(upbeat music) >> Live from Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE covering Cisco Live 2018, brought to you by Cisco, NetApp, and theCUBE's ecosystem partnership. (upbeat music) >> Hello, welcome back everyone to the live CUBE coverage here in Orlando, Florida for Cisco Live 2018. I'm John Furrier with my co-host Stu Miniman. Three days days of wall-to-wall live coverage, we have Mandy Whaley, senior director of developer experience at Cisco DevNet and Par Merat, who is the senior director of community and ecosystem for DevNet. Mandy, great to see you, CUBE alumni. Every single time we had theCUBE with DevNet team, Par, great to see you. Congratulations, first of all. >> Thank you. >> Thanks for coming on. >> Thank you, we're happy to be here. >> Congratulations, so, really kind of a proud moment for you guys, and I want to give you some mad props on the fact that you guys have built a successful developer program, DevNet and DevNet Create for Cloud Native, over a half a million registered, engaged users, of developers using it. Not just people who come to the site. >> Correct. >> Right. >> Real developers. For an infrastructure enterprise company, that's a big deal, congratulations. >> It is, thank you, thank you. We were just chatting this morning about the really early days of DevNet at Cisco Live, and the first year of DevNet Create. And it's been great to see that community grow. And see, early on we had this vision of bringing the application developers and the infrastructure engineers together, and cross-pollinating those teams, and having them learn about each other's fields, and then build these programmable infrastructure enabled apps, and that's really, that synergy is happening within the community, and it's great to see them exchanging ideas here at events like this. >> And so we love to talk about seminal moments, and obviously DevOps drove a lot of the Cloud, and Chuck Robbins, your CEO said, "Without networking, there'd be no Cloud." True statement, absolutely, but Stu and I have always talked about the role of a network engineer, and that the power that they used to have in the enterprise is still due. It used to be the top people running the networks, mission critical, obviously security, but it's not about a retraining. It's about a path, and I think what you guys have done in success is you've shown a path where it's not about pivoting and being relevant and retraining to get a new job, it's been an extension of what they already know, >> An incentive. and I think that's very refreshing, and I think that's the real discovery. >> And we've been able to grow, because I think in our foundational years, we really spent a lot of time providing the content and the skill training, and what Mandy likes to say is, "We met them where they are." So no question was too novice. Likewise, if they were a little more advanced, we could direct them and point them in that same direction. So those early years, where, Mandy, we were just reminiscing about the first DevNet-- >> Coding 101? >> Yes, exactly, she wrote it over the weekend, and we rolled that whole event out, literally, in three months. >> And what year was that, just to kind of, this is an important seminal moment. >> 2014. >> May of 2014. >> 2014. >> 2014, the seeds of we should do something, and you guys have had certifications. We're looking at CCIEs, you go back to 1993 all the way now to 2018, so it's not like you guys are new to certification and training. It's just taking the IQ of network people, and giving them some insight. So what happened in 2014? Take us through the, obviously you bootstrapped it. >> Yes. (laughs) >> What happened, what happened next? >> We did. >> Everyone's like, whoa, >> So-- >> we can't, we're not, we're staying below the stack here. >> Well, we knew there was a lot of buzz around SDN and programmability, and we both actually, I should even back up further. We were both on the DevNet team when the DevNet program was Powerpoints, so we weren't even there yet. >> Right, when we were just planning what it even could be, like the ideas of having a developer program, and like Par was saying, we knew SDN was coming. We knew Network Controllers were coming. We didn't know what they were gonna be called, we didn't know what those APIs looked like, but we said, "The network engineers are gonna need "to know how to make REST API calls. "They're gonna need to know how to operate in Python." And so we started this program building around that vision before the portfolio is where it is today. Like today, now, we have APIs across the whole portfolio, Data Center, service provider, enterprise, and then up and down from the devices, all the way to controllers, up to the analytics level. So the portfolio's really filled out, and we've been able to bring that community along with it, which has been great. >> I want to dig into the north/south, east/west and that whole, kind of the Cloud paradigm, but I got to ask you, on a personal question, although relevant to the DevNet success. Was there a moment where, actually the seminal moments of 2014, was there a moment where you were like, "Wow, this is working." and like the, you know, (laughs) pinch me moment, or was it more of, "We got to get more resources, this is not just, "this thing's flying." >> Well it's always that. That's always the challenge. >> When was the point where >> We are, >> you said, "This is actually >> We are very-- >> "the best path, it's working, double down." When was that happening? >> I mean, I think after we started teaching those very early coding coding classes, I got this, like, flood of email from people who had attended them that said, "I took this task, I automated it, "it saved my team months of work," and getting that flow of information back from the community was early signs to me, from the technical level of, there's value, this is gonna take off, and then I think we just saw that kind of grow and grow. >> Mushroom, just kept it going. >> The other thing that I heard from a network engineer, which really resonated with me, was, you were saying, the network guy or gal likes to be there and solve the problem, and they're sort of at this deep level of control. And what I heard them say about the programmability skills was that that was another tool that they added to their sort of toolbox that let them be that person in the moment, solving that problem. And they could just solve it in a new way, so hearing the network engineers say that they have adopted programmability in that fashion, that let me know that that was gonna work, I think. >> All right, so let's get into some of the meat and potatoes, because you guys have some really good announcements. We saw you have the code ecosystem that you announced at DevNet Create, which is your emerging Cloud Native worlds coming together. That's available now. >> Yes, it's fully released. >> So take a minute to, so give us the update. >> Yes, so DevNet Code Exchange is developer.cisco.com/codeexchange so you can go there, it's live, and the idea behind this was we wanted to make it easy for the community to contribute, and also to discover code written by the community. So it's on GitHub. You can go and search on GitHub, but you get back a ton of hits if you go search Cisco on GitHub, which is great, but what we wanted to have was a curated list that you can filter by product, by language. I sometimes joke that it's like Zappos for sample code cause you can go on and say, "I want black boots, "you know the two inch heel." You can say, "I want, I want code for DNA Center, "or ACI, and I want it in Python," and then see all of the repositories submitted by the community. And then the community can also share their codes. "Hey, I've been working on this project. "I'm gonna add it to Code Exchange, so that other people "can build off of it and find it." So it's really about this community contribution, which is a strategic initiative for DevNet for this year. >> Mandy, how does that tie into other networking initiatives happening in the industry? I think of OpenDaylight, a lot of stuff happening, Docker comes this week, Kubernetes, and networking's a critical piece of all of these environments. >> Yeah, so some of the projects that you'll find in Code Exchange are things that relate. So we have some really good open-source community projects around YANG models and the tooling to help you deal with YANG models. So those might be in Code Exchange, but those are also part of the OpenDaylight community, and being worked in that. So because it is all open-source, because it is freely shared, and it's really just a way to improve discoverability, we can share easily back and forth between those communities. >> The Code Exchange is designed to really help people peer-to-peer work together and reuse code, but in the classic >> Reuse code within >> open-source ethos. >> the community. Exactly. >> Okay, so Par, you have something going on with Ecosystem Exchange. >> We do. >> Okay, so it sounds like Code Exchange, ecosystem partners, matchmaking service. What is it, take a minute to explain. >> It's kinda the next level up, and what I think we have to understand is, when we've got Code Exchange and Ecosystem Exchange under the umbrella of exchange, because within our 500, half a million community of developers, where they work, what we've found is predominately at SIs, at our VARs, at our ISVs. So these are the builders, so Code Exchange will even help that persona because they can come and see what's already been built. "Is there something that can jumpstart my development?" And if there's not, then they can work with each other, right? So if I am looking for a partner, a VAR in Australia to help me roll out my application, my navigation application, which needs to know and get data from the network, I can partner through this exchange because I can go in, see everyone, and be able to make that connection digitally versus organically. And this really started, you asked earlier what was one of the pinnacle moments? Well at these DevNet Zones, what we found is that an ISV would partner and start talking to an SI or to a VAR, and they'd start doing business planning, because what this is all about is driving those business outcomes for our customer base. And we're finding more and more they're trying to work together. >> So you're enabling people to get, do some work together, but not try and be a marketplace where you're actually charging a transaction. It's really kind of a matchmaking-- >> This is all about discovery right now. >> Community-driven discovery around business. Yeah, it's interesting, a heard a story in the hallway about DevNet, cause I love to get the examples of, we love what we're doing by the way, but want to get the examples, overheard a guy saying, "We were basically "cratering a business, jumped into the DevNet program, "and turned it around," because there was deals happening. So the organic nature of the community allowed for him to get his hands dirty and leverage it, but actually build business value. >> That's exactly right. >> That's a huge, >> That's exactly right. >> at the end of the day, people love to play with code, but they're building something for business purposes or open-source projects. >> And that's what this is about. It's really transitioning from the, "I'm gonna build," to now there's business value associated with it, and that's spectacular. >> I think so much of my career you talk, the poor network administrators, like "Help, help, "I'm gonna lock myself for a month, "and I'm gonna do all this scripting," and then three months later their business comes and asks for something that, "I need to go it again," because it's not repeatable. It's what we say is that the challenge has been that undifferentiated heavy lifting that too many companies do. >> Exactly. >> Well, that's exactly it, and the interesting thing, especially around intent-based networking is that's opening up a whole new opportunity of innovation and services. And one of the things that isn't very much different with our Ecosystem Exchange is it's the whole portfolio, so we have SIs in there as well as ISVs. And most marketplaces or catalogs really look at it in a silo version. >> I have one example of kinda the two coming together that's really interesting. So, Meraki, which is the wireless network, has really great indoor location-based services you can get from the WiFi. And then there's been ISVs who have built indoor wave finding on top of it, they're really great applications. But those software companies don't necessarily know how to go install a Meraki network or sell a Meraki network to something like this. And so it's been a great way to see how some of those wave finding companies can get together with the people who actually go sell and install and admin Meraki networks, and, but come together, cause they would have a hard time finding each other otherwise. >> And the example is actually rolled out here at Cisco Live. We've, Cisco Live partnered with an ISV to embed a Cloud-based service in their app, which is navigation. So you can go into the Cisco Live app, tap on the session that you want to see. A map will come up that will navigate you from where you are here to get there, and this is, I think this is the second largest conference center in the United States, so having that map >> So you need it. >> is really important. >> I've gotten lost twice. >> We've all got the steps to prove that that is, but, yeah, and that actually brings, one of the questions I had was, is it typically some new thing, to do wireless rollouts and SD-WAN on discovery, or is it core networking, or is it kind of across the board as to when people get involved? >> It's definitely both. It's definitely both. I mean, from the Code Exchange piece, I've talked to a lot of customers this week who are saying, "We've got our core networking teams. "We want to move towards more automation. "We're trying to figure out how to get started." And so we give them all the resources to get started, like our video series and then now Code Exchange. And then I heard from some people here, they actually coded up some things and submitted it to Code Exchange while they were here because they had an idea for just a simple, quick automation piece that they needed. And they were like, "I bet somebody else "needs it too," so it was definitely in that. >> I noticed you guys also have your Cisco team I was talking to, some of the folks here have patents are being filed. So internally at Cisco, it's kind of a wind of change happening, where, >> It is exciting times. >> IoT cameras, I just saw a solution behind us here where you plug a Rasberry Pi hardware prototype to an AP, makes the camera a video. Now it looks like facial recognition, saves the metadata, never stores video, so this is kind of the new model. >> Pretty remarkable. So final question I want to ask you is, as you guys continue to build community, you're looking for feedback, the role of integrating is critical. You mentioned this Cisco example about going to market together. It used to be, "Hey, I'm an integrator of our solution, "business planning," okay, and then you gotta go to the Cisco rep, and then there's, they're dislocated. More and more it's coming together. >> It is. >> How are you guys bridging that, those two worlds? How are you tying it together? What's the plan? >> So we're, what we're finding is a lot of those partners are also sort of morphing. So they're not just one thing anymore, and so what we're doing is we're working with them, enabling them on our platforms, providing solid APIs that they can leverage, transitioning or expanding the code, the skillsets of their workers, and then we're partnering them up with our business partners and with our ISVs, and doing a lot of that matchmaking. And with Ecosystem Exchange, again, they'll now be able to take that to a digital format, so we're seeing the whole wave of the market taking them. >> So you guys see it coming. You're on that wave. >> Yes. >> All right, real quick, I know we're short on time, but I would, Mandy, if you could just talk about what Susie Wee, you're leader talked about on stage on the keynote, she mentioned DNA Center. Can you just take a quick second, describe what that is, why it's important, and impact to the community. >> Yes, so we're really excited about DNA Center platform. DNA Center is the controller, kind of at the heart of all of our new enterprise networking software. So it sits on top of the devices, and it exposes a whole library of APIs. It'll let you do Assurance, policy, get device information. It would allow you to build a kind of self-service ops models, so you could give more power to your power users to get access to network resources, on-board new devices, things like that. >> So it sets the services. >> So it's APIs, and then you can build the services on top. And part of that is also the Assurance, which Dave Geckeler showed in his keynote, which we're really excited about. So, in DevNet we've been working to build all the resources around those APIs, and we have many code samples in Code Exchange. We actually have a community contribution sprint going on right now, and that's called Code Intent with DevNet, and it's all around DNA Center. It's asking developers to take a business intent and turn it into code, and close the loop with Assurance, and submit that back to DevNet. >> That's great. It's a real business process >> We're real excited about >> improvement with code, >> that, yeah, so you're enabling that, and slinging APIs around, having fun, are you having fun? >> Definitely having fun. >> Par? >> We always have fun >> Absolutely >> on this team. >> We always have fun, yeah. >> It's a great team. >> I can say working with you guys up close has been fun to work, and congratulations. You guys have worked really hard and built a very successful, growing ecosystem of developers and partners, congratulations. >> Thank you. You guys have helped. >> Thank you. >> Thanks for supporting >> We appreciate it. theCUBE, really appreciate, this is crew of the DevNet team talking about, back in the early days, 2014, when it started, now it's booming. One of the successful developer programs in the enterprise here. Cisco's really showing the path. It's all about the community and the ecosystems, theCUBE, of course, doing our share. Broadcasting here live in Orlando at Cisco Live 2018. Stay with us for more live coverage after this short break. (upbeat music)