Cisco Certified Support Technician (CCST) NetworkingAutomation and ProgrammabilityMedium
A network operations team is implementing a new network automation solution. They want to use a standard data format for exchanging configuration and operational data between different network devices and automation scripts. Which of the following formats is widely adopted and human-readable for this purpose?
- AEncrypted ZIP Archive
- BBinary Large Object (BLOB)
- CExtensible Markup Language (XML)
- DProprietary Binary Format
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: C. Extensible Markup Language (XML)
XML is a widely adopted, human-readable, and machine-parsable data format commonly used for data exchange in network automation, especially with older or enterprise-grade network devices and APIs.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. An encrypted ZIP archive is a container for files and not a direct data serialization format for API exchange.
- B. BLOBs are opaque binary data, not human-readable or structured for easy data exchange.
- D. Proprietary binary formats lack interoperability and human readability, hindering automation.
XML (Extensible Markup Language)
XML is a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. It is widely used for data exchange, especially in older web services and network APIs.
- Uses tags to define elements and attributes.
- Platform-independent and extensible.
- Often used in SOAP-based web services and NetConf.
Memory trick: JSON is JAZZY, XML is X-cellent, YAML is YUMMY for data exchange.