Hank Preston
Distinguished Architect at Cisco
Greater Cleveland United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolHank Preston is a Distinguished Architect at Cisco with over a decade of experience blending application development, infrastructure engineering, and cloud architecture to help enterprises adopt automation and DevOps practices. He has led large-scale lab and data center modernization efforts—including the “Sandbox as Code” concept for Cisco DevNet—and helped launch certification and learning programs that bridge developer and operations skillsets. Hands-on in Python, JavaScript, Terraform, Ansible and container ecosystems, Hank is an active contributor to projects like the Mantl microservices platform and DevNet automation repos, demonstrating practical IaC and network programmability expertise. He holds advanced degrees in information systems and brings rare cross-domain depth from network CCIE-level certifications to cloud-native microservices. Outside work he tinkers with IoT, Alexa skills and DIY electronics, often prototyping ideas that later influence his professional projects. His blend of public open-source contributions and internal program leadership makes him equally effective as a builder, educator, and strategic architect.
11 years of coding experience
21 years of employment as a software developer
MS, Management Information Systems, MS, Management Information Systems at Nova Southeastern UniversityNetworking and Programming, Networking and Programming at Edison Community CollegeMasters of Science, Computer Information Systems, Masters of Science, Computer Information Systems at Florida Gulf Coast UniversityBachelor of Arts (B.A.), Psychology, Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Psychology at Alfred University
Stackoverflow
31reputation
2kreached
1answer
0questions
Github Skills (23)
vsphere10
python10
rest-framework10
configuration-management10
terraform10
netmiko10
terraformer10
ansible10
network-automation10
infrastructure-as-code10
ansible-galaxy10
netconf10
cisco10
kubernetes9
dockers9
Programming languages (9)
Github contributions (5)
CiscoDevNet/python_code_samples_network
Jan 2017 - Mar 2019
A collection of Python Code Samples for Network Management. Includes samples to run on-box and off-box.
Role in this project:
Backend & Automation Engineer
Backend & Automation EngineerContributions:25 commits, 11 PRs, 24 pushes in 2 years 2 months
Contributions summary:Hank contributed significantly to network management automation by developing Python scripts and integrating them with various network devices. The user implemented a script to monitor configuration changes and send alerts to Cisco Spark. Furthermore, they created scripts using Netmiko for interface configuration and included examples for RESTCONF and NETCONF, enhancing the repository's utility for network automation and configuration management. These contributions demonstrate expertise in automation and configuration management of network devices.
python-codenetmikonetwork-managementpythonsnmp
CiscoDevNet/dne-dna-code
Apr 2018 - Jul 2018
Provides code examples for DevNet Test Drive Catalyst (DNA) series
Role in this project:Backend Developer
Backend DeveloperContributions:44 commits, 15 PRs, 25 pushes in 3 months
Contributions summary:Hank contributed code examples and configurations for Cisco DevNet Test Drive Catalyst (DNA) series, focusing on interaction with various Cisco network devices. Their work involved adding device configurations, including hostnames, usernames, passwords, and port details for different IOS XE and NX-OS sandboxes. The commits also included merges and updates to existing code, demonstrating a hands-on approach to network programmability tasks within the DevNet environment. This included NETCONF lab code samples.
devnet-expressdnaexpressdevnetlearning-labs
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