[AusNOG] Opportunities in Australia to work on Event networks (Volunteer)

[Jacob Taylor]

 Hi all,

As a 24 year old network engineer, I'm often asked by others at uni how I
"broke in" to the networking space.

I've also seen this question posed in various permutation on this very list
so I thought I would share my some advice for other young people anxious to
jump into this space.

Obviously, this is highly subjective and anecdotal - YMMV.

Before anything else, I recommend not pidgeonholing yourself into
networking. I recommend learning SysOps skills and programming, automation
technologies and so forth. When I started at my current organisation I
began in the Windows/Linux team. This experience is increasingly critical
in the new world order of open networking, SDN and all that ilk. In my
environment, we have started rolling out white-box switching based on
Cumulus Linux and configuration management/orchestration by Ansible.

Having a CCNA (or NP, JNCIA etc. etc.) is all well and good, but remember
every other candidate for a role will likely have one. Me? I have only a
JNCIA and an expired CCENT. Having been interviewed personally and also
having interviewed others for a senior role (with CCIEs no less), I can
most definitely say being able to talk passionately about the actual
technologies you are using/supporting & give examples beats any level of
certification. It demonstrates higher-level conceptual understanding, which
itself is a requirement for effective troubleshooting.

Probably a more specific extension of the first point, but I've found it
pays to be familiar with the workings of application protocols. Understand
the structure of HTTP requests and responses, TLS handshakes, SIP
transactions. I recommend whipping out Wireshark or tcpdump and viewing the
packets as they go on to the wire - this skill has been invaluable in
demonstrating that other teams/3rd parties were actually at fault after
they so happily pointed the finger at the network. It is also helpful when
configuring/supporting/debugging load balancers, which are increasingly
being pushed into the support scope of networks (at least in my experience).

So yeah, that's my 5 cents on the issue.

Cheers,
Jake


On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 9:43 AM, Tristan Gulyas <evilzardoz at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Jason,
>
> Some great suggestions in this thread. There's plenty of volunteer work
> around the esports and gaming event area and you get to meet some amazing
> people in the process.  They have special requirements that typically
> exceed the capabilities and flexibility of venue-provided equipment, are on
> a strict budget and you can get a bit creative with your solutions.
>
> I can personally vouch for the team at ESL Australia (who run IEM Sydney)
> and at Ruxcon and I'm also look after Respawn LAN, a Melbourne-gaming
> community very similar to RFLAN who'll be running some events later this
> year (and we'd love a hand with the network!).
>
> Plenty of familiar people on this list whom I've met at similar events
> over the years :)
>
> Cheers,
> Tristan
>
>
>
> On 17 Apr 2018, at 7:56 am, Jay Dixon <jaybobo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I can second events like this, even if you're not directly on the hardware
> itself you get a lot of good experience with layer 1 - running cables and
> generally getting to troubleshoot networks (a lot of event attendees need
> assistance, volunteer for the helpdesk!)
> Many volunteers are industry professionals and can be excellent guides.
> It's how I got started some 18(?!) years ago, a lot of the people I ran
> helped run events with I still see on a day to day basis through work.
>
> Worst case scenario you get to play some games and make some friends!
>
> On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 1:29 AM, Tim Raphael <raphael.timothy at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hey Jason,
>>
>> You'd want to be looking at NFP orgs that run events as a good place to
>> start for volunteering.
>>
>> I, with a group of passionate gamers run Red Flag Lanfest (RFLAN) in
>> Perth a few times a year. In 18 hours we build a wired and wireless network
>> for ~ 900 gamers for 24 hours of tournaments ans casual eSports.
>>
>> You might also want to check out Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Sydney
>> (Sponsored CS:GO competition), I've assisted with that network build in the
>> past and they're currently taking volunteers again for this year - maybe
>> check their FB page I think for that link.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Tim Raphael
>>
>> > On 15 Apr 2018, at 6:52 pm, Jason Leschnik <jason at leschnik.me> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi Noggers,
>> >
>> > While listening to a back episode of the Packet Pushers I noticed one
>> of the guests mentioned he volunteered every year for SC (Super Computer
>> Conference) with helping building the temporary network and found it a
>> great way to gain experience. Do we have any events in Australia that
>> afford the same opportunity for experience or are most contracted out if
>> they require a temporary network.
>> >
>> > Regards,
>> > Jason.
>> > _______________________________________________
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