Ansible for Cisco DNA Center

Location: On-Site or Online
Pricing: $1,250 per seat (6-seat minimum)
Length: 4 Days

Course Summary

Ansible for Cisco DNA Center is a practical, hands-on course designed for network engineers and automation practitioners who want to automate enterprise networks using Ansible in conjunction with Cisco DNA Center.

Students learn how to design, read, and maintain Ansible playbooks that interact with Cisco DNA Center through REST APIs to collect data, manage intent-based configurations, and orchestrate changes across large-scale network environments. Core concepts such as inventories, API authentication, data collection, configuration workflows, conditional logic, and safe change patterns are reinforced through frequent labs and real-world scenarios.

By the end of the course, students are comfortable using Ansible as an automation client for Cisco DNA Center to gather network intelligence, drive configuration changes, and validate outcomes across campus and enterprise networks.

Course Outline

Day 1 – Ansible Foundations for Cisco DNA Center Automation

• 💬 Lecture: Introduction to network automation and intent-based networking

• 💬 Lecture: How Ansible networking differs from server automation

• 💬 Lecture: Ansible architecture for API-driven platforms

• 💬 Lecture: Control nodes, inventories, and variable design

• 💬 Lecture: YAML fundamentals for API-based automation

• ⚙️ Lab: Installing and validating Ansible for network automation

• ⚙️ Lab: Exploring Ansible modules and collections with ansible-doc

• ⚙️ Lab: Creating an inventory for API-driven automation

• ⚙️ Lab: Defining variables for Cisco DNA Center connectivity

• ⚙️ Lab: Configuring ansible.cfg for HTTP API workflows

• ⚙️ Lab: Validating connectivity and authentication to Cisco DNA Center

Day 2 – Working with Cisco DNA Center APIs

• 💬 Lecture: Cisco DNA Center architecture and core services

• 💬 Lecture: REST APIs, tokens, and authentication workflows

• 💬 Lecture: Using Ansible for API-based automation (uri module)

• ⚙️ Lab: Authenticating to Cisco DNA Center and retrieving an API token

• ⚙️ Lab: Making GET requests to retrieve network and device data

• ⚙️ Lab: Parsing JSON responses with Ansible

• ⚙️ Lab: Querying sites, devices, and network health metrics

• ⚙️ Lab: Storing and reusing API response data

• ⚙️ Lab: Validating API responses and handling errors

Day 3 – Playbook Logic, Control, and Orchestration

• 💬 Lecture: Variables, facts, and precedence in API-driven playbooks

• 💬 Lecture: Conditional execution with when and response data

• ⚙️ Lab: Writing conditional tasks based on Cisco DNA Center data

• ⚙️ Lab: Using loops to iterate over devices and sites

• ⚙️ Lab: Controlling execution with tags and limits

• 💬 Lecture: Error handling and debugging API workflows

• ⚙️ Lab: Debugging failed API calls

• ⚙️ Lab: Using debug, fail, and verbosity flags

• 💬 Lecture: Orchestrating multi-step workflows with Ansible

• ⚙️ Lab: Chaining API calls to perform coordinated tasks

• ⚙️ Lab: Validating workflow success and intermediate state

Day 4 – Best Practices and Real-World DNA Center Automation

• 💬 Lecture: Designing safe automation for enterprise networks

• 💬 Lecture: Data collection, auditing, and drift detection strategies

• ⚙️ Lab: Building automated network data collection workflows

• ⚙️ Lab: Storing and organizing API-derived network data

• 💬 Lecture: Writing maintainable and scalable automation

• ⚙️ Lab: Refactoring playbooks for readability and reuse

• ⚙️ Lab: Structuring reusable roles for API-based automation

• 💬 Lecture: Testing and validation concepts for network automation

• ⚙️ Lab: Adding assertions to validate API results

• ⚙️ Lab: Failing safely when validation checks do not pass

• 💬 Lecture: Real-world Cisco DNA Center automation patterns

• ⚙️ Lab: Building a complete DNA Center automation workflow

• ⚙️ Lab: Combining inventories, variables, conditionals, and API calls

• ⚙️ Lab: Validating results and documenting automated changes

Outcomes

Students who complete Ansible for Cisco DNA Center will be able to:

• Automate Cisco DNA Center workflows using Ansible

• Authenticate to and interact with Cisco DNA Center REST APIs

• Collect and process network data programmatically

• Build safe, repeatable, API-driven automation workflows

• Troubleshoot and debug Ansible-based API automation

• Apply best practices for production enterprise network automation