(Almost totally!) Vendor neutral and open standards too!!!

After committing the grammatical sin of using three exclamation marks in the title, I will recommit.

Yes, Cisco NetAcad is almost totally Vendor Neutral & Open Standards Too!!!

After 25+ years, I still encounter the somewhat lazy and addled thinking that because a vendor like Cisco has a corporate social responsibility education programme. It must be a propaganda laden, product pushing, domain for solely selling their products. Think about it, if it was, why would universities like the Open University, FE colleges, schools and apprenticeship providers use it. The reality is, as being NetAcad being free is an open secret (and another myth we continually have to bust), the content is almost totally product neutral and focusses on excellent pedagogy and follows open standards for everything.

So – to be transparent, here are the places where Cisco product focus exists …

• Chapter 8 of DevNet – where they explain all the ways that automation can be leveraged using their technologies. They use open standards, such as REST, MQTT and Ansible amongst others, however – chapter eight explains where this is applied.
• Then for the CCNP enterprise, EIGRP, while now open standards, has some proprietary implementations, as does HSRP, BGP etc.

Often Cisco will:

1. Explain the principle and the pedagogy.
2. Explain the technology and the open standards – how everyone does it.
3. Then, when occasionally, when required – explain their implementation if there are any differences.

More often – I find that students who have learned Network Engineering, Coding and CyberSecurity via NetAcad describe how easy it is to transfer to the technology of other vendors, due to the quality of the pedagogy from Cisco.

While digital education focussed organisations deny the opportunity that lies within Cisco NetAcad. With all of the free resources, links to employability and professional development. We continually encounter unthinking cynics who assume that Free equates to low quality and struggle with the vendor neutral nature of the Cisco NetAcad programme.

Feel free not to use NetAcad, however - if you think that maybe this is the tool for you. You are welcome to ask.?