My Journey to the Cisco DevNet Specialist – Core (DEVCOR)

The beginning

On January 5, 2021, I managed to pass the 200-901: Cisco DevNet Associate exam and at the same time managed to enter the DevNet Class of 2020. All my journey can be found in a post that I titled My Journey to the Cisco DevNet Associate. From that moment I set my sight on the next step, the DEVCOR exam.

Throughout the rest of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, I was developing in network programmability and automation, proposing interesting projects and initiatives in my workplace that were supported by my leaders. In mid-2022 my leader managed to get the company to pay me for the official Cisco course “DEVCOR – Developing Applications Using Cisco Core Platforms and APIs” with the aim of acquiring more knowledge and continuing to develop more automation applications. With this course coming up, I didn’t think twice to take advantage of it and prepare to take the Developing Applications using Cisco Core Platforms and APIs v1.0 (DEVCOR 350-901) exam.

This is how I started my journey to obtain the Cisco Certified DevNet Specialist – Core.

Tools and Resources

Resources to learn and practice

By the time I decided to study for the exam, I found two important resources for my preparation, which I consider my main guides:

• The Book: Cisco DevNet Professional DEVCOR 350-901 Study Guide
• The course: DEVCOR – Developing Applications Using Cisco Core Platforms and APIs

To practice, I used:

• The Sandboxes de Cisco DevNet
• The Labs of the course: DEVCOR – Developing Applications Using Cisco Core Platforms and APIs.
• Virtualized environments with VMWare Workstation Pro and Eve-NG.

Another resources:

• The DevNet exercises that are in the Exam Topics are very good.

On  Aug 17, 2022 the book Cisco Certified DevNet Professional DEVCOR 350-901 Official Cert Guide was published. I didn’t buy it but I would recommend to check it out. Since it is a newer book and probably with more content. Let me know in the comments if you use it.

Study Strategy

My study strategy was the following:

1. The first thing I did was read the Cisco DevNet Professional DEVCOR 350-901 Study Guide. If you buy the Premium Edition, they give you a digital and physical version of the book, in addition to giving you access to a tool to practice exams. In my case I only bought the digital version due to limits on my budget. Although I would have liked to buy the Premium, since I had a very good experience with it during my journey to get the DevNet Associate.
2. I managed to finish the book before I started the DEVCOR – Developing Applications Using Cisco Core Platforms and APIs course, which was taught in August 2022 for 5 days by a Cisco certified instructor. In my opinion, the material in this course is too long to be able to study each topic well during the 5 days of training. It was very valuable to have read the book before, because I already had the basic knowledge well mastered, and it was easy for me to follow the instructor.
   
   The advantage of the modality of this course is that there is theoretical material that we can access after the course and indefinitely.
3. After the course, I spent the next few weeks studying the course material, the book material, the developer.cisco.com material, and practicing the course exercises, the developer.cisco.com exercises, and creating my own exercises.
   
   As a lab, I used the labs that were set up for us during the course, the Cisco Sandboxes and also virtual environments that I set up on my computer.

About the exam

My DEVCOR exam first try

When I finished the course, I immediately made the decision to schedule the exam, so I scheduled it to take it on Saturday, October 1, 2022. A month and a half after finishing the course. I chose the modality to take it from home.

On Saturday, October 1, I woke up at 7:00 AM, very anxious. My exam was scheduled to start at 9:15 A.M. Due to the multiple problems I had at home when I took the DevNet Associate exam, I made sure this time that I had a very comfortable and prepared area with backup power supplies, a backup laptop and backup wireless Internet connectivity.

The time came, the whole Check-In process went smoothly and I was able to take the exam. The result is already known. I passed the exam on my first try!

Opinions about the exam

This exam is the hardest I have ever taken. I have taken and passed the CCIE RS and CCIE SP theoretical exam and in my opinion, I consider the DEVCOR to be more difficult than these two exams.

The exam has around 100 theoretical and practical questions that fully assess the Exam Topic. I consider it to be a fair exam, which evaluates very well the knowledge required to be a Cisco Certified DevNet Specialist – Core (DEVCOR).

My recommendations:

• Study very focused on the Exam Topics. Make a Checklist of the topics and make sure before taking the exam that you master each one of them. Do not ignore any topic, no matter how simple you see it, study it well.
  
• Practice very well and a lot the use of Python to consume REST APIs using the “request” library and practice a lot with the APIs of all Cisco platforms mentioned in the Exam Topics.
• Learn how to interpret the API documentation on the Cisco Devnet page for each of the Cisco platforms.
• If you buy the book in its Premium Edition, take advantage of the test practice tool and generate many tests.
• Be quick completing the questions. I started slowly, analyzing a lot and although I passed the exam, time ran out missing me about 3 questions. Not to mention that time pressure led me to fill out the last 15 questions at the speed of light, without much analysis.
• The official Cisco course, whether self-study or instructor-led, is invaluable. The book is not enough and for me it was key to have the course study material.

Conclusion

Studying for this certification has been transformative for my career. I think Cisco did an excellent job bringing together in the exam topics all the fundamental topics so that we can correctly implement Network Programmability and Automation at a deeper level than the Devnet Associate. This exam is undoubtedly a big step in my goal to become a Programmability and Network Automation Professional.

I hope that what is shared in this publication is of benefit and motivation to achieve your goals of becoming a Cisco DevNet Professional certification. The comments and my social networks are open for any questions or doubts you may have.