Cisco Live 2023 Day Three

Wednesday

Wednesday was a highlight, as recommended by Stephen (CCIE) who has attended previous Cisco Live events multiple times I booked everything as far in advance as possible. Unfortunately, I was still unable to register for the ACI Automation and Programmability Lab as it was full booked, however I did get onto the waiting list.  

I figured as it was an early start for the lab that some people may have overslept after a heavy night in Amsterdam. I tried my luck, turned up early and I was able to squeeze in which was a great win for the day. If I’d have missed the lab, my backup was a session about ACI L3Outs. 

I sat my free Cisco Live exam on Wednesday. This was free as part of the entry price for Cisco Live, however there is an option to book an exam for half price at the event. 

I did have more sessions planned but after the four-hour lab and knowing I had an exam plus a very full day on day one I was happy to have a look around the actual site and see what was going on outside of the sessions in the World of Solutions and The Hub.  

08:30: LRTDCN-3225: ACI Automation and Programmability Lab

  • Session presented by Rafael Muller, Cesar Obediente and Matt Tarkington.  
  • The lab was a four-hour session involving the configuration of ACI, initially from Ansible next Postman, then Python and finally finishing with Java Script and the creation of a web application to simplify day to day ACI configuration for operations.  
  • Interestingly the APIC GUI uses Java, this is why it’s very obviously slow on a bad connection.  
  • All commands ran on the ACI CLI are put through the API.  
  • All configurations and terminals were done in VSCODE.  
  • We can use VISORE to build REST queries in ACI. Use the show URL option in the object discovery to see the full query.  
  • The LAB documentation is available 365 days a year and is found at the link below.  
  • If I can get an ACI simulator image I will be using this to develop Ansible and Python code to run in future projects and to run through this lab again.  

The World of Solutions

After my lab I cancelled my Firepower DDoS mitigation lab and took a walk around The World of Solutions, does DDoS mitigation work on firewalls anyway? I came across Opengear, IP Fabric (Diamond Sponsor), Gigacom, Megaport and Hitachi who had a basketball net. Due to the drive-in sustainability, there was no merchandise being handed out. I returned to The Hub for a coffee, yet another chocolate muffin and relaxed before my exam.   

15:15: SPRI 300-510 Exam

I sat the CCNP SPRI 300-510 Service Provider Advanced Routing exam which I failed, the keyboard was set up in a different language, so I couldn’t question mark in the labs, and whilst typing in the terminal it kept scrolling up so I couldn’t see what I was typing. The team on site did fix the keyboard but the scrolling meant I had to work with full screen terminals. None of this excuse the failure, I haven’t studied properly in a few months due to a heavy workload, I was happy to know I could do the labs that were thrown my way, it was a standard cisco exam experience however interesting in a room of about 50 other people also scratching their heads doing their exams.    

The Hub

After my exam I took some time to walk around The Hub, I grabbed a beer at Cisco Secure, learnt about 6Ghz and Wi-Fi 6 checked out the capture the flag competition and watched some lock picking before testing out the hybrid workspace VR which was beautiful however I’m still not sure I understand the need for it, I then finished off the day by building a beehive over at Cisco Spaces Sustainabeelity. Cisco Spaces looked great and a Meraki building in San Francisco was demonstrated, however I’m sure from a sustainability perspective Cisco could be doing a lot more in terms of actual waste but turning the lights off in un-used meeting rooms is a start I guess.