At|DevNet|Create last week, our community shared over 150 technical sessions for network and cloud developers. We had sessions for people just starting out, for app designers, for API creators, and for infrastructure operators. It was a great lineup. You should definitely browse the full line up to find sessions that match your interests.

That said, I want to focus on 10 essential talks I think everyone should see. You'll see a heavy representation of security talks here, and that's no accident. Security is everyone's business. It's foundational technology and we can't go forward with anything else if our apps and networks aren't protected.

Below are my picks for great educational sessions. They are all available now in on-demand videos at the DevNet Create site. After checking these talks out, I'm sure you'll find other sessions that address your particular cloud development needs.

Please use the comments section below to tell me what are
your favorite sessions. Or reach me on Twitter.  I'd love to hear from you.

Meet your AI coding assistant

Tabnine helps developers easily adopt new Cisco SDK and API, in whichever IDE you love
Tabnine is an AI-based coding assistant that plugs into your IDE. Its learns to help you based on your previous code. Check out how it can help you and your team code more consistently and efficiently. With Brandon Jung of Tabnine and Stuart Clark of Cisco.

How to keep ahead of changing requirements

Building customer-driven SDKs and APIs
Microsoft's Mandy Whaley covers an effective approach to ensure that new API and SDK capabilities meet the needs of the end developer once they are released. And, realistically, how to revise specs and development if the requirements or the initial development hypothesis need to be refined along the way.

"Coding" for everyone

Computational thinking for creatives -decoding barriers to entry
This is an interesting perspective from HMC Architects's Tadeh Hakopian on how to make coding approachable for non-developers. No-code and low-code solutions can open up business opportunities in companies and industries where coding isn't seen as an essential skill.

Like it or not, security is your business

Shift Left Security: How developers can assume responsibility in their apps
This talk, by Cisco's Ariel Shuper and Tomer Dvir, is about the trend to move security earlier ("left") in the development lifecycle, and some of the methods that enable it. And why it is imperative for organizations to embrace this idea to protect their users, apps, and data.

Think like a hacker

Security: As strong as the weakest link
GitLab's Brendan O'Leary talks about common security risks in code that can be easily overlooked by developers. He challenges us to think about more than just the obvious attack surfaces when building apps.

Understand the APIs you use

APIClarity: An open source API observability tool
Applications frequently have limited or out of date API documentation, which makes supporting and securing them difficult. APIClarity is a new open-source tool designed to help application owners map out the APIs in use, and identify potential risks in them, without needing to review all the API source code. Zohar Kaufman and Alexi Kravtsov, from Cisco, have the rundown.

Document your way to success and riches

Nobody puts docs in a corner
To make a product that developers will embrace and enjoy using, you need good documentation. Without it, potential users will abandon the product and look for alternatives which are easier to use. Adrienne Moherek, form Cisco DevNet, runs this session, which gives users insights on documentation best practices, and Adrienne shares methods to improve documentation regardless of your role in the development lifecycle.

How to protect memory from attacks

Don't Lose your Keys!
This session, from Intel's Mourad Cherfaoui, covers techniques to ensure that the keys that secure in-memory secrets are protected. This is a critical consideration, as some recent hardware and software attack vectors allow accessing memory beyond what is allocated to a specific container or virtual machine.

How to bake security into your infrastructure code

Security tests for security groups, shifted left
When you're configuring networks using Infrastructure as Code, you need to build security policy and tests into the code so intended policies and limitations are automatically enforced. HashiCorp's Rosemary Wang explores how you can test these security policies in a Cisco ACI configuration - before you apply the changes to live infrastructure.

Avoid security risks in cloud-native apps

Secure CN -Securing Cloud Native Applications
When deploying cloud-native applications, it can be tricky to apply and monitor security and data policies. This session discusses some of the biggest risks, and how they can be mitigated with tools like Secure CN. From Cisco's Peter Bosch.

That's a wrap for my fundamental sessions from DevNet Create 2021. Remember to:

• check out the full Create session lineup
• sign up for our monthly DevNet newsletter

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