The Three Biggest Mistakes I've Made In My Career
We’ve all heard the saying, “Hindsight is 20/20.” However, a lack of clairvoyance about the future shouldn’t prevent us from boldly taking our next career step.
Steve Jobs told us, “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
Looking back on the dots of my career (thus far), I feel blessed that they have connected as they have. Of course, I made (and learned from) many mistakes along the way. In this blog post, I want to share three of my biggest mistakes in the hopes that my cautionary tale will help you avoid similar missteps.
Mistake #1: Not Getting Experience Early
I attended the University of Kentucky and earned my Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (BSEE) degree. As I went through my college career, my assumption was that after earning my degree I would have my pick from multiple job offers. However, when I...
Interview with Anthony Sequeira
In this post, I'm excited to share with you my latest podcast episode, where I'm interviewing my good friend and world-renowned Cisco trainer Anthony Sequeira.
In this episode, Anthony discusses:
- Tips for the Troubleshooting Section of the CCIE R/S Lab
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Anthony's New CCIE R&S Prep Club
- What Anthony has Learned from Tony Robbins
- What Anthony is Working on Now
- And More...
Also, you can check out some of Anthony's resources below:
Finally, if you're not yet subscribed to my podcast, The Broadcast Storm, you can listen on iTunes or Spotify:
Happy listening!
Kevin Wallace, CCIEx2 (R/S and Collaboration) #7945
Configuring QoS with Cisco's Intent-Based Networking
Over the past few months, you might have noticed Cisco’s publicity push regarding intent-based networking. The first time I saw this new brand messaging was at the Las Vegas McCarran International Airport, when I arrived for Cisco Live 2017. Walking up and down the Vegas strip, there it was again, larger than life on the Cosmopolitan Hotel's sign.
Then, once attending Cisco Live, I repeatedly heard the message and the promise of intent-based networking. That’s the focus of this blog post: what is intent-based networking, and how can it make your life easier. Even though intent-based networking can ease the configuration of multiple features, to provide a tangible example, this blog post focuses on how it can be used for quality of service (QoS) configuration.
At a high level, intent-based networking is the idea that you can easily communicate to your network the behavior you wish to be carried out in the network, without the need to know the underlying command line...
What I Would Do If I Were Starting Over
A common question I hear from people just getting into the Cisco world is, “Kevin, what would you do if you were starting from scratch?” Sometimes, that question takes the form of, “Which track (e.g. Collaboration, Route/Switch, etc.) has the biggest job opportunities?”
For years, my response was the same, “If you get really good in any track, there are plenty of opportunities. So, pick the track that’s most interesting to you. After all, you’re going to be spending a lot of time studying that track’s technology. So, you’d better love it!”
While I still believe that advice is sound, I’ve got to admit my answer to that question changed a bit. The reason is, while there is certainly demand for IT professionals in all of Cisco’s certification tracks, a couple of technologies recently leapt to the forefront:
- Network Programmability
- Cyber Security
This blog post answers the question of what I would do if I...
Introduction to GitHub for Cisco Network Engineers
Software Defined Networking (SDN) can use a network controller to help orchestrate the monitoring and configuration of multiple network devices, allowing for faster configuration and more scalability. While these controllers have graphic user interfaces (GUIs), allowing them to be individually configured by an administrator, they can also be controlled with programs (typically written in Python).
Fortunately, network administrators don't have to create all of their Python programs from scratch. Instead, they can download sample code (which they can then modify for their needs) from other programmers. They can also share their own code. GitHub is a very popular way to share such code samples. This video will introduce you the the fundamentals of GitHub and show you how to get started with your own free GitHub account.
This video is a sample from my new Fundamentals of Network Programmability course.
You can get more of my FREE network programmability training videos sent to you by...
Overview of Cisco's CCNA Cyber Ops Certification
Many people ask me what technology (e.g. route/switch, collaboration, data center, etc.) they should pursue, based on industry demand. For years, my response has been, “There’s demand in all of those areas. Just pick the one you’re most interested in, because you’re going to spend a lot of time studying and working with that technology.” While I still contend that’s sound advice, I’ve got to admit there is one technology forecasted to be disproportionately in demand. That technology is cybersecurity.
It was a recurring theme at Cisco Live this year (Las Vegas, 2017); the demand for cybersecurity professionals is massive. Former Symantec CEO Michael Brown projected 6 million cybersecurity jobs by 2019, with a whopping 1.5 million of those jobs being unfilled. In the United States, the average salary for a cybersecurity professional is $67,000. However, with a few years of experience, cybersecurity professionals in the aerospace, defense,...
The 3 Biggest Mistakes I've Made In My Career
We’ve all heard the saying, “Hindsight is 20/20.” However, a lack of clairvoyance about the future shouldn’t prevent us from boldly taking our next career step.
Steve Jobs told us, “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
Looking back on the dots of my career (thus far), I feel blessed that they have connected as they have. Of course, I made (and learned from) many mistakes along the way. In this blog post, I want to share three of my biggest mistakes in the hopes that my cautionary tale will help you avoid similar missteps.
Mistake #1: Not Getting Experience Early
I attended the University of Kentucky and earned my Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (BSEE) degree. As I went through my college career, my assumption was that after earning my degree I would have my pick from...
How "Deep Work" Can Advance Your IT Career
Recently, I bought the book Deep Work, by Cal Newport. The book gives us a strategy for becoming much more productive. In hopes that you’ll read the book too and really apply it in your work, let me tell you about a time I implemented what it teaches.
As part of my Network Programmability Fundamentals video course (which comes out in October 2017), I was trying to figure out a chunk of Python code that came from the Cisco DevNet site. The struggle was real for me every time I spent a few minutes trying to figure out what some of the lines of code were doing, and how everything worked together. So, I decided to use what I’d been reading about in Deep Work. First, let me give you an overview of the book. Then, I share with you how I used it.
Overview of Deep Work
The author begins by pointing out how in today’s technological world, we have many interruptions. Think about your day. Your sitting at your desk, and you receive a text or an e-mail that interrupts your...
The Siren Call of Brain Dumps
Back in my high school days, I took a class in mythology, and one of the stories that really stands out to me is the story of the Sirens. These Sirens were alluring creatures, with amazing voices, and they made beautiful music. They lived on islands, and they would sing out to sailors sailing pass their islands. Upon seeing the beauty of the Sirens and hearing their music, the sailors would steer their ships toward the islands, only to have their ships destroyed by the rocks surrounding the islands.
Today, we use the term Siren call to refer to something that looks appealing but is actually dangerous, and I think that is a great description of brain dumps. You’ve probably heard of these brain dumps, where people take an exam and post online the exact questions they saw on the exam. However, it’s not just individuals posting these questions from their short term memory, there are also companies with collections of actual exam questions that they sell on the Internet....
What is a "Leaf-and-Spine" Data Center Topology
For decades, we’ve heard about Cisco’s three-tier network design where we had the following layers: (1) Access, (2) Distribution, and (3) Core. The Access Layer connected to our end devices (e.g. clients and servers). The Distribution Layer redundantly interconnected Access Layer switches, and provided redundant connections to the campus backbone (i.e. the Core Layer). The Core Layer then provided very fast transport between Distribution Layer switches.
However, within today’s data centers, a new topological design has taken over. It’s called a Leaf-and-Spine topology, and in this short blog post, you’re going to learn the basics of how it’s structured.
Imagine a cabinet in a data center, filled with servers. Frequently, there will be a couple of switches at the top of each rack, and, for redundancy, each server in the rack has a connection to both of those switches. You might have heard the term top-of-rack (ToR) used to refer to...