Juniper JNCIA-DevOps: Automation and DevOps Associate (JN0-224)

Many network teams still push changes device by device at the CLI, while the rest of IT has moved to version-controlled, pipeline-driven workflows. That gap slows changes and makes it hard to answer, “Who changed what, and when?” This course gives network staff a common starting point for Junos automation.

Role fit: Network engineers and admins with about a year of hands-on experience. The instructor strongly recommends completing JNCIA-Junos first, so Team Leads should confirm that foundation before assigning this course.

Time investment: About 6.6 hours across eight skills of roughly 45–55 minutes each. That can fit a few weeks of part-time study per learner.

Risk and change-management value: Learners use Git and GitHub to stage, commit, and publish their own code. The course also shows where Ansible playbooks and CI/CD pipelines fit into network change. This builds habits that support traceable, reviewable changes. It doesn’t replace a change-advisory process, but it gives engineers the vocabulary to work inside one.

Practical scope: Teams work with Python, JSON responses, YAML and XML, NETCONF RPCs, Juniper PyEZ, and Junos REST APIs. They practice in lab environments built with EVE-NG and publicly available Juniper images.

IT Directors can use Playlists to sequence JNCIA-Junos, this course, and JNCIS-DevOps into a structured automation track. Team Reporting lets Training Managers track progress toward JN0-224 certification.

IT teams complete this training to move routine Junos work out of one-device-at-a-time CLI sessions and into repeatable, version-controlled scripts. The course grounds every concept in hands-on demos against real and virtual Juniper switches, so Team Leads can see how the skills transfer directly to production operations.

• Run operational commands across many devices at once. Your team learns to write Python and PyEZ scripts that connect to a list of devices, execute commands like show route, and return structured data instead of screen-scraped output.
• Turn failures into actionable alerts. Using exception handling and filtered RPC calls, engineers build scripts that detect conditions such as a disabled interface and can be extended to create high-severity tickets in a ticketing system or send notifications, shortening the time from fault to response.
• Track every network change in source control. Learners stage, commit, and push code to GitHub, giving the team an auditable history of automation scripts and fitting network code into a broader CI/CD pipeline alongside tools like Ansible.
• Work confidently with Junos APIs. Engineers practice NETCONF sessions with XML RPCs and explore Junos REST APIs over HTTP, preparing them for controller-driven environments where API-based automation is part of network operations.

The result is a team that standardizes how it queries and changes the network, with less manual repetition and a clearer path to JN0-224 certification readiness.

Knowledge

• Why DevOps matters to network operations, and how network infrastructure code fits into a CI/CD pipeline alongside tools like Ansible
• How source control works with Git and GitHub, including staging, committing, and pushing code to a remote repository
• Python fundamentals used in network automation, including variables, lists, loops, print statements, and debugging
• How data serialization structures API payloads, and when JSON, XML, and YAML are used, including why Junos relies on XML
• Where the Junos XML API, NETCONF, and REST APIs sit in the automation stack, and why REST over HTTP appears in SD-WAN and cloud-hosted controller environments

Ability

• Build a practice lab on physical Juniper gear or virtual devices in EVE-NG
• Track and publish automation code with Git and GitHub so changes are versioned and reviewable
• Find the XML RPC behind operational commands such as show interfaces terse and show route, then send RPCs over a NETCONF session
• Write Python scripts with Juniper PyEZ that connect to devices, gather facts, call XML RPCs, and apply filters to the output
• Handle script exceptions so a failure can trigger an action, such as an alert or a ticket, instead of only printing to the terminal
• Send Junos REST API requests and apply supported filters to retrieve targeted device output