keeping the update, the end world coverage Breaking it down. 2019. It's the Cuba job for David. Thanks for watching Be back with more after this short break.

>> Narrator: Live from San Diego, California, it's theCube, covering Cisco Live US 2019, brought to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back to theCube, Lisa Martin with Dave Vellante, day three of our coverage of Cisco Live. We're in the DevNet Zone, we've been here all week. Dave, this DevNet Zone is the place to be at Cisco Live. >> Well, first of all, it's so packed downstairs, not that it's not packed here, but there's a little space you can walk around in, number one, and number two, it's where all the action is from the learning standpoint and education. People are just eating it up, they're like sponges. >> They are eating it up. Speaking of learning, we are pleased to welcome Mike Adams, the VP and GM of Learning at Cisco. Mike, welcome to theCube. >> Thank you, it's my pleasure to be here. >> We talked to Susie a number of times, she's actually coming on to guest host with me in an hour or so, and looking at the DevNet evolution in the last five years, 600,000 members in this community, which is mind-boggling how this is, I teased that it was like a field of dreams. >> (chuckles) >> Dave: Which also was 30 years ago. >> It is, yes. That's kind of scary isn't it? But also so is Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, I think those are two really good ways of looking at DevNet. If we look at some of the things that you guys have announced with respect to bringing software skills and software practices to network engineers, it's a big signal in Cisco's evolution. Talk to us about some of the things you guys have announced from the certification perspective and why that's a signal of changing winds. >> Yeah, absolutely. It's been exciting. Susie and I have been working together very closely for the last year in preparation for this. I'm not sure if I'm Bill or Ted in the combo. >> Lisa: Either one's pretty good. >> You're the one who started the excellent adventure. >> That's right. There's some really fundamental significant changes to the program. The most exciting, of course, is the launch of our DevNet branded software certification. It's one of a kind in the industry. There is not other company that has the mix of network engineering certifications and software certifications like Cisco does, certainly not at the scale that we do. We've certified over 1.7 million people since the program has launched over 25 years ago. You imagine the power of bringing together the community of developers with this community of network engineers that we've created. The sky's the limit. It's going to be amazing. That's the biggest announcement is the launch of the software certification, DevNet certification. We've made some other pretty important changes too, and all of these were based on the feedback that we got from customers and partners. One is you can now use continuing education credits to maintain your certification at any level. Rather than having to go back and retake the test every three years, now you can branch out and learn new things, like software as a continuing education credit to maintain that certification you have. We've also added flexibility into the program. In the past, you had to start at associate level and then go to professional and then go to expert. Today, if you feel like you're ready for professional, we invite you to start right there. If you feel like you're ready for that very rigorous CCIE Lab Exam, bring it on, we'll welcome you into it. We feel like that's going to give learners more of a choice in terms of how they process their learning and training and which certifications they want to pursue. Go on, I could go on. >> Let's keep goin'. You could essentially cut the line if you've had some field experience, and/or you just naturally have an affinity towards this. >> That's right. If you have developed depth of expertise and skill and experience, but you haven't started the certification program, why would I make you go back and take an entry level engineer exam just to work your way into the direction you wanted to go, rather we welcome you to come in and start working where you feel like you're ready. >> Can you explain more about the continuous certification, because if I infer correctly, it used to be every three years you got to re-up, kind of like an EMT has to get re-certified. That's not required anymore? You can traverse across the portfolio? >> I'll answer it very specifically. In today's program, the highest level, the CCIE, the expert level, that level can use continuing education credits to re-certify, to maintain their certification. We've extended that same principle to all the others, so today, if you had a CCNA, and you wanted to maintain that CCNA, you would have to go take that exam again. We think it's a lot more valuable, and it's interesting you would mention EMTs, there are lots of other verticals and professions, there's a lot of data and science behind this, that will say that there's more value in terms of extending and maintaining your skills by doing continuing education rather than studying for a test. >> Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. You're allowing the folks to have more control over their education. >> Mike: Exactly. >> Choose your own adventure kind of thing. >> Mike: That's right. >> Also, one of the things that sort of strikes me about what Cisco has done in this big pivot, software's becoming developer friendly, which for a large organization with a history and the girth that Cisco has is not easy to do. From a competitive advantage perspective, what are you hearing from customers, in terms of, are you seeing this as a dial-up on Cisco's competitive edge? >> Yes, absolutely. We took counsel from Gerri, our Head of Sales, she believes very strongly that the DevNet certification, in combination with our network certification program, gives us a real selling edge because it demonstrates the commitment we have to solving real world problems for our customers. We know our customers are anxious to take advantage of what software on top of the network creates for them. To take advantage of those APIs, to build applications and programs that let them maximize the use of their technology as they compete in their own marketplaces. We're absolutely hearing very positive things about how this differentiates Cisco. I'll just add one more point. Even though it looks like there's two tracks, there's a network engineering track and a software track, that's really not the case. It's one certification program. As an example, at the professional level, to earn that CCNP, you have to take a CORE exam, and then you take a concentration exam in the same technology vertical. Data Center, Enterprise, Collaboration, Security Service Bribe, or DevNet. Interestingly, in each of the first five that I mentioned, you'll take the CORE exam and then the concentration can be a DevNet concentration. So we're inviting people to begin to add that software skills into the traditional network certification track that they've had. >> I wonder if you could help us understand the philosophy of the programs. I've seen some education programs, it's like a Chinese menu. It's deep and wide. My sense is that a lot of companies, some companies, not a lot, have said, "Okay, we're really not relevant to the Cloud market, "Let's do some Cloud certifications," stamping it premature there. It seems like Cisco's strategy is to be very focused. Is that fair? Maybe you could add some comments to that. >> It's absolutely fair. We've been very thoughtful about how we have structured the program and what content we have put into it. We've been very mindful to focus on need-to-know information in the CORE exams, and then allowing the learner to choose concentrations for the nice-to-know, the things they want to round themselves out with. Around relevancy, we built the program with job-role specific skills in mind. As an example we've been talking about it this week. Dev Sec-Ops Engineer is an example. It would maybe get their CCNP in Enterprise, route switch, and then they could add on to that various DevNet concentration exams to earn them specialists that would mix that, whether it be WebEx or IOT, and then those combination of skills speak to a very specific job role, this Dev Sec-Ops Engineer, as an example. There are other ways you can mix and match the components to create the capability around skills for a job. >> I imagine as time goes on with these new certifications that you guys are going to be analyzing the different pathways that each person is taking to understand, maybe looking at some consistencies and maybe even offering some recommendation, recommended pathways. >> That's exactly right, because as those job roles evolve in the industry, we're constantly evaluating what skills are needed for those, making sure that we're bringing those to the market. I just can't say enough how important it is to DevNet certification is. Being able to have developers demonstrate their capabilities and skills through a certification is really powerful. >> What's the strategy with regard to partnering with universities, are you doing things along those line? >> I'm so glad you brought that up. There's another leader that Susie and I have been working with, Laura Quintana, she's runs Networking Academy. Networking Academy reaches out to higher education, and also to high schools, they also create networking academies in underserved areas around the globe. Laura and her team have been at this for a while. They have trained over 9.2 million people and have a goal to graduate another two million within the next year. The reason I mention that is that's the arm of Cisco that reaches into higher education and invites people in underserved areas into our industry by giving them those fundamentals. The primary certification that they graduate with is the CCNA, is that entry-level engineer, and now entry level software DevNet associate, those are the graduation that they'll focus on out of Networking Academy. We do a lot of that. >> How about the technology of learning. When you started this almost three decades ago, this is a massive scale of learning. How has the technology of learning evolved? >> Massively. Think about how you like to learn new things. Much of it is going to the web, or finding some digital format, and then doing it at your own pace. That's the other important thing here as well. We are massively transforming the way we are meeting our customers through digitized products. It's very important. Another one of the other big announcements this week was the move from Cisco's services to customer experience, you may have heard Maria Martinez on stage, day two. If you noticed there were four main pillars to the CX Strategy, one of them was learning, active learning. We know that by embedding learning and education into the digital products that we have and getting it to our customers just in time, and ideally by looking at telemetry coming back from how they're using our products, maybe I can predict what training you need before you know you even need it. That's where we're going. >> Very awesome. Last question for you, Mike. Cisco's a massive part of our Ecosystem, we've been talking with a lot of them this week, and at many events, what's to them, to your partners, what does the certification and this massive change signal to them in terms of Cisco's evolution? >> It absolutely signals where the company is going, our commitment to software, our commitment to continue to evolve and stay on the forefront of technology, giving them what they need to go serve their customers and make money in the meantime. Our partner ecosystem is so critical to this company. The software certification, as an example, is going to allow them to demonstrate to their customers, in a very quantifiable way, how many DevNet certified engineers they have. Some of these partners have over a thousand DevNet members already, but wouldn't it be great via certifications? It's a real differentiator for them. I'll mention one other thing. We have a group of very strong learning partners that we work with that extend our capability globally, that are able to take the content that we create and then form that to meet the needs of very specific customers. There's another aspect of partners that are critical to this transformation. >> So you talk about partners to your customers, to the engineers, when I was at IDG one of the most frequently read articles was the Annual Computer World Salary. >> Mike: (laughs) >> You know what, if everyone's going to publish salaries, I'm going to look and see where do I stand. That's part of it, getting more certifications, you're going to be worth more in the market. >> It is. We've got some really good data that says what an investment in professional or expert level certification should do for your W-2 at the end of the year, and we're very mindful of that. >> DevNet bringing the street-cred. Mike, it was great to have you in the program. I can only imagine how dynamic you and Susie are together. >> We have a lot of fun. >> I got to see that next time. Congrats on all the success. It's palpable. >> Thanks. >> Cool stuff. For Dave Velannte, I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching theCube Live from Cisco Live San Diego. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)