Random Ramblings - November 2011

I want to get some thoughts out 'into the world', but I haven't found time to write up individual blog posts. This is my attempt at getting back into blogging on a regular basis.

Quick Personal Update

I'm taking an interest in programming again, after a 15 year hiatus. Much has changed in the field, but it hasn't been too difficult to get caught up. I am taking a pair of Stanford online courses, which have been very interesting. This first is Intro to Databases, and the second is Machine Learning. Machine Learning has been especially eye-opening.

I have also been reading a lot lately. If you read Moneyball, you should check out Michael Lewis's December Vanity Fair article. In some ways it is a prequel to the book, as it attempts to explain how people fool themselves into making irrational decisions. A great book (short, only 20,000 words!) is Race Against the Machine. It relates our technological progress to current unemployment in the US, plus it gives some predictions on the future effects of computational gains in computers. If you read this blog, you're probably well-positioned, but it was interesting none-the-less.

One last link is from slate.com: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period. This is a habit I've had since high school, and I've been trying very hard to break it. For now, each of my sentences ends with three key strokes... two spaces, following by a backspace. :(

Technology

I'm beginning to like Cisco's ASDM firewall GUI (Gasp!). I recently helped a company turn up a few ASA-based VPNs and I found the VPN wizard to be quite intuitive. If it wasn't for a Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) mismatch, the activations would have gone very smoothly. Alas, one of the VPN devices was an old Pix, and the version of ASDM I was running didn't support the device.

I am becoming a Mac guy. I've used a Macbook Pro for about a year now, and I've pretty much become a convert. I cannot say it makes life any easier, but the laptop is much more stable than my old Windows machines. The lack of MS Visio is the only major issue I've faced. I tried OmniGraffle, but I was not impressed.

Amazon Web Services might be taking over the world. It may not make a ton of sense for established companies to migrate to AWS (unless they want to blow up their infrastructure teams), but if I worked with a startup, there is no way I would build my own data centers. AWS, or cloud computing in general, might end up as a key differentiator between older companies and newer ones. The ability to scale quickly (both up and down) is bigger than I originally imagined. The most difficult part of AWS seems to come when you attempt to integrate legacy systems and AWS-based ones. That's the major advantage a startup would have.

Closing

That's all I have to say today. Let me know what you think of this format, either in the comments section or via email. I occasionally feel guilty about not writing more content on this blog, but professional and personal commitments make it difficult to find the time.

LISP-VM Mobility white paper now available

I was just alerted to the posting of the LISP-VM Mobility White Paper on cisco.com. I haven't had an opportunity to read through it, but I fully intend to soon. I'm in the midst of a project to deploy VMotion between data centers, and this technology could be a great benefit.

The direct link to the paper is:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ECATS/Solutions_Guides/White_Papers/LISP-VM_Mobility_White_Paper.pdf.

You can also reach it by going to the LISP page at www.cisco.com/go/lisp.

If you read it before I do, please let me know what you think!

Jeremy

September CCDE Practice Exams

September CCDE Practice Exams

The next CCDE testing date is set for October 21st, 2011. The number of testing centers has more than doubled. Details can be found on the Cisco Learning Network. Registration is open until October 7th, but it can close early if a testing center reaches its capacity.

As I mentioned previously, I am offering my CCDE practice exam sessions twice during this exam cycle. The details for the second offering are as follows:

The Enterprise-focused practice exam review session is scheduled for Saturday, September 17th at 1pm ET. The Service Provider-focused session will be on September 24th at 1pm ET. Links to the registration pages for each session, and for the combination of the two can be found below:

Enterprise Registration Page

Service Provider Registration Page

Combo (both exams at a discounted price)


If you have any questions, please email me at jeremy@filliben.com.

Professional Update and July CCDE Practice Exams

I'm back! What do I mean by this? After several months at a new job in the financial industry, my family and I decided that relocating to the New York metropolitan area wasn't for us. I regret not having figured that out before taking the new job, but I believe this was one of those decisions that couldn't have been made until it became real. Sincere "Thank You's" go out to everyone at my former employer. What an incredible group of people.

"I'm back" means that I intend to post here considerably more often than I have so far this year. I won't be telling stories of my time in finance due to the sensitivity of that industry, but I'm sure I can find interesting things to say. "I'm back" also means I will again be offering my CCDE Practice Exams (details below). It also means that I am returning to my previous employer. They were gracious to invite me back to work, and I am excited to return.

July CCDE Practice Exams

I have been asked by several CCDE candidates to offer my practice exams earlier in the testing cycle. It was my expectation that most candidates would like to use this offering as a refresher at the end of their study plan. It turns out many would like to begin their studies with an exam to determine where they stand in relation to the test. I hadn't thought of this, but it makes perfect sense to me. Therefore, I am offering my CCDE Practice Exam sessions in July, three months prior to the October 21st testing date. I am considering offering the sessions again in September/October for procrastinators as well :) This will also make the training available to candidates who are attending Cisco Live the week of July 10th.

The Enterprise-focused practice exam review session is scheduled for Wednesday, July 13th at 5pm ET. The Service Provider-focused session will be on Saturday, July 16th at 12pm ET (noon). Links to the registration pages for each session, and for the combination of the two can be found below:

Enterprise Registration Page

Service Provider Registration Page

Combo (both exams at a discounted price)


If you have any questions, please email me at jeremy@filliben.com. I look forward to your participation, and I'm excited to be returning to blogging!

Jeremy

April CCDE Practice Exams

My CCDE practice exam offering has been quite successful. Participant feedback has been extremely positive, and I greatly appreciate the constructive suggestions that have been provided. I've made several updates to the materials, and I look forward to delivering these exams again in April.

Upcoming CCDE Practice Exams

Registration is now open for these practice exams in April 2011. The Enterprise exam will be delivered to participants on Wednesday, April 6th 2011. The review session is scheduled for Saturday, April 9th @ 12pm (noon) EDT. The Service Provider exam will be delivered to participants on Wednesday,April 13th and the review will take place on Saturday, April 16th @ 12pm (noon) EDT. If you are interested in the offering, but the dates listed above do not work for you, let me know. We can work to find an alternate date/time to complete the review session.

The Registration pages for this offering can be found at:

Enterprise Exam

Service Provider Exam

Combo (Both exams at a discounted cost)

Please email me with any questions you may have (jeremy@filliben.com). As before, the first hour of the review session will include my presentation and an open discussion on the CCDE Practice Exam (format, testing experience, future developments). The CCDE program is constantly being updated, and I do my best to keep this information up to date. Former CCDE Practice Exam participants are invited to join this session to receive updated information.

Other News

I'm sorry I haven't been posting to this blog regularly. My new job has been a bit like drinking from a fire hose. There is a ton of new information to process. In addition I've been working to contribute as much as possible to my new company's projects. Once things settle down a bit I intend to resume writing.

Professional Life Update – Winter 2010

Life hasn’t slowed down for the holidays in 2010!  Earlier this week I accepted a job with a new employer.  I greatly enjoyed my time with Genworth Financial, and I’ll miss working with my team and the larger IT department there.  It was a wonderful 6+ years with Genworth, and nearly a decade within the General Electric organization.

I expect that my new position will keep me very busy.  For this reason, I have bowed out of teaching CCDE courses for CCBOOTCAMP.  I want to thank Dawn & Dawn, as well as Brad, for their guidance and support in 2010.  I grew quite a bit as both an engineer and communicator through my experiences with CCBOOTCAMP, and if my schedule ever allows it, I would be happy to teach again in the future.

So as not to leave CCDE candidates ‘high and dry’, I will continue to offer my CCDE Practical practice exams on a regular schedule.  Details about the January offering can be found at http://www.jeremyfilliben.com/2010/12/january-ccde-practice-exams.html.  The response has been very positive, and I am looking forward to working with the candidates in a few weeks.

Even with the new responsibilities, I intend to post occasionally to this blog and keep active in various other social media universes.  Here’s a rundown of how/why I use various tools.  I thought this might be helpful to the community.  At the very least it’ll explain why I ignore most Facebook friend requests :)

Twitter – I’m on twitter @jfilliben.  I use this primarily for networking industry purposes.  I view twitter as a river of information, sort of like CNN Headline News or ESPN News. I don’t have time to watch it all day, but when I have a moment, I like to see what’s going on in the networking world.  I’m fairly good at keeping track of DMs and replies, but I miss a lot of the daily chatter.

LinkedIn – I’m on LinkedIn under the username jfilliben.  I have been a fan of LinkedIn for a long time.  In my early career I moved  from job to job fairly frequently, as did many others.  LinkedIn became a way to keep in contact with my former co-workers and to keep an eye out for new opportunities.  I am open to linking with anyone who has an interest or need to contact me.  I do not see a significant downside to linking with people who I don’t know terribly well.  I suppose this can serve as a warning to anyone in my LinkedIn network.. Just because I’m linked to someone doesn’t mean I would vouch for them.

Facebook – I only joined Facebook because my wife told me to.  She handles the family social circle, so I don’t see a great need for me to be on it.  It was fun reconnecting with a few former classmates, but I still don’t see the point to it all.  I pretty much keep my work life and personal life separate, so I don’t normally “friend” professional associates on Facebook.  Occasionally I’ll “like” something work-related, like the Facebook LISP group.

Blogs – I write a professional one, but you already knew that.  Prior to creating this blog I used this URL in an unsuccessful campaign for a local political office, so occasionally you’ll see a reference to that in search engines.  I also started a blog for my surname, but I abandoned it awhile ago and never got around to deleting it.  It hosts a single picture of the family from 2008.

I read a large number of technical blogs, and that number grows weekly.  I primarily use RSS via Google Reader.  If a blog doesn’t do RSS, I can’t remember to follow it.  And if a blog only publishes summaries to RSS, the content better be great or I’ll unsubscribe.  Yes, I’m talking about Greg, Jeremy and Ivan here.  I don’t think there are any other technical blogs that I’m willing to click-thru to read.  I would list my favorite blogs, but then I would forget someone and feelings would be hurt.  Lately I’ve been adding some storage and blade server blogs to the list.  Hopefully it is just a phase :)

I also read a few dozen non-technical blogs, mostly in the areas of sports, finance, economics and politics.  In fact, I get most of my daily news from blogs and websites.  I haven’t subscribed to a paper newspaper (ever!) and I don’t care for local TV news.

As for how I read all this content… It’s about a 50/50 split between my Blackberry and my laptop.  I own a Kindle, but I only use it to read traditional books.  I’m sure I would love an iPad, but I already spend enough time looking at digital screens.  I don’t want another temptation.  The Blackberry is less-than-ideal for reading, and I will almost never ‘click-thru’ on it because of the poor web browser, but it meets my needs most of the time.

What Else? – I think that’s about it.  I don’t understand the interest in location-based apps like Foursquare.  Why would I care where other people are at the moment?  I’m busy enough on my own; I don’t want to force myself into even more interactions when I’m at the supermarket, etc.  I’ve seen it used to good effect during professional conferences like Cisco Live, but that’s about it.

I also don’t bother with the ‘next best’ versions of the above apps.  So no Google Buzz or Plaxo for me, thanks.  I have enough to read as it is, so I have not used Digg or its equivalents.  I did not get very involved in web chatting apps either, although I have accounts on Yahoo Messenger, AIM and Google Chat (is that what they call it?).

January CCDE Practice Exams

Last month I presented my first CCDE practice exams to the public.  The offering was a success, and two of the participants went on the take the November CCDE Practical Exam.  Both indicated that the offering was a great help for their preparation.

 

Upcoming CCDE Practice Exams

Registration is now open for these practice exams in January 2011.  The Enterprise exam will be delivered to participants on Wednesday, January 5th.  The review session is scheduled for Saturday, January 8th @ 9am EST.  The Service Provider exam will be delivered to participants on Wednesday, January 12th and the review will take place on Saturday, January 15th @ 9am EST.  One item of feedback I received from the initial offering was that it would be nice to have more time between the practice exams and the real exam.  This schedule gives candidates four weeks to digest the information and reach out to me for follow-up guidance before taking the exam on February 15th.  I was also asked to move the review sessions to the weekend to accommodate busy work schedules.  If you are interested in the offering, but the dates listed above do not work for you, let me know.  We can work to find an alternate date/time to complete the review session.

The Registration pages for this offering can be found at:

Enterprise Exam

Service Provider Exam

Combo (Both exams at a discounted cost)

Please email me with any questions you may have (jeremy@filliben.com).   As before, the first hour of the review session will include my presentation and an open discussion on the CCDE Practice Exam (format, testing experience, future developments).  The CCDE program is constantly being updated, and I do my best to keep this information up to date.  Former CCDE Practice Exam participants are invited to join this session to receive updated information.

Other News

I regret to announce that I will not be teaching the upcoming live CCDE Practical Bootcamp offered by CCBootcamp.  After reviewing my work/life balance for 2010, and my already full professional calendar for 2011, I cannot find the time to participate in this program.  I wish CCBootcamp the best of luck with their CCDE training.  I am confident that they will find a wonderful instructor to take my place.