>> Narrator: Live from Barcelona, Spain it's theCUBE.
Covering Cisco Live 2020.
Brought to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners.
>> Welcome back.
You're watching theCUBE, helping you extract the signal
from the noise here at Cisco Live 2020 in Barcelona.
I am Stu Miniman.
My co-host for this segment is Dave Vellante.
John Furrier is also in the house.
One of the things when we look at Cisco,
it has a strong strength in 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.
It's a great hashtag I love following on LinkedIn
and Twitter.
Everybody's always interested in it 'cause it affects
so many people.
Mike Adams, welcome back to theCUBE.
>> Thank you.
>> Vice President, General Manger of Learning@Cisco.
Thanks so much, Mike.
>> Thanks, it's a pleasure to be here.
Good to see you guys again.
>> All right so we're here in the DevNet Zone.
We've been watching some of the moves Cisco's been making.
Heard about the new DevNet certifications.
Of course, leading up to and at the show,
I see lots of friends talking about the prep
they're doing, the courses they're taking.
And, you know, all excited if they pass a certification
and everything.
So bring us into kind of what's new at your world.
>> Mike: Sure.
>> 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 fulfilled that promise
with the launch of the new certification program.
Then that includes the first software certification track
for Cisco, the DevNet 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 spent 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 retaking 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 as well, 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.
>> You know, I said in my breaking analysis leading
up to this show that the ascendancy of Cisco
you could kind of track to a lot of things,
but there were three levers that I called out.
One was the bet on IP, the other was the mergers
and acquisitions strategy, which panned out,
and the third was training.
This force of advocates, which became just the secret
weapon for Cisco.
We're now seeing sort of the next wave of that, aren't we?
>> Mike: That's right.
>> As the industry changes, you guys are on top of that.
I wonder if you could talk about the force of that,
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 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 and 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've 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
is 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.
So that opportunity to influence that historically
has been powerful.
And with this new certification program that we're rolling
out and 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 going to make sure
that it's equally as valuable with the new skills,
software in particular, that are coming out.
>> The other thing to point out is you talk to the folks
who have gone through the certification, like CCIE
obviously you got like a gold standard.
It's not trivial, it's really challenging.
It's like going back to college, right?
You're grinding, right?
>> Yeah, we work hard to make it rigorous.
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 using that structure and integrity and rigor
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.
>> Yeah, I'd love to hear a little bit more, Mike.
You were talking about changes in some different options
people have to make sure that they're not just
on the treadmill of repeating the same thing.
>> Yeah, yeah.
Have to start with DevNet.
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 able to add software and programming skills
on top of that.
And so our response to that obviously is not only
with what we do in DevNet 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, I can prove it.
You don't have to see me do it.
So that's 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 are you seeing, what's hot?
What do you see in the demand?
I guess IoT and Pytnon, I mean, the line's
out the, standing room only back here.
But what are you seeing in the data?
And what are you advising folks to sort of lean into?
>> Sure, sure, yeah I'm glad you asked that.
A couple of things,
and 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 fundamentals.
So one way to think about it is kind of 20, 80.
So in the network engineering track, there's still 20%
of sort of software skills that we have built into
each level, and 80% of that traditional sort of
network engineering capability you have to demonstrate.
On the software side, on the DevNet side,
it's the flip.
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 IT 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 at Cisco's new
programmable platforms.
>> Well the other thing, Stu, is it's self-funding,
so it's good business.
>> Yeah, so Mike, I'm curious when you were building
these software certifications, what did you learn
from existing certifications out there?
I think Microsoft of course, very positioned
in this space.
The cloud providers have certifications,
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, you know, CCIE I know what gear I'm working on.
A developer there's many environments I will play in,
so how do you frame what you're learning and how it fits
in the broader ecosystem?
>> 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 you 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 recognized 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 the focus on how to leverage those skills
to unlock the potential of Cisco's platforms
that we're building APIs on top of.
>> How about the security piece?
Does that fit into the curriculum at this point in time?
>> Mike: Yeah, security's pretty hot, huh?
>> Yeah.
>> Mike: Yeah, security's pretty hot.
>> But it's complicated, and it opens up a whole can
of worms in a way.
>> It sure does.
So security is still a very heavy focus of the new
certification program.
And I'll use this as an example 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.
We have evolved the program to be more job role focused.
So I'll give you an example.
So let's say you wanted to prove that you had the
capability to be a DevSecOps engineer.
Back to the security question that you had.
You would get a CCNP in security.
So you would get your core exam in security.
You would add to that concentrations in DevNet Webex
and DevNet SecOps, DevOps.
And then the combination of those concentrations
and specialists allow you to say,
I have the requisite skills to be an effective
DevSecOps engineer.
So rather than having to show that through job history,
I can now show that through a mix of concentrations
in the certification.
>> So I know we're going to be talking to Susie,
and she'll be talking about the DevNet 500,
but I'm curious when you look at the partners
and some of your big customers,
how fast do you expect this to roll out?
What should we be expecting to see?
Anything particular you have for the Cisco channel
is lots of certified people in their ranks,
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 DevNet 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 DevNet 500,
you better go sign up for that exam right now.
Go get your name on the list today.
And anecdotally I would say that's consistent
with what we're seeing.
We're seeing a high demand for the new the certifications,
in general, and DevNet 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 DevNet Specialist that a partner organization
can earn by having a certain number of DevNet
certified folks inside the organization.
That drives a lot of demand as well.
>> You know, we've noticed that a 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 IT practitioner?
Where do they get started?
>> Sure, I would tell them a couple of things.
Number one, I would tell them bet your career on Cisco.
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 developers out there
who want to bet their careers on us.
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,
there's a great opportunity to do that as well.
And certifications are a great place.
>> Mike, 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 quarterly release cycle on the software side?
How do you start to look at that?
>> That's a really insightful question you ask, 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.
When we talk about how we enable and train and educate,
often there are different ways we can,
there are other ways that we meet that need,
in addition to certifications.
Certifications almost by definition move a bit more slowly.
We want to maintain that rigor.
We always want to maintain the integrity of the program.
So the training and education that we have available
to folks via the DevNet and via the information that
you can find on 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'll be looking to accelerate that pace
of certifications.
But just to be fair, certifications are always going to lag
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 certified people in the environment.
Thanks so much.
>> We're really excited about that.
Thank you for the time.
>> You're welcome.
Congratulations.
>> For Dave Vellante, I'm Stu Miniman.
Back with much more coverage here from Cisco Live 2020
in Barcelona.
Thanks for watching theCUBE.
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