What would demotion of CLI mean for CCNAs?

ricardo.ez1

Just read this article:
Cisco says CLI becoming interface of last resort


I'm not asking about SDN, but I'm curious about this line "West[a Cisco CTO] recognises that lots of netadmins will be fret about their career prospects as Cisco puts GUI-fied automation and orchestration tools up front".


Does anybody have any thoughts about that article as it relates to CCNAs(timelines, etc.), as I'm beginning to think about the CCNA track .

cshkuru

I think if you have ever used one of ciscos non command line tools (i.e. Prime Infrastructure) you realize that the "greybeards" will still be using CLI when skynet rules the earth and the highest living organism are the cockroaches that survived after we scorched the sky. In other words every non CLI interface I have used from cisco has sucked so I don't expect rapid adoption.

networker050184

It doesn't really mean anything. You still need to know what's going on under the hood to make the protocols work. The way you enter the config really doesn't matter. Most power users will still spend time in the CLI regardless though.

I'm sure Cisco will continue to keep its certification track up to date changes as well.

OctalDump

The fundamentals of networking will still be there even if the CLI disappears. There will still be tools needed to manage. The basics of troubleshooting will still be there.

I doubt that the CLI will disappear from CCNA entirely. They are still teaching frame relay and CSMA-CD and cross over cables - and they do that so that you understand the fundamentals of how networks work. I suspect that there will continue to be some level of CLI taught for quite a while.

The thing that you soon realise with Cisco networking is that the actual commands you use at the CLI aren't half as important as understanding the theory, what protocols do what, how it works together, what good practice is etc. It's much easier to google a command to, say, change the VTP version than it is to understand what VTP is for, when to use it, what the differences are between the versions etc. But to be able to know to Google a command, you need to have an idea that such a command might exist.

In the end, you don't hire a Cisco person because they know a bunch of CLI commands, you hire them because they can build, maintain, troubleshoot, and grow networks.

rjon17469

OctalDump wrote: »

In the end, you don't hire a Cisco person because they know a bunch of CLI commands, you hire them because they can build, maintain, troubleshoot, and grow networks.

Couldn't have said it better. Learn the technologies behind how things work, and then whether you use a CLI or a GUI will be immaterial.

gorebrush

Shows how out of touch Cisco are with most of their on the ground engineers then.

mackenzae

It could also be the fact that a majority of the leaders now don't use CLI - Palo Alto comes to mind here. Cisco has also pushed using the ASDM gui hard in their Security track.

Winzer

gorebrush wrote: »

Shows how out of touch Cisco are with most of their on the ground engineers then.

This.

In other news, unix sysadmins have stopped using CLI since the rise of GUIs... not.

Node Man

Pending the thousands or millions of routers that make up the internet being replaced, CLI is never going away.

Chinook

The question is why would they want to strip away the CLI? Even MS is moving toward a CLI with PowerShell. Rumour is Server 2016 will come without the GUI as the standard.

TacoRocket

Chinook wrote: »

The question is why would they want to strip away the CLI? Even MS is moving toward a CLI with PowerShell. Rumour is Server 2016 will come without the GUI as the standard.

2016 will have nano, core, and full. Let's not get carried away. Not all services can run without a GUI.

networker050184

Chinook wrote: »

The question is why would they want to strip away the CLI? Even MS is moving toward a CLI with PowerShell. Rumour is Server 2016 will come without the GUI as the standard.

Error reduction in configuration. Automated deployment with tool integration. Mass configuration templatization. These things don't necessarily need a GUI, but it is user friendly. I know I certainly don't want anyone touching the CLI on my devices for daily tasks. CLI has its place of course and always will, but isn't always the best tool for the job.