350-901 AUTOCOR Lab Guide 2026: DEVCOR Is Gone
The DevNet track became CCNP Automation and this exam was rebuilt. Good news for the lab: it is still a laptop and some free URLs.
- 350-901Exam
- 120 minTime
- $400Fee
- 4Domains
- FreeCheapest lab
- 16 GB laptopRAM needed
Table of Contents
The minimum lab
This is the approachable one, and it is also the one most study material now gets wrong. On 3 February 2026 Cisco renamed the DevNet track to CCNA, CCNP and CCIE Automation, and 350-901 was rebuilt from DEVCOR into AUTOCOR - four domains at 30/30/20/20 instead of five at 20% each. Kubernetes, OWASP, OAuth flows and the platform-API tour are gone; GitLab pipelines, pyATS, Cisco Modeling Labs itself and an entire 20% AI in Automation domain are in. The lab consequence is the happy part of this batch: no network hardware, no entitlement wall, and the AI domain is free to build.
The free emulator tier is the piece worth arguing for. Its router and switch nodes run current IOS-XE, so they speak NETCONF and RESTCONF - which gives you a private, always-available automation target that no shared sandbox login can take away. That matters more than usual right now, because Cisco took the sandbox platform offline in August 2026 for a rebuild. It also matters because the emulator is itself named in the blueprint.
Where to build it
There is no hardware decision here. The decisions are which free services to lean on and what to keep local.
| Platform | Good enough? | Cost | What decides it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your laptop | Yes | $0 | The whole lab. Nothing in the blueprint needs physical or virtual network gear you have to buy. |
| CML-Free | Yes | $0, 5 nodes | Newly important: its nodes run current IOS-XE, so they are NETCONF and RESTCONF targets, and the emulator is now an exam topic in its own right. Intel hosts only. |
| Cisco DevNet Sandbox | In rebuild | $0 | Still the backbone for platform APIs, but the platform went offline in August 2026 with relaunch targeted for early 2027. Do not build your whole plan on the reservable path. |
| GitLab.com free tier | Yes | $0, 400 CI minutes/month | The blueprint names GitLab specifically. Use the hosted free tier - self-hosting it wants 16 GB on its own and would blow your laptop's budget. |
| Local LLM tooling | Yes | $0 | The new AI domain is fully labbable offline with an open-source model runner and the MCP Python libraries. No API bill, no sandbox needed. |
| Real network hardware | No | - | Not required for a single objective. This is the one exam in the batch where buying gear is simply wasted. |
One hard constraint to check before you plan: the emulator does not run on Apple Silicon. If your laptop is an M-series Mac, the local option is out and you are on sandboxes or a cloud instance.
Images and horsepower
A tooling list rather than an image list, which is the point.
| Component | What it is | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Python 3.12 | The binding version constraint | Current Ansible needs 3.12 or newer; the MCP libraries need 3.10 or newer |
| git, Docker, Terraform, Ansible | The infrastructure-as-code domain, 30% | All free. Note the blueprint asks you to interpret Docker Compose, not to run Kubernetes - that was dropped |
| pyATS and Genie | Test and validation, named in the operations domain | Free from Cisco. Windows users should work inside WSL |
| MCP libraries and a local model runner | The 20% AI in Automation domain | Open source and free. Building an MCP server in Python is an explicit objective |
| CML-Free with IOS-XE nodes | A private NETCONF and RESTCONF target | About 1 GB a node, five nodes, no time limit |
Sixteen gigabytes and four cores runs the editor, containers and tooling comfortably while driving remote endpoints. Thirty-two gigabytes lets you add the local emulator alongside everything else, which is the configuration I would aim for given the sandbox rebuild. That is the entire hardware conversation for this exam.
The build list
Work top to bottom. Each step is a thing you build and then break on purpose, and each one is tagged with the blueprint domain it covers, so by the end you have touched the parts of the syllabus a lab can reach.
Get a private automation target running locallyNetwork Automation 30%
Five emulator nodes on current IOS-XE, NETCONF and RESTCONF enabled, reachable from your laptop. Do this first: it is insurance against sandbox availability and it is examinable in its own right.
Configure the same change three waysNetwork Automation 30%
Once by hand, once with a Python library, once with an Ansible collection. The point is not the config, it is feeling why the abstraction levels differ - which is what the largest domain actually asks.
Put your configs in git and mean itInfrastructure as Code 30%
Branches, merges, and specifically cherry-pick, reset and revert, which are named. Then define a source of truth and make your automation read from it rather than from your head.
Build a pipeline that deploys and then validatesInfrastructure as Code 30%
A hosted GitLab project with a two-stage pipeline: deploy the change, then run a pyATS job that proves it took. The free tier's monthly minutes are ample for study.
Instrument something and watch itOperations 20%
Telemetry, logging and pyATS from the command line. Read the model-driven telemetry objective rather than trying to reproduce it at scale - it is a Describe verb.
Write an MCP server and point a model at your labAI in Automation 20%
Expose a couple of network operations as tools through an MCP server in Python, then drive them from a locally run model. A fifth of the paper, buildable in an evening, at zero cost - and the newest thing on any Cisco blueprint.
What you can and cannot lab
Cisco publishes the domain weightings but not the number of items or the passing score, so treat the percentages as how the paper is built rather than as a target. The column that matters here is the last one.
| Domain | Weight | Labbable | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network Automation | 30% | Partly | TODO |
| Infrastructure as Code | 30% | Partly | TODO |
| Operations | 20% | Partly | TODO |
| AI in Automation | 20% | Partly | TODO |
The walls you will hit
The walls here are about access and etiquette rather than money, which is a first for this batch.
Cannot be labbed at home
- The sandbox platform is mid-rebuild. Cisco took it offline in August 2026 with relaunch targeted for early 2027, and the private full-admin reservations are the affected category. Plan for the always-on endpoints and a local emulator instead.
- Do not copy credentials out of study blogs. The endpoints every guide republishes now reject those logins. Get your own through a free Cisco account rather than trusting a two-year-old page.
- Shared endpoints are read-mostly. Always-on sandboxes restrict administrative access and are shared with everyone else studying, so no reloads and no destructive tests.
- The licence-gated platforms have no local install. Catalyst Center, the identity engine and the SD-WAN manager cannot run on the free emulator tier; the sandbox is the only route to their APIs.
- Apple Silicon cannot run the emulator locally. Cisco states this plainly. M-series users are pushed to sandboxes or a cloud instance.
Set against the other nine exams in this batch, that is a remarkably short list - and none of it costs money. If budget is what is stopping you from starting a CCNP, this is the exam to start with, and the fact that a fifth of it is brand-new AI content nobody has written a course for yet is an argument for sitting it sooner rather than later.
A lab proves you can build it. Questions prove you can pass.
The blueprint is only half the exam — the other half is answering under a clock. Start with the free question sets, then $5.99 unlocks the full 350-901 AUTOCOR bank.
Free 350-901 AUTOCOR practice test350-901 AUTOCOR exam pageFAQ
Is 350-901 still DEVCOR?
No. On 3 February 2026 Cisco renamed the DevNet track to CCNA, CCNP and CCIE Automation, and 350-901 became AUTOCOR - Designing, Deploying and Managing Network Automation Systems. The exam number is the same; the blueprint is not. It now has four domains at 30/30/20/20 instead of five at 20% each, and existing DevNet certification holders were migrated automatically without retesting.
What do I need to build a lab for 350-901 AUTOCOR?
A laptop with 16 GB of RAM, and 32 GB if you want to run the free emulator tier alongside your tooling. No network hardware is required for any objective. Add a free GitLab account for the pipeline domain and free open-source libraries for the AI domain.
Do I need Kubernetes for AUTOCOR?
No. Kubernetes was dropped in the v2.0 rebuild, along with the twelve-factor app, OWASP topics and OAuth flows. The container objective now asks you to interpret Docker Compose. Any course still teaching Kubernetes for this exam is teaching the retired DEVCOR blueprint.
How do I lab the AI in Automation domain?
Entirely locally and for free. The domain asks you to build an MCP server in Python and drive a conversational agent, and both the MCP libraries and a local model runner are open source. It is 20% of the paper and the cheapest domain to cover.
Sources
Exam facts come from Cisco. Lab guidance is marked as official or as practitioner consensus where the two differ:
- https://learningcontent.cisco.com/documents/marketing/exam-topics/350-901-AUTOCOR-v2.0-7-9-2025.pdf
- https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/learn/training-certifications/certifications/automation/ccnp-automation/index.html
- https://developer.cisco.com/docs/modeling-labs/cml-free/
- https://developer.cisco.com/site/sandbox/
Checked September 5, 2026. Cisco revises exam topics and changes image licensing without notice — confirm before you spend anything.