Joel's CCIE Journey

Here come the Clowns

After watching the videos for years, I was lucky enough last week to participate in my very own Engineering Deathmatch.  Watching the videos in the past, it always seemed like everyone had a ton of fun, and that impression wasn’t mistaken.  It was also clear though that John put a ton of work into pulling these episodes together, especially the ones recorded at Cisco Live, and all of that work made it much easier for myself as a contestant.

A couple of weeks before Cisco Live, the call went out to Cisco Champions for people with CCNP level Route Switch knowledge.  I never took my RS track further than CCNA, and failed the one CCNP level test I tried years back, but I jokingly volunteered anyway.  You know what happens to volunteers, of course, so I was chosen as one of the contestants.  My fellow Cisco Champion David Peñaloza also volunteered, and the stage was set.

On Monday at Cisco Live, the time for the deathmatch was finalized and the nerves started to set in.  The match was to be using DNA Center, which is a product I’ve never touched.  While it is supposed to be “intuitive” (and after trying the product, it really is!), I was nervous and didn’t want to make a bad showing, particularly since I know several people who have either co-hosted, participated in or judged Engineering Deathmatch sessions.

I got there a little early and got setup for microphone, helped ensure that the cameras and screen capture were working, and tried not to be too nervous.  The gentleman with Cisco (our lovely sponsors for this event) who wrote the scenario was there and seemed excited to see how it would all work for us, both the product and the scenario.  David then got there, and we started in with the good-natured ribbing. 

Once the scenario started, we had 45 minutes to use DNA Center to setup the network requirements for the National Clown Hospital (won’t somebody please stop the clown car carnage?) and had 3 primary tasks, each with a series of requirements.  It felt like a short version of the CCIE lab, though without the break for hot sauce talk and with a lot more comments between contestants. 

I won’t give away who won, as you’ll have to wait for John to finish editing the video.  I do want to say it was a great experience though, and many thanks to John for putting it all together, as well as thanks to Cisco and the DNA Center team for the sponsorship of the match and for being so accommodating in letting us take over two of their demo stations there in the Cisco Campus there at Cisco Live.  This whole thing was even more fun than I could have expected, and hopefully John will ask me back again (you might see me in the background of another episode from Cisco Live with some comments from the peanut gallery). 

Certifiable Security Analyzed

A couple of months back, I was accepted into the Cisco Cyber-Ops scholarship program.  Last year I also grabbed a voucher for the Comptia CySA+ (This was recently renamed from CSA+, which is why the training material is titled this way and I will probably spell it that way at least once) .  Since there is a lot of overlap between the two certifications, I decided to study for them concurrently and start adding some more security knowledge and training to my repertoire.

First lets start with the training.  I studied these two tests concurrently, making use of the following material:

Understanding Cisco Cybersecurity Fundamentals (SECFND) (Provided as part of Cyber-Ops scholarship program)

Pearson LiveLessons CCNA Cyber Ops SECFND 210-250 (Safari)

Pearson LiveLessons CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst CSA+ (CS0-001) (Safari)

iCollege CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst (CSA+)  (Safari)

Total Seminars CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst CSA+ CS0-001. The Total Course (Udemy)

All of the material was good, though I would say that the CySA+ material assumed a bit higher level of networking experience than the SECFND course did.  The SECFND course author also seemed to LOVE OpenDNS.  DNS can be a huge part of a defense in depth strategy, of course, but the SECFND course took it to the extreme.  I would probably say that the most interesting of the courses was the LiveLessons CySA+ course.  It was clear that Joey and Aamir love working in security, and that passion came through in the material. 

These two tests are both targeted around a security analyst type job role in a SOC.  While the Comptia certification is vendor neutral, the Cisco certification of course has some bias towards Cisco products.  That much is to be expected.  There is also a difference in the base knowledge expected
 from a candidate.  The SECFND coursework really seemed to be expecting someone who might use computers regularly, but had minimal network or security experience.  The CySA material (and the objectives) seem to expect more knowledge from a candidate starting out.

Today, despite 6 inches of snow, I drove out to my regular testing center and took both tests, first CySA+ and then SECFND.  I was pleased with both tests.  While I scored pretty well on both, neither of them were easy.  This wasn’t a matter of trick questions, as there were only one or two questions on each that I thought might be arguable as to the correct answer.  The tests were both asking real knowledge-based questions that you should know if you want to work in a SOC.  Neither of them felt like buzzword bingo, or a bunch of trivia questions that weren’t testing real knowledge.

I would say that you could feel the difference between the two, and a part of that was the vendor neutrality of the CySA+ test.  SECFND had questions that were about or answered with Cisco specific products.  The CySA+ test seemed to be more concerned with proper procedures and processes.  I think that also was a reflection of the level of knowledge and experience expected.  A new cyber-security analyst might know that an NGFW/WAF is required to differentiate Facebook browsing from Facebook games.  An analyst with more experience would know that, but would also know the proper process when responding to an incident. 

Overall, I feel that both tests were testing actual, valuable knowledge and are worth taking for someone early in a security career.  I will be taking CASP and SECOPS (the next step from both Comptia and Cisco CCNA Cyber-Ops) later this year and I think the opinion will still hold out.  The teams that put these tests together did a great job, and I’m rather picky about test quality these days.

Cisco Live Part 2 - CAB

Like many people, I find Cisco Live to be one of my favorite industry conferences and I look forward to going every year.  There is a wonderful group of people at Cisco who make this conference the great experience it is, but they do not do that in a bubble.  They are very interested in what attendees think of the conference, and do everything they can to ensure that we have a great time.  There are plenty of ways that they get feedback from attendees, including surveys, Facebook and Twitter.  These were all avenues that I had been aware of from the start, but I learned this year, and was lucky enough to contribute to, of the Customer Advisory Board.

The Cisco Live Customer Advisory Board is made up of customers (obviously), who are asked to help give input on Cisco Live and ensure that the conference meets everyone’s needs.  We have multiple meetings before, during and after the event to give the Cisco Live team feedback.  This is directly used to help improve the event.  I think this feedback from clients, face to face, is a huge part of what makes Cisco Live so great.  I was very happy to be able to contribute in some small way to making Cisco Live US what it was this year.

Another fun aspect of being on the Customer Advisory Board is that I was able to present during the New to Cisco Live meetup on Sunday.  This session is targeted at first time attendees to Cisco Live where they can get tips, tricks and ask questions to ensure they get the most out of their week there.  This session goes hand in hand with the mentor program for new attendees.  I shared the stage with Jonathan Davis and Evan Mintzer, sharing our experiences and advice to a crowd of 1300 people!  The Cisco Live team shined here as well, as Heather and her team were right there waiting to help with any questions that Jonathan, Evan and I were not able to answer.  I’ve wanted to speak at Cisco Live since before I’d even attended, so this opportunity was definitely a dream come true.  It hopefully won’t be my last time speaking there.

While there is so much more that could be said about Cisco Live, we’re already a month past the conference and so many other bloggers have already done a better job of covering it than I can.  I hope everyone who attended had as much fun and learned as much as I did, and I hope to see you all in Orlando next year!

UCS M5 Servers are Here!

I got my first look at the new servers back in May at Cisco Connect Milwaukee, and I’ve been eagerly looking forward to the full release of information so I could dig into them deeper.  I will not be to cover everything, but I will try to hit some of the highlights.  From there, you can head to http://www.cisco.com/go/ucs and find the rest.

-All servers are going to the new Intel Purley architecture/Skylake line.  This means more cores, more memory, and eventually, 3d XPoint memory/storage.

- Purley/Skylake also means that the B460 M4, B260 M4 and B420 M4 are being condensed into a single B480 M5 sku (since there are no longer 2 socket and 4 socket CPUs, all the same)

-Purley/Skylake allows for 4-28 cores, 6 channels of DDR4 (Cisco will only validate 2666MHz DIMMs), 48 PCIe lanes, and 4x10GbE ports for C series

-M series processors (ie 8170M) will be required for the highest memory density

-28 cores means up to 3,136 cores in a 42RU rack with B200 M5s

-B200 M5 will also support a maximum of 3TB of RAM per blade (168TB per 42RU rack) and up to 20.5TB of storage (Over 1 PB per 42RU Rack!)

-B200 M5 can also replace the front hard drives with a second GPU, allowing for up to 16 GPUs per chassis, or 112 per rack (16 concurrent users with 1GB FB, or 1792 concurrent users per rack)

-C series rack servers all support more hard drives than the M4s they’re replacing, and have new GPU and NVMe options coming for additional performance options

There are plenty of other details, including new GPUs from Nvidia, new UCS Manager releases, and 3d XPoint storage in the future.  These new models look great, continue to give all of the advantages of UCS’s stateless computing.  Cisco continues to put out my favorite x86 servers and i can’t wait to get to use some of these new M5 servers!

WFH is Not For Everyone

As many of my readers know, I currently enjoy a position that is 100% work from home (not counting trips for conferences and visits to Comptia’s office to work as an SME, of course).  I often get questions about what is required for a good home office, how well it works out for me, etc.  I figured I would touch on some of those questions here.

What do you need?

Having a proper home office setup is crucial to being able to successfully work from home.  Too many distractions, or not having the proper tools, will keep you from doing your job properly, and your boss will notice.  Some items that I consider crucial are:

- Dual monitor setup: This one varies by your particular work, but I find it invaluable.  I can have white papers, training videos, etc open on one monitor (smaller 20″ in my case), while I use larger main monitor for RDP/SSH/etc sessions

- Comfortable chair: You are likely to spend more time in your office chair at home than you would in a regular office, so spend a bit more.

- Desk phone with headset: This can be voip or a landline, but you can’t just work with your cell.  A cell phone is a short term solution, not a long term work from home option.

- A window: Without some exposure to the outside world you will crack.  You’ll want to spend time actually outside, whether walking the dog, enjoying your coffee or some other way, but even between those times, you need to be able to see something outside of your screens.  The natural light also is a huge help.

- Sufficient room: Despite what cubicle dwellers might tell you, you’ll need more space working from home than in a regular office.  You don’t have a file room down the hall, or a mailroom on other side of office to store stuff.  So make sure your desk is big enough for monitors, phone and printer, that you have a file cabinet or three for storage, and that you have enough space in your office you can spread your arms without hitting a wall on either side.

- Good coffee options: I assume this one is self explanatory. If you drink coffee, invest a bit in yourself.  Even if you use a regular drip machine (mine was $35 at local big box store), get yourself some good beans (currently brewing organic Arabica from Honduras), a burr grinder and add the optional water filter to your coffee machine. 

Who can do it?

Now that we’ve gone over what you need to work at home, the bigger question is who can work from home.  This one delves more into psychology than the previous section, and it really varies deeply from person to person.  I can tell you some things that would suggest you should not try working from home (or at least not full time). 

If you require socialization with a lot of people, working from home might not be for you.  If you insist on working from home though, find some other outlet for your socialization.  Try joining a trivia league, go do classes at your local gym, something.  You’ll be lacking socializing at work (IM and phone are not the same), so you’ll need to fill that in somehow.

If you aren’t self motivated, work from home also might not be the best idea for you.  You’re not going to have your boss peeking in, or the social stigma of coworkers seeing you sitting around doing nothing.  You need to have an internal motivation that will keep you working even when you could just put on a movie or read a book.

If you can’t put together a proper space.  Many people just don’t have a good space to setup their home office.  There might not be enough room, there might be too much noise, or there might not be a good enough internet connection at home.  These are all critical, and if you can’t make that happen at home, don’t try to force it.  You’re likely to not work well and to not deliver the results your boss is looking for.  Wait until you can make whatever changes are necessary to ensure that your work from home doesn’t just meet, but exceeds, the work you used to deliver when you were going into the office.

Summing Up

Working from home is a wonderful benefit that I currently enjoy, but is certainly not for everyone.  If you have the opportunity though, I suggest you try it.  You might be surprised how much MORE productive you can be, and still enjoy more time with family and friends.  If your spouse is happier, your kids are happier, and you’re delivering better performance to your boss at work, what’s not to love?  You also might be able to enjoy more sleep.  Or even better, take that spare time and work on your next certification or degree.  What you choose to do with that time you used to waste on a commute is up to you, though. 

Cisco Live 2017 Part 1

This was the best Cisco Live I’ve been to yet, and I will continue to attend this event whenever possible.  There’s no way that I can cover everything that happened in this post, so I will be splitting this up into several sections.  Of course, the only real way to understand how great Cisco Live is would be to join me next year in Orlando!

Cisco Champions

Rather than try to organize these posts chronologically, I thought I would post by topic, to help give proper attention to various aspects of Cisco Live that made it so enjoyable.  The first of these is that this was my first year attending as a Cisco Champion.  For those who don’t know, the Cisco Champion program is Cisco’s social media advocacy program, for people who try to help with Cisco’s footprint on Twitter, Linkedin, forums, etc.  I applied for Cisco Champions last fall at the recommendation of a friend, and I was honored to be accepted.

The advantage of attending Cisco Live as a Cisco Champion is the wonderful schedule of opportunities that the team organizes to ensure the best possible week.  This included a preview of World of Solutions on Sunday (including a custom tour of the Cisco TacOps truck, which was amazing), VIP seating to Monday’s keynote, and NDA-protected but thought provoking tour of the Enterprise Innovation Showcase.  Kim and Lauren, the Champions sponsors, also did a great job of encouraging participation from all of us, including those who might be a bit more introverted than normal (which says something in a crowd of Cisco geeks).

Attending Cisco Live as a Champion also let me meet a lot of people who are just as enthusiastic about Cisco and their products as I am.  We had been chatting for months on Spark prior to Cisco Live, but being able to meet and chat with people face to face is always an improvement.  The Champions teams had events for us every day, to help ensure that we were able to see everything Cisco Live had to offer.  They also ensured that there was a dedicated lounge to relax and network, and just helped make my favorite industry conference even better.  It was also a great encouragement and opportunity to help improve my social media footprint.  I will definitely be applying for the Cisco Champion program again for 2018, and I look forward to meeting up with all of the other Champions again in Orlando next year!

52000: One Year Later

One year ago today I was sitting in David’s lab in Cisco’s RTP office taking attempt #4 at my CCIE.  After a long, hard (though rewarding) day of configuring Nexus, UCS and MDS, I flew back home, still not sure how it went.  Thirteen hours later, my results posted (though I didn’t see them until an hour or two after that, and then had to keep quiet) and I had my digits.  World changed, right!  Not quite.

In the year since I’ve gotten my CCIE, there haven’t been dramatic changes to my career.  I’m still working the same position at the same company.  While recruiters contact me daily, I have a great manager and teammates and the flexibility to work from home that I am currently afforded is priceless.  That being said, I did receive a raise last year, in large part because of achieving my CCIE.  I have also continued to be granted more responsibility within the team.

In a less direct way though, the CCIE has definitely had an impact.  Passing my lab helped encourage me to continue to progress my visibility within the IT world and my career.  Since I passed the test, I have spoken at one conference, with another one coming up in April (I have my Powerpoint in progress in another window).  I applied for and was granted Cisco Champion and VMware vExpert status for 2017.  I became a Comptia Subject Matter Expert for their Server+ exam and will be adding Cloud+ next week.  I’ve even toyed with some writing and video projects, though nothing has come to fruition yet.

Most people point to the CCIE as a goal with the expectation that as soon as they pass, they will become a senior network engineer at a Fortune 100 company and take off from there.  I like to think that in my case, the CCIE gave a similar push and jumpstart to a career, but in a more roundabout way.  Wherever your particular path leads you, know that the pursuit of a CCIE, even without a passed lab, is always going to help you improve your technical skills, your confidence, and your ability to complete a project.  Do these things for you, and your own good.  Don’t let anyone or anything hold you back.

A Peek Behind the Curtain

Like most people, I’ve often wondered what exactly goes into the process of creating certification tests.  I was recently invited to take part in one step of the process, and I wanted to share some thoughts. 

I spent last week at Comptia’s headquarters working on the Server+ certification test.  This test was released in 2001, and is on its fourth version now (released last year).  The test itself is vendor-neutral, and covers “ the most commonly used server and storage systems in the IT industry.”

Comptia makes use of Subject Matter Experts to help maintain and develop their tests, which is why I was there.  The exact details of what we did are covered by an NDA, but it was a very educational and enjoyable week.  It was clear that the staff at Comptia had been producing tests for a very long time and had the process down to a science.  No matter what questions the SMEs had on process or what was being looked for, there was always a prompt, clear answer.  The guidelines and process laid out clearly what was needed.  The most impressive part was the obvious effort to avoid frustration on the test-taker’s part, while still ensuring that skills were being properly tested.

The SMEs I worked with had a broad range of experience in public and private sector jobs.  More importantly, all of the SMEs and Comptia staff got along well.  Everyone was there to try and turn out the best product possible, and it showed with how professionally everyone worked together. 

Participating in an SME program such as this is a great way to give back to the IT community.  It doesn’t have quite the same time and emotional requirements that personal mentoring can have, which can be draining on the introverts that often work in IT.  In addition, it is enlightening seeing tests from the other side. 

If you are ever given the opportunity to work an SME spot like this one, I highly recommend it.  You can find links to Comptia and Cisco’s SME programs below.  Other vendors use other processes, including using employees and staff from corporate partners.  If you are interested, feel free to ask a vendor how you might participate.  You won’t regret it.

Cisco
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/learning_center/team_wikis/sme

Comptia
https://certification.comptia.org/get-involved/become-a-subject-matter-expert/apply-now

Keeping Busy and a Speaking Engagement

As I’m sure people have noticed (and some have pointed out), I’ve been rather lax posting here.  I figured the topic of conferences would be a good place to start, since I have some news and some advice.

While the CCIE certainly kept me busy for the first couple of months this year, things haven’t slowed down, and have probably actually picked up.  On the conference viewpoint, I was able to make it to Cisco Live again this year, and learned even more than I did the year before.  I was also able to meet a bunch of people in real life whom I had only spoken to online before, which was great.  Conferences like Cisco Live are a great way to network and find people with similar interests, as well as get face time with people who might help you with a job lead or technical advice in the future.  You also get the opportunity for free or discounted certification tests, face time with vendors, and the ability to attend educational sessions by extremely skilled technical professionals. 

In addition to Cisco Live, I am attending (or have already attended) AWS Summit, Netapp Insight, and Data Center World New Orleans.  Data Center World will be the most fun, as I’ve been asked to speak on a panel there.  I will be participating in the discussion “Future-proof Your IT Skills” which you can find here: http://bit.ly/2aBDitu   I am really happy to have this opportunity, as it lets me help guide people who might be newer to the industry and looking for some advice on where to go.  It is my understanding that there will be video posted of the session, which I will be sure to link here too. 

That’s about it for now, but keep an eye out for posts on Cisco Data Center certifications, VMware and whatever else catches my eye.