Professional Life Update

I’ve been relatively quiet on this blog, but for some good reasons, or what I think are good reasons.  Here is my attempt at creating some excuses, it is left to the reader to determine if I get a pass :)

In March I taught my first CCDE Practical Bootcamp class.   It was a captive class, for a specific company.  I had a great teaching experience, and most of the feedback was positive, with two helpful suggestions for improving the course.  I was satisfied (but not thrilled) with the student’s results on the subsequent Practical exam.  I had hoped that my class would have had a larger impact on the candidate’s results, and I take responsibility for improving the course for future cohorts.

In May I taught my first CCDE Written Bootcamp.  I was more apprehensive about teaching this course than the Practical course, as I had no way of knowing whether the students would be properly prepared for the course.  The advantage of the Practical course is that all students are expected to have passed the CCDE Written exam prior to attending, so I could be comfortable with the level of knowledge they brought into the course.  There are no official prerequisites for the Written course, so some of the students could be very ‘green’.

Fortunately my fears were unfounded.  This was also a captive course, with all students from a common organization.  The training coordinator did a great job of ensuring that all students were prepared for the course.  At the conclusion of the course all students took the CCDE written exam and I was very happy with their results.  The student feedback was again very positive.  My biggest area for improvement is to get more familiar with the delivery of the supplied course materials for the written class.

So those paragraphs explain what I did for a couple of weeks… Where has my other time gone?  Well, the feedback from the Practical Bootcamp students indicated that they wanted some mock tests added to the syllabus.  I agree 100%; a simulation of the Practical exam is critical for preparing students.  I’ve spent the last couple of weeks developing these new materials.  My first opportunity to deliver them is coming up on July 12th in Washington DC, when I deliver the CCDE Practical Bootcamp course for CCBOOTCAMP.  If you are interested in attending, or just want some more information, please visit the CCBOOTCAMP website or write me an email.  I’ll also be at Cisco Live in Las Vegas next week, so if you would like to chat there, let me know and I’ll make some time.

Aside from these items, I also have a real job, which occupies the majority of my professional time.  Outside of that, I’ve become a bit of a soccer fan, at least as long as the USA is involved in the World Cup tournament.

Cisco Live 2010 Schedule

For anyone who is interested, I’ve posted my tentative Cisco Live 2010 schedule below.  I have a habit of switching sessions at the last minute, so if you don’t see me at one of these Breakout Sessions, don’t assume I slept in.  :)  I’ll be especially vigilant this year, with both my manager and my wife in attendance!  I added asterisks to my “must see” sessions.

My primary focuses for this year’s event are Data Center Interconnect and IPv6 Preparation.  I also sprinkled in a few sessions that caught my eye, such as IS-IS Network Design and the VPN Panel.  It occurred to me after last year that if I was interested in a panel discussion, it is necessary to attend in person.  I couldn’t find any of the sessions on Cisco Live Virtual last year.

As always, if you see me walking by, please say hi.

 

Sunday

Start: 1:00 PM End: 5:00 PM

*** LTRDCT-2008 Deploying Overlay Transport Virtualization

 

Monday

Start: 9:30 AM End: 11:30 AM

BRKSEC-2145 MPLS Security

Start: 11:00 AM End: 12:30 PM

Cisco Exam

Start: 12:30 PM End: 2:30 PM

PNLSEC-1010 Panel: VPN

Start: 3:00 PM End: 5:00 PM

*** BRKCRS-3045 LISP - A Next Generation Networking Architecture

 

Tuesday

Start: 8:00 AM End: 9:30 AM

BRKDCT-2049 Overlay Transport Virtualization

Start: 10:00 AM End: 11:30 AM

*** GENKEY-7846 Keynote and Welcome Address

Start: 12:30 PM End: 2:30 PM

*** PNLRST-2303 Panel: Experiences with Deploying IPv6

Start: 4:00 PM End: 6:00 PM

BRKSPG-2602 IPv4 Exhaustion: NAT and Transition to IPv6

 

Wednesday

Start: 8:00 AM End: 10:00 AM

BRKRST-2335 IS-IS Network Design and Deployment

Start: 12:30 PM End: 2:30 PM

*** BRKRST-3500 Designing Multipoint WAN QoS

 

Start: 3:00 PM End: 3:30 PM

Micronics Booth for CCIE Flyer Elvis Guitar Giveaway

Start: 4:00 PM End: 6:00 PM

BRKDCT-2011 Design and Deployment of Data Center Interconnects using Advanced VPLS (A-VPLS)

 

Thursday

Start: 8:00 AM End: 10:00 AM

BRKVIR-2007 Data Center Virtualization Case Study

Start: 10:30 AM End: 11:30 AM

GENKEY-7848 Closing Keynote: Author Ben Mezrich

Start: 12:00 PM End: 2:00 PM

BRKMPL-3102 Designing NGN SP/Enterprise Networks for Scale and Reliability

Start: 2:30 PM End: 4:30 PM

*** BRKSPG-2051 Evolution of Service Provider Edge Architectures

CCIEs and Social Skills

In the late 90s, CCIE certified networkers were hard to come by.  If I recall correctly, there were fewer than a half-dozen CCIEs in my state when I passed the exam in 1998.  Granted, Delaware is a small state, so that may not be saying a lot.  But trust me, there were not many CCIEs floating around.  I had met and spoken with a grand total of two CCIEs prior to earning my own cert.  Marty Adkins was my instructor for Cisco Internetworking Troubleshooting and a one day mock CCIE lab.  Doug Willard was a former employee of the company I worked for.  I ran into him at a Cisco presentation a few weeks prior to my first CCIE lab attempt, and he provided useful time management advice.  I’ve lost contact with Doug, but I still keep in touch with Marty.  Both gentleman were polite, well-spoken and a joy to deal with.

Fast-forward a year or so.  I was now CCIE certified and working for a consulting company.  My new job put me in contact with my other networking professionals.  I quickly learned that not all CCIEs carried themselves with the same professionalism as Marty & Doug.  During one sales opportunity with Netigy, we sent one of our newer CCIEs to meet with a prospective client’s technical staff.  The client had a CCIE on staff as a contractor, and he immediately took control of the meeting by declaring that Netigy’s CCIE had a higher number (It was in the 5000s, gasp!), and therefore was too inexperienced to help out.  The sales call was basically postponed for a few days until I was available to attend, since my number was low enough to satisfy this guy’s requirement.  Once that BS was settled, it was determined that our original CCIE was by far the most experienced of the three CCIEs involved with this particular network design, and he eventually spent several months with the client solving their issues.

While this was nonsense, at least it led to work for my employer.  My least favorite situation was visiting a prospective client who had already met or worked with a CCIE who had a bad attitude.  As I mentioned before, Delaware is a small state, and one of the few CCIEs who pre-dated me was notorious for his poor social skills.  As I came to learn, he threw temper tantrums at client sites and denigrated other non-CCIE engineers when mistakes were made.  His reputation was known throughout the area, and his attitude was associated as much with the CCIE credentials as it was with his employer.  Following that act into a sales situation was difficult.  Everyone began the meeting on the defensive, as if they were expecting all CCIEs to behave the same way.  Eventually the client would determine that not all of us acted with an air of superiority, and real work could be accomplished.

I don’t see this behavior from CCIEs much any more.  There are still many who border on ‘pompous’, but that isn’t so terrible.  Most CCIEs have a well-earned sense of confidence in their skills… and there is a fine line between ‘pompous’ and ‘confident’.  But it is now rare to find networkers who function like the ones described above.  I suppose it has a lot to do with the vast number of active CCIEs in the world.  I long ago lost count of the numbers in my area, but I am certain there are now hundreds in my metro area of Philadelphia.  With the loss of exclusivity, poor social skills are no longer tolerated in the work place.  That’s a good thing.  It also appears that the first two dozen CCDEs are for the most part a humble, well-mannered group.  We may occasionally stray on the dark side of the confident/pompous line , but peer pressure will surely rein us in before we get too out of line.  I’d hate to have to battle the same stereotypes over the next few years of my career!

Cisco Live 2010

 

This will be my fourth consecutive year attending Networkers @ Cisco Live. That qualifies me as a NetVet, which I always figured was a way of identifying employees of companies that receive too many Cisco Learning Credits. Now that I've been recognized, I see that it is a badge of honor for dedicated network learners, or something like that! :)

How and why have I attended Cisco Live for four straight years? When I decided to go to Cisco Live 2007, I hadn't been to formal Cisco training in six years. I had last attended Networkers (Orlando) in 2000, and frankly I didn't feel like I got much out of the experience. Most of it was my fault, as I brought my wife and two year old son with me.  I had also attended the year before in New Orleans, and several of my seminars repeated material.  Cisco Live Anaheim in 2007 was a great experience for me.  I reconnected with many former colleagues and built new relationships with Cisco enthusiasts.  When I saw that Cisco Live 2008 would be in Orlando, I decided to attend that one as well.  Orlando is my adopted summer home, so the travel costs were negligible.  Two colleagues from my employer attended as well, which added an additional team-building component to the experience.  We also were able to use Cisco Learning Credits from a major network upgrade purchase to keep our training costs down.

I had no plans to attend Cisco Live in 2009.  Two of my direct reports were scheduled to attend the San Francisco event.  My intention was to take a hands-on Nexus 5000/7000 class to prepare for a new Data Center deployment.  One of my other team members took the Nexus course in the spring of 2009 and reported that the experience was less than ideal.  So I shifted gears and applied my CLCs to Cisco Live 2009, with the added component of two hands-on Nexus Labs (Hands on Nexus 7000 and a VPC lab).  I also chose a number of Nexus-based Breakout sessions.  By focusing on a specific technology area I was able to sidestep the seminars I had attended over the previous years.

This year I’ll be focusing on the topics of Data Center LAN Extension and IPv6.  To this end I registered for an Overlay Transport Virtualization (OTV) Lab and a number of Data Center and IPv6 breakout sessions.  Two members of my team are also attending, along with my manager and another co-worker.

How do I get value out of repeat visits to Cisco Live?

• Attend with co-workers – I derive a lot of value from meal times, visits to the World of Solutions and attending breakout sessions with my team members.  Last year we had a Meet the Engineer session about Performance Routing that was extremely helpful as well.  My team is distributed among three company offices, and I work from home, so face time with co-workers is very valuable.
• Don’t attend the same sessions – This might seem obvious, but it needs to be said.  The sessions will not change considerably from year to year, so even if you love BGP, pick something else to concentrate on.  You WILL get bored by the first 75% of any presentation, even the ‘Advances in BGP’ session.  If you absolutely need to know the latest in BGP, write yourself a note to watch the session on Cisco Live Virtual once it is posted.
• Visit the World Of S0lutions – The WoS does change from year to year.  I’m not much of a fan of the trinkets, but I do like visiting booths to see what is new in the field.  I’ll usually grab a couple of items for souvenirs for the kids.
• Take a Certification Test – It’s free, so it would be a waste not to take advantage of this benefit.  I generally take an exam that will recertify me.  This year I’ll be retaking the CCDE Written exam.  Wish me luck :)

I’ll post my schedule once I have a finalized version.  I generally change my plans repeatedly as I learn more about the sessions.  The one must-see breakout for me is BRKRST-3500, Designing Multipoint WAN QoS.  It’s a tricky issue, and I’m very curious to see how the problem is solved.  I also know the presenter, so I know it’ll be a good session.

Thoughts on Recertification

 

I know several former CCIE-certified individuals who have let their certifications lapse.  Most did it because their careers had taken them (at least temporarily) far enough away from the technical realm to make recertification difficult.  The easy decision at the time was to forego the effort of recertification.  In a few of these cases, circumstances eventually led them back into the technical field, where I’m sure they regretted letting the CCIE certification go dark.  Interestingly, I’ve never heard of anyone going back to take the lab to restore their CCIE certification.

Is recertification difficult?  Sure, at times it can be.  The first three times I recertified my CCIE, I took the old CCIE WAN Switching exam.  I would have taken it a fourth time, but the track was retired in 2006.  Because I was in a somewhat non-technical role, I decided to take the “easy” way out and recertify with the CCIE R/S exam.  Somehow I forgot about the “S” part, and went into the exam woefully unprepared for the switching questions.  My score report was a bit lopsided, with high marks for Routing, Security, etc, but extremely low marks for Switching.  I did not pass.  After a significant study break I retook the exam and passed.  Since then, I’ve taken the CCIE Security exam and the CCDE Written.  This summer I plan to take the CCDE Written again at Cisco Live.  I won’t say I’ll never take another CCIE recertification exam, but I think it is highly likely that I’ll continue retaking the CCDE Written for my future recertification requirements.

There is one certification that I have let lapse.  In 2003, I earned the CISSP certification.  At the time I was performing contract work at General Electric, and there was a lot of talk about moving my work offshore.  I felt it was the right time to add some new credentials to my resume, and security was a hot field.  About a year later I found a new opportunity that did not require my CISSP credentials, so I had no strong reason to keep my certification active.  I was also quite disappointed by the convoluted continuing education requirements and the yearly renewal fee.  For that matter, I don’t know anyone who has been satisfied with the CISSP program.  I may be too cynical, but it seems like a profit center for ISC2, rather than certification program.

Becoming a Cisco Trainer

Twelve years after I took a job with a Cisco training company, I have finally achieved my goal of becoming a Certified Cisco Systems Instructor (CCSI).  In 1998, I accepted a job with Chesapeake Computer Consultants, Inc (later renamed Mentor Technologies).  I was hired as a consultant, and I eventually hoped to teach, but it didn’t work out and I quickly forgot about becoming an instructor.
Fast forward about ten years… I earned my CCDE, and while I am happily employed, I’m always looking for new and interesting challenges.  I occasionally take on some extra-curricular consulting work (contact me if you’re interested!).  I was approached by CCBOOTCAMP, an authorized Cisco Learning Solutions Provider (CLSP) about teaching their CCDE Advanced Lab (Practical) Boot Camp.  This seemed like the ideal opportunity to get into teaching, so I accepted the offer.  This is a part time endeavor, so there’s no need for me to leave my current employer, which makes this the perfect fit for me.  A few weeks ago I sat for the two-day CCSI exam, and a few days ago I received an email from Cisco with the news that I am CCSI #33328.  My first course is scheduled for March 1st, and I am really looking forward to it.  Even though I am the instructor, I am sure I will learn quite a bit from the experience.
Carole Warner Reece of Chesapeake NetCraftsmen wrote a great blog entry about the history of the CCSI program.  It can be found at
http://www.netcraftsmen.net/resources/technical-articles/132-ccsi-history-and-numbers-.html
At the risk of repeating her comments, I’ll briefly mention my experience.  The CCSI certification process is called the Instructor Certification Program (ICP).  On Day 1 of my ICP, I completed a Cisco configuration lab.  I would say it was a CCNA-level lab.  On Day 2, I presented a module from the ICND2 course (I chose WAN Technologies).  Two other candidates also presented modules of their choosing.  Next, I was asked to present a module of the ICP Proctor’s choosing.  He chose OSPF, and I presented it.
That was the entire process.  I received useful feedback on presentation skills from both the proctor and my fellow candidates.  I enjoy presenting, but I don’t get many opportunities to practice in my current role.  Of course, It is unlikely that I’ll get a lot of presentation practice during the CCDE Lab Boot Camp either.  My current view is that the course must be based on interactive discussions for the students to get the most out of the material.  If anyone has thoughts on how best to teach network design, I’d love to hear them in the comments or via email.

Special Guest Post – Eman Conde (The CCIE Agent)

As a favor to my friend (and fellow Delawarean) Eman Conde, I am posting this note.  To clarify, I (Jeremy Filliben) will not be attending the Bahrain Cisco Live event, although it sounds like great fun!

 

From the Desk of the CCIE Agent ((Eman):

Cisco Networkers 2010

March 28-31

Bahrain

 

I am a real fan of Networkers or as Cisco began to call the event, “Cisco Live”. But I received some great news; they are calling it Networkers again. Really, in Bahrain this next month Cisco Networkers is scheduled for March 28 thru 31. These events are worth the pilgrimage many of us make to attend. I have begun my plans for attending Networkers in Bahrain and I hope to see many of you there. If you find me I will give every CCIE a CCIE Flyer wagon and take a photo to use in the CCIE Flyer magazine. I will have to endure great hardships to get there. I will have to leave the warmth of my home crossing the mountains of snow left by two sequential blizzards here in Delaware. Endure the frosty glare of security thugs at the airport and the long flight time having cocktails with strangers. The things I do for you guys; I swear!

A Pilgrimage to remember

My last trip to Networkers er…ah Cisco Live (sorry John) was in 2008. Since I live on the east coast here in the USA I decided I would make the trip all the way to Orlando in my car. That was a fun event and I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to the CCIE Party and the many events and displays. But Networkers is much better for techies to attend. There are labs, training, product demos, opportunities to meet with Cisco experts, design clinics, consultancy for troubleshooting specific scenarios, educational sessions, and many exhibitors providing many more interesting opportunities for network engineers to benefit from the event.

Agenda

Registration

Education

Breakout Sessions

IT Insights Program

Technical Seminars

Labs

Case Studies

Technology Panels

Birds of a Feather

Cisco Career Certification

Meet the Engineer

Technology Solutions

Customer Advisory Committee

Recommended Reading List

Green Initiative

• Agenda
• Why Attend
• Registration
• Education
• World of Solutions
• Service Provider Program
• Content Program
• Cisco Keynote
• Networking Opportunities
• Cisco Live and Networkers Virtual
• Travel and Hotels
• Visas

Education

At Cisco Networkers Bahrain, you'll build the knowledge you need to make a powerful difference in your organization. You'll find answers to your questions on specific technologies and network environments. You'll learn about the emerging trends in technology and communications that will change the way people live and work. You'll gain new insight into how evolving network technologies will affect business strategy. And you can earn the certifications that demonstrate to current and future employers your skill and expertise.

In a challenging economic climate, value is more important than ever. Cisco Networkers Bahrain offers the education you need to make you a more valuable resource in your workplace by making your workplace more efficient and effective.

• Session Catalog

So please mark your calendars and send me a note so I know where to find you!

Bahrain here I come!!!

- Eman