Cisco Systems Inc
About the Developer Portal
Cisco DevNet is the comprehensive home of resources for network engineers and developers on Cisco platforms at developer.cisco.com. The portal serves network engineers using automation, SREs or DevOps practitioners observing application performance and security, and enterprise software developers. Cisco DevNet supports technical practitioners with tools and products such as APIs, data models, API documentation, hands-on Learning Labs, live-tech Sandboxes, and developer-focused events. Ten years in, the DevNet program continues to thrive. DevNet has a vibrant community that provides expertise, documentation, and learning experiences for members. The developer portal at developer.cisco.com collects these resources for more than fifty Cisco programmable platforms or tools with hundreds of APIs and tens of thousands of endpoints.
Why They Stand Out
Best Unified Enterprise Developer Portal
The Cisco developer portal must offer information for products covering multiple use cases, including networking deployment and configuration, infrastructure-as-code in the data center, collaboration devices, IoT network management, application and network security, endpoint protection, threat detection and response, observability, and managing Cisco business and device data.
As you might imagine, such varied needs for diverse audiences mean we must organize by offering, business need, and technology area, provide categorized and scoped search capabilities, and create catalogs with filters.
As a developer program, we offer documentation, hands-on sandboxes, interactive learning environments, and code samples. These offerings then have catalog-style search and filtered results. Our recent work involved standardizing a metadata catalog so that we could filter by category, Cisco product line, programming language, and document type. Our Sandbox platform runs separately from developer.cisco.com, but we have worked on the designs to use matching Labels when possible to filter the results in the separate Sandbox "Blueprints" catalog.
Here are some key elements of the design and site features that facilitate users’ consumption of Cisco APIs:
- Documentation: Comprehensive and detailed documentation for various Cisco products and APIs is available. This includes guides, tutorials, and reference materials that help developers understand how to use Cisco technologies effectively.
- API Explorer in the Documentation: A tool that allows users to interact with Cisco APIs directly from the browser. This helps developers understand the capabilities of different APIs and how to use them in their applications.
- Learning Labs: Interactive, hands-on tutorials that provide step-by-step instructions for using Cisco products and APIs. These tutorials are designed to help users learn by doing, which can be more effective than just reading documentation.
- DevNet Sandbox: Provides access to a range of Cisco technologies in a virtual environment. Users can experiment with and test Cisco products and APIs without needing to set up their own infrastructure.
- Code Exchange: A repository of code samples, libraries, and SDKs contributed by both Cisco and the developer community. This resource helps users find reusable code that can accelerate their development process.
- Community and Support: Forums, blogs, and other community resources where developers can ask questions, share knowledge, and get support from both Cisco experts and other developers.
- Events and Webinars: Information about upcoming events, webinars, and training sessions about the latest developments in Cisco technologies.
- Search and Navigation: A well-organized site structure and powerful search functionality make it easy for users to find the information they need quickly.
Such a vast landscape may be intimidating to approach, but we are taking on the challenge. We embrace complexity while ensuring that we provide Cisco with a friendly face. Where possible, we simplify the interface to what we provide in documentation, try-it-out experiences, and interactive learning. Developers deserve a great experience.
