What is DevNet Sandbox?
DevNet Sandbox makes Cisco's free spread of technology available to developers and engineers by providing packaged labs we call Sandboxes. That's right, totally free! There are two types of sandboxes, Always-On and Reservation. Each sandbox typically highlight one Cisco product (think, CallManager, APIC, etc). Sandboxes can be used for development, testing APIs, learning how to configure a product, training, hack-a-thons, and much more!
Always-On Sandboxes
Always-On (AO) sandboxes are always ready to go when you are! AO sandboxes don't require a reservation. These environments are shared among all users so administrative access is restricted. This provides access to "kick the tires" with non-admin APIs on the fly.
Pros
- Instant access - no setup time
- Always available
- No reservations required
- Powerful access to APIs
Cons
- No admin access
- Shared environment
Reservation Sandboxes
Reservation sandboxes are private access environments and require a reservation. These "pre-packaged" sandboxes often include supporting equipment for the highlighted technology! These sandboxes contain a network, domain, name resolution, development servers and more. Reservation Sandboxes are accessed by connecting to a VPN and full administrative access is granted to all equipment in the sandbox.
Pros
- Private environment
- Administrative access
- In-lab automation tools
- Custom setup automation
- Reservations up to 7 days
Cons
- Requires reservation
- Requires VPN connection
- 10-40 minute setup (depending on sandbox)
- Can't save environment
Try it out!
Go to https://developer.cisco.com/sandbox and press 'Get Started with Sandbox' Once launched into our portal, the Sandbox catalog will appear. There are various sort and search options here. Look around and pick a Sandbox to try out! Try Always-On and Reservation sandboxes to understand the differences. Once complete, shoot us a line with your thoughts our Community Forum! Continuous feedback helps us to improve the Sandbox.
Using your reservation
Things You Can (and Should) do prior to your reservation:
Emails
When your Lab reservation begins, you will receive several emails communicating important information about the status of your Lab.
The first email is sent to you indicates that resources in your Lab are in the process of being provisioned and tested. Your Lab is NOT READY yet, but this email will give an estimate of when your Lab will be available.
The second email will be sent to you when your Lab is fully provisioned, tested and READY for you to connect. In this email you'll find the information required by to establish a VPN connection to your Lab (Network IP Address, VPN Username, VPN Password).
Sandbox VPN Info
In order to establish a software VPN connection to this Lab, you must have a functioning VPN client and network access.
Cisco Secure Client 5 - formerly Anyconnect (4)
You can download latest Cisco Secure Client from their downloads site
Openconnect
You can use openconnect instead of anyconnect.
The following links are not Cisco owned or in anyway connected to us reccomend but they seem to cover the material well.
- MAC
- Ubuntu
- Windows Windows openconnect has not been well maintained so it's harder to find a decent install guide.
Support
Having difficulty using Sandbox, or want to ask a question? Ask a question in the DevNet Sandbox Community Forum. We monitor this forum during business days - you can normally expect a response within 24 hours.