[AusNOG] Work experience in networking/telecoms/DCs? Getting my foot in the door?

Wed Dec 24 03:24:56 EST 2014

This is the reason I
have every single one of my network engineers learning linux administration, a
programming language (Python, Ruby, PHP, etc), the concepts of virtualisation,
an automation tool (puppet, chef, etc) and SDN concepts - and openly told the
gathering at a recently NOG launch in Asia that any senior engineer who hasn't
learnt all these things to a decent level by the end of 2015 will no longer be
working for me. Simple as that.

What kinds of work do you foresee your engineers doing in a SDN world?

It seems apparent to me that the ultimate end of SDN Philosophy is to
reduce Network Hardware to little more than an API for packet forwarding.  Sure, in 2015 we may have an OpenFlow
controller or two, but by 2020 will there be any need to have any network
controller?

In a world of Google, Facebook etc, ‘Applications’ are now whole
software stacks whose needs boil down to little more than APIable
Hardware.  The Application of the future
wants to be able to say ‘give me xyz resources, now’.

Once this vision has been realised, exactly what constitutes a Network
Engineer?  Because it sure as heck won’t
be someone with an Air Console and some mad programming skills.  The truth of the matter is that networking
decisions will have been made by the Application Guys (in software) in India or
where ever…

Now, security on the other hand may be an interesting proposition, but
for instance, if SDN Techniques allow the limiting of security holes to an
Application (Network User) level, it is quite possible service provides etc
could simply say ‘hey, you’re application is flawed, deal with it’.

My
point is as follows.  The end outcome of
any API’d Hardware, no matter by what fancy name we call it, is that those
involved with the hardware will have their job functions reduced to moves and
changes.  And by that I mean plugging boxes
& cables in.  

Remember, the Free Software Foundation & GNU (the non kernel half of
linux), came about because Richard Stallman couldn’t just use the University he
inhabited’ s new printer (due to a proprietary driver).  This was what, 1970 something?  Plugging in and using printers no longer
gives rise to whole industries (or requires writing code)…
From: skeeve+ausnog at eintellegonetworks.com
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 00:21:45 +1100
To: ciscoarc7 at gmail.com
CC: cameron at jferdinands.com; ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Work experience in networking/telecoms/DCs? Getting my foot in the door?

Frankly, I care little for CCIE... but they have marketing value... from a Cisco partnership perspective, customers like them and employees like you paying to get them there.  Also, helping an engineer get through the journey is far better than hiring a paper one.
Also, I firmly believe that knowledge of networking is 80% of the effort of a CCIE (or similar)... and that most CCIE's should be able to get a JNCIE or other similar levels in a short time (in the same vertical such as R&S) with focusing on that vendors particular nuances and terminology.... and I've seen it happen multiple times now.
Cisco has one of the best baseline network training programmes out there.  Any faults in the education is the people learning it, not the knowledge itself.  I recommend most engineers who are even going to specialise in non-Cisco, to do the base Cisco CCNA first. Juniper also has one of the best education programmes out there, but mostly for beyond the basics.
I also disagree that engineers will always be needed to do the BGP and OSPF and many other things that automation and programming won't easily be able to do.  The best example is the programming world where most programmers use Frameworks to accomplish tasks they previously had to code manually.
How hard would (is it?) really be to write a platform where you could:
create bgp AS12345 called UPSTREAM_A;link to neighbour AS4567 over path linkgroup LINK_A using auto comms and preprend:localpref as needed to keep link at 50% load;
Codification of anything is possible if you have the will.  This is what object programming is all about.... and SDN is the future in these kinds of networks.
This is the reason I have every single one of my network engineers learning linux administration, a programming language (Python, Ruby, PHP, etc), the concepts of virtualisation, an automation tool (puppet, chef, etc) and SDN concepts - and openly told the gathering at a recently NOG launch in Asia that any senior engineer who hasn't learnt all these things to a decent level by the end of 2015 will no longer be working for me. Simple as that.
Vendors have done a good job of keeping engineers away from the underlying operating system for a long time... Cisco IOS now runs on Linux, Junos is BSD, Arista EOS is a Linux kernel with Fedora Userland... and most of the others are the same.  Cisco Network Engineers (for the most part) have avoided learning TCL/EEM scripting and most other vendor specialists have done (not) much of the same.
The world is a changing place... and 2015-2016 is going to be a wakeup for Carrier, Service Provider engineers, with enterprise following along the tail end and into 2017.  This is life people... The Cloud, Fabrics, SDN-like networking is going to change everything... wait for Software Defined Security... :)
Next year Enterprise networks are going to start adopting Virtual Cross-Connect Fabrics and learn the art of on-Demand elastic infrastructure.  Any Carriers/ISPs who don't embrace what is coming will die in the next 24 months, especially as the tech filters down the consumers who will insist on EoD (everything on demand).
Networking has been boring for 10 years... change is now upon us... strap yourself in for a couple of fun years.
...Skeeve
Skeeve Stevens - eintellego Networks Pty Ltdskeeve at eintellegonetworks.com ; www.eintellegonetworks.comPhone: 1300 239 038; Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 ; skype://skeevefacebook.com/eintellegonetworks ; linkedin.com/in/skeeve twitter.com/theispguy ; blog: www.theispguy.com

The Experts Who The Experts CallJuniper - Cisco - Cumulus Linux - Cloud - Consulting - IPv4 Brokering

On 23 December 2014 at 23:29, Andy S. <ciscoarc7 at gmail.com> wrote:
Agreed.
I doubt Openflow can troubleshoot or even roll out medium enterprise BGP or OSPF automatically without a need of an engineer (who knows these routing protocols, defo).
Interestingly, Skeeve, I slightly remember you posted a Network Engineer role with a promise to help them get their CCIE. So if your personal view is that of even CCIE is not worth not much in the next 5 years, how is helping them get their CCIE provide any benefit for your company?
Obviously I am not having a go at you, just out of curiosity.
Regards,Andy
On Tue, Dec 23, 2014 at 10:48 PM, Colin Stubbs <colin.stubbs at equatetechnologies.com.au> wrote:
Pffft.
Provided they add that knowledge to their pool they'll be fine. Understanding Ethernet and STP, along with routing protocols and label switching, will still be critical. 
What value will an OpenFlow "expert" be if they don't understand what's happening on top of the underlay network? Answer: not much.
What good is a network engineer, right now, that doesn't understand HTTP and HTTPS? Answer: not much.

Sent from a mobile device. Correct spelling and accurate use of grammar is unlikely to have occurred.
On 23/12/2014 10:35 pm, "Skeeve Stevens" <skeeve+ausnog at eintellegonetworks.com> wrote:
What will a Cisco./Juniper/etc engineer be worth in 5 years with technologies like OpenFlow, Cumulus Linux and many others yet to come....   not much in my opinion.
...Skeeve
Skeeve Stevens - eintellego Networks Pty Ltdskeeve at eintellegonetworks.com ; www.eintellegonetworks.comPhone: 1300 239 038; Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 ; skype://skeevefacebook.com/eintellegonetworks ; linkedin.com/in/skeeve twitter.com/theispguy ; blog: www.theispguy.com

The Experts Who The Experts CallJuniper - Cisco - Cumulus Linux - Cloud - Consulting - IPv4 Brokering

On 23 December 2014 at 17:56, Graeme Allen <gallen at mytelecom.com.au> wrote:
At one time they used the word "Legacy" as a weapon against Nortel, Lucent, et al. The thing about empires is they rarely learn from history. What's a Novell certified engineer worth these days?

On 23 December 2014 20:48:42 GMT+11:00, "Andy S." <ciscoarc7 at gmail.com> wrote:
I think they have revamped their CCIE now (version 5) which I am gunning (slowly) towards. 
One of their bigger change is replacing Frame Relay with DMVPN. Also it is now virtualised and I read it somewhere according to Cisco, it enables them to do 20-ish routers (always changing) topology and can make it more to "real-world". 
This hopefully enough to iron out those textbook CCIEs. 
I just remember one of my mate told a story about one particular CCIE doing "switchport trunk allowed vlan xxx" instead of "switchport trunk allowed vlan add xxx" and caused an outage. Companies losing money (according to him. It's a stock trading company). Though it's weird they needed more time to address where the issue was. 
Regards,Andy
On Tue, Dec 23, 2014 at 6:55 PM, Michael Wheeler <michael at michael-wheeler.org> wrote:
Hopefully their exam simulation stuff improves. Twice now I've done an exam and you do something slightly unexpected that's not covered by the text book (but would satisfy the question requirements) and the simulation completely breaks. And not in the since of the network stops working, the actual simulation software does things that just repeats the same command over and over again without letting you enter in any input. Naturally the exam moderator where I do my exams doesn't even know how a router is meant to react nor knows how to tell Cisco that their sim is faulty so I get a failed exam and down a bunch of my own money. In the end I just rote memorized the solution off some website command for command so that the friggin sim wouldn't crash. Yes I feel dirty doing it that way which is why after that cert I haven't done any exams (even though I covered the material).
Interested to see the future of network/communications qualifications...
On 23 December 2014 at 17:12, Beeson, Ayden <ABeeson at csu.edu.au> wrote:
On the topic, Cisco have identified textbook CCIE’s as an issue, they are in the process of redoing all their certification tests to better align with real world skills, with a lot more simulations and lab tests and a lot less multiple choice etc. I know the CCNP TSHOOT exam has been redone as all simulation situations with real equipment configurations etc, I know CCNP SWITCH and ROUTE were pending the changeover when I last did any of them (a year ago roughly) I think it’s a very good idea and I’m glad that it is happening, certifications are not worth a lot if you can hold one without actually understanding what you have learnt…. Thanks,Ayden Beeson  From: AusNOG [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Cameron Ferdinands
Sent: Tuesday, 23 December 2014 6:05 PM
To: Skeeve Stevens
Cc: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Work experience in networking/telecoms/DCs? Getting my foot in the door? That's my one of my favourite interview questions. "Whats your favourite routing protocol?" There only wrong answer is reading a line from a textbook, if you love RIP tell me why you love RIP! What's good about it? What's bad about
it? On 23 December 2014 at 08:58, Skeeve Stevens <skeeve+ausnog at eintellegonetworks.com> wrote:Yup.. had about a dozen last year.  And then even if they do have good theoretical knowledge, the other thing missing is experience, common sense and product knowledge.  Being a CCIE/NP and not being able to recommend a switch model is annoying (for me).
...Skeeve 
 Skeeve Stevens - eintellego Networks Pty Ltdskeeve at eintellegonetworks.com ; www.eintellegonetworks.comPhone: 1300 239 038; Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 ; skype://skeevefacebook.com/eintellegonetworks ; linkedin.com/in/skeeve twitter.com/theispguy ; blog: www.theispguy.comThe Experts Who The Experts CallJuniper - Cisco - Cumulus Linux - Cloud - Consulting - IPv4 Brokering On 23 December 2014 at 08:54, Peter Tiggerdine <ptiggerdine at gmail.com> wrote:I think we've all being in that interview (or heard second hand
 ) with
a textbook CCIE and when pressed can't seem to explain the simple things. experience is where it's at. On Tue, Dec 23, 2014 at 7:22 AM, Scott Weeks <surfer at mauigateway.com> wrote:

--- Alex.Samad at yieldbroker.com wrote:
From: Alex Samad - Yieldbroker <Alex.Samad at yieldbroker.com>

Then I would have a look at real work experience,
not certification boot camps..
----------------------------------------------

I wish more folks did this instead of starting off
interviews with cert-style questions, which seem to
only test rote memorization skills.

scott

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