How To Be Network Ninja In 21st Century

I have been asked so many times by Network Engineers right from starter level to Expert level people about how network industry is changing at rapid pace in last few years and questions like if certification and in particular CCIE holds any value any longer. I also spoke with couple of friends that I truly admire and are working in US , Europe & Australia to get feedback on how Network industry is evolving there.

Now to start with, following technologies are definitely picking up in some form or shape :

- SDX like (SDN - Software Defined Networks)
- CLOS/ Spine & Leaf Designs
- NFV (Network Function Virtualization)
- Virtualization ( In Areas like Network, Compute & Storage)
- Automation ( Chef, Puppet etc...)
- Scripting & Programming ( Python, Bash, Java etc...)
- Cloud Computing
- Network Visibility 
- Overlay Networks/Tunneling Technologies (VXLAN, NvGRE etc...)
- Network Modeling Methods
- API (Application Program Interface like REST )
- Understanding on Unix & Linux
- Big Data
- Active Active Data Centres
- Machine Learning
- Segment Routing 
- Containers ( Docker...)
- Deep Understanding of Applications Structures/Component & Life Cycle 

And last but not least deep understanding of protocols like TCP, HTTP etc...

But again the impact these may have on current network industry (What they call traditional networking now) may vary by large margin depending upon:

- Which part of the world you are living in
- How IT Industry is driven there and Network Industry in particular
- Which company you work for
- What are your personal/political views
- Company's IT Strategy & Road Maps
- Your current skill set & fears about these new technologies
- Is there any simulation tool to get familiar with these technologies
- What is the maturity level of given technology (RFC ?, New Model ? etc...)
- How you want to manage these solution (Afraid of Open Source ? Multi vendor   blame game ? etc...)
- Do you really have a good business case 

Now there are of course other factors including budget/cost, ROI, How to get your operational staff ready etc...

But hope you get the idea. In the coming series of posts I would express my personal opinions around all these but those articles are going to be semi technical rather being completely technical since I am more of a Pre-Sales guy now.

Regards,
Deepak Arora
Evil CCIE

Finally CCIE Data Centre 2.0 Is Here

Finally Cisco is Bringing ACI into CCIE Data Centre Ver 2.0 Exam. While this will simplify learning curve for ACI Fans, it's good way of indirect marketing as well from Cisco :) ... More ACI trained people should provide enough thrust to ACI market (or so called SDN in some way ) and also should help customers gain confidence from operational standpoint.

http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/certifications/shared/docs/ccie-datacenter-comparison.pdf


HTH...
Deepak Arora
Evil CCIE

Fun Time - What Hitler Has To Say About CCIE Lab Dumps

 

Does SDN Going To Solve All Of Our Problems ?

I have been getting into discussions on web and see people claiming or rather predicting how SDN is going to take over the current Network Industry . While SDN to me is not necessary a bad thing but something couldn't just be called as SDN just because it solves an old problem in a different way (Programming the network is just one of those).

Also IMHO its not necessarily to do some new things just because that's possible. For example I have been recently to a NSX session where trainer was telling about how VMware teams won't depend upon Network Engineers any longer to setup a network to grant access to new VM or Server since they usually takes weeks and now NSX solves this problem with overlay networks.

But is that really a Network Engineering Problem to begin with ? or Rather it's a Business Model / Process Design Issue ? :) ... So while SDN or NSX tries to solve this problem with overlay networks, they seem to be rather focusing on wrong areas. :)

What Do You Think ?


HTH...
Deepak Arora
Evil CCIE

CCDE IGP Study Plan Part 1 - IS-IS

Finally I found some time recently to study and move on with CCDE plan. The idea is to take CCDE written in next 6 months at max. Since I have been doing on and off study for quite a while, I decided to gear up this time and work based on attack plan I had per technology duing my CCIE R&S couple of years back since the approach did well for me. The plan is more likely to work since to me CCDE is just a getting into mindset of a Network Designer but otherwise it's just a vast collection of exam topics that carefully needs to be examined and prepared for.

So to start with I picked up one of my fav routing protocol (IGP) which is yet not very well known - Integrated IS-IS or IS-IS for IP or IS-IS in general.

There are many personal reasons that I would pick it as protocol of choice if I have to pick for an ISP Network Design over more popular OSPF. But let's not get into IS-IS vs OSPF discussion yet.

Below is the study plan I used so far and I am quite happy about with progress.

1. Routing TCP/IP, Volume 1 (2nd Edition) - Jeff Doyle - Cisco Press
2. Optimal Routing Design  - Russ White - Cisco Press
3. IS-IS Network Design Solutions  - Abe Martey - Cisco Press > Two 
    Design Chapters
4. INE CCIE SP ATC IS-IS Section
5. SPF calculation in OSPF and IS-IS
6. ISIS Link-Group
7. Using BFD to Detect WAN Forwarding Errors
8. IS-IS+MPLS TE+Native IPv6=FAIL
9. Do not EVER run OSPF or IS-IS with your Internet customers
10. Missing routes when running IS-IS over Frame Relay
11. Cisco Live 365 - BRKRST-2335 - IS-IS Network Design and Deployment  
     (2012 San Diego)
12. Cisco Live 365 - BRKRST-2327 - ISIS Fundamentals and Troubleshooting
     (2013 Orlando)
13. Cisco Live 365 - BRKRST-2338 - ISIS Deployment in Modern Networks
     (2014 San Francisco) 
14. Packet Pushers - Show 89 – OSPF vs IS-IS Smackdown – Where You Can  
     Watch Their Eyes Reload
15. ISIS Authentication types
16. IS-IS Notes
17. IS-IS Study Guide Cisco IOS,IOS-XR 
18. IS-IS Routing Protocol FAQ

Under point '3' I chose Cisco Press IS-IS Network Design Solutions while there were some other good options too suggested by many CCIE and CCDE friends. But after carefully examining the contents through quick review I preferred Cisco Press book. But other books are no less either if you pick one of those like:

The Complete IS-IS Routing Protocol

OSPF and IS-IS: Choosing an IGP for Large-Scale Networks

IS-IS: Deployment in IP Networks

With that being said, hope to come up with IS-IS design articles and possibly a short IS-IS CCDE type case study in coming month.

HTH...
Deepak Arora
Evil CCIE