Cloud Transition and Networking Future Trends, with Craig Johnson

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Curious about transitioning from traditional network engineering to cloud technologies? Craig Johnson's career trajectory is a masterclass in adapting to industry changes. We walk through his journey from handling ISDN and early internet complexities to mastering cloud-native tools like Terraform and CloudFormation. Craig highlights the importance of community involvement and practical learning for engineers hesitant to embrace the cloud. We also delve into how feedback loops between customer-facing roles and product developers can drive significant innovations and improvements in technology.

What does the future hold for network engineering? Listen as we explore the impact of AI on the field, the rise of SDN and SD-WAN, and the incorporation of AI into certifications. Craig provides his take on the shift to open environments in 5G networks and the evolving role of LTE and 5G in modern networking. Our discussion also touches on content creation within networking communities and the rewarding journey of pursuing advanced certifications. Whether you're a seasoned professional or new to the field, this episode offers invaluable insights and inspiration for your career.

Find everything AONE right here: https://linktr.ee/artofneteng

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is the Art of Network Engineering podcast.
In this podcast, we'll exploretools, technologies and talented
people.
We aim to bring you informationthat will expand your skill
sets and toolbox and share thestories of fellow network

(00:22):
engineers.
Welcome to the Art of NetworkEngineering.
I am AJ Murray atNoBlinkyBlinky and I am very
excited to be joined by TimBertino.
He is at Tim Bertino.
Tim, it's been a hot minute man.
How are you doing?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Well, I'm better now.
Like you said, we haven'trecorded in a while, and a
couple weeks ago I had tostruggle through all the FOMO of
missing everything from CiscoLive, seeing everybody have a
good time.
I got to ask you, aj, you wentthis year as a content creator,

(00:58):
like legit as a content creator,yeah, and not on behalf of any
other company, but a one.
How different of an experiencewas that this time around.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
It was very different .
It was different for a numberof reasons.
One, I didn't have to attendsessions.
But I tell you what I wanted to.
I couldn't because I had theExplorer pass.
I could attend some sessionswithin the world of solutions,
which I did, but it was reallydifferent because I wasn't there
to.
I wasn't there to take theclasses.

(01:29):
I still got to engage with thecommunity, which I've done in
the past, but that communityengagement looked a lot
different.
Right, the content that I'vebeen creating or that we've been
creating for the last fouryears has been more visual.
There's been a much largeraudience than what I've had on
just my blog in the past.
And while Andy and I and theothers were walking around World

(01:49):
of Solutions, we literally hadpeople stopping us that were
like hey, aren't you the Art ofNetwork Engineering?
Guys?
I got to tell you this onestory.
There's this one guy I want tosay his name was Anthony.
He stopped us with so muchenergy, it was just infectious.
And then he had this cup like atumbler or whatever, and he was

(02:12):
having a whole bunch of peoplesign and autograph this tumbler
for him oh cool.
Very cool it was just such areally cool experience and he
was just really excited to meetus and talk about how our
content has positively affectedthem.
And it was those kinds ofinteractions that really got to,
you know, recharge the contentcreator battery and kind of you

(02:33):
know reminded me like why we'rehere, why we're doing this thing
Right.
So then it was really good tosee some old faces.
We got to see Lexi and a fewother folks.
We got to meet Alexis.
We got to meet Kevin.
Kevin was there and he's thenewest addition to the team, so
it was really fun to meet him inperson.
Talk about authentic.

(02:54):
He is exactly the person yousee here on the show as he is in
person.
He's just really fun to hang outwith.
So overall great experience.
I did forget what a week atCisco Live will do to you.
I'm just now fully recoveredfrom that experience, but I look
forward to hopefully doing itagain next year.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
That's awesome.
And I saw you had your own miniCisco Live in Omaha, yeah yeah,
we did we so the week after andwe'll call out our guest here
in a second.
But our guest recorded some uhshort form with you guys at
cisco live and was graciousenough to attend our local one

(03:37):
here in nebraska not even a weeklater.
So I'm starting to wonder ifour guest uh a permanent address
or not.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
It's true.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
It's been a summer, so it's agreed.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
He's starting to wonder that too.
It sounds like.
So, tim, cisco Live Omaha orCisco Live Las Vegas.
How does it compare?

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Well, it's a little bit different.
Well, I should say so.
The difference that I can speakto is that the Cisco Live
that's in Vegas or San Diego orOrlando, I don't have to help
make that one.

Speaker 4 (04:21):
That's really the key yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Well, that's really sad.
And those Well, that's reallysad.
And those kinds of Cisco livesare really cool.
I did one of those inBurlington Vermont here back in
like 2018.
And so I worked with my Ciscoaccount manager at the time I
was on the customer side and weput together a local conference,
just like that, and it's agreat time.
You know, the Burlington Vermontarea does not see a lot of
events like that, and it's it'sa great time.
You know, the BurlingtonVermont area does not see a lot

(04:47):
of events like that, and so youknow, usually if we want to
attend something where we'regoing to, like the Cisco live or
the Cisco connect event inMassachusetts, which is really
cool because it's at Gillettestadium, or you know, sometimes
they have events, you know, inAlbany and either one of those
is like a three-hour drive forus.
So when we do events like thatin Burlington, we usually get

(05:09):
tons of people and it's reallyfun.
So I think, without further ado, let's jump into it.
Our guest this evening is CraigJohnson.
He is a technical solutionsarchitect at Forward Networks
and he's super active in thecommunity.
I'm sure you've seen his faceat an event recently, craig.
Thank you so much for takingthe time.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
No, thank you very much.
So yeah, as mentioned, I'm atechnical solution architect, I
live in Dallas, so yeah, happyto be here.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Fantastic.
What is a technical solutionsarchitect?
Give us a day in the life ofkind of thing.

Speaker 4 (05:42):
So don't look too down on it being sales, but what
we are is we're on the pre-saleside, but it's kind of what I
consider is much more of anempathy style position, like
people that are successful inthis type of position.
I worked many years inoperations myself for a service
provider.
I spent many years inpost-sales doing customer

(06:04):
support at Cisco myself, andit's being able to really
empathize with people, to beable to understand what the pain
they're going through.
So I work with networkoperators, I work with cloud
operators, I work with securityprofessionals to really
understand the pain that they'regoing through.
And for my current day job,exactly how what we do can help,
you know, evangelize newsolutions and, even if we can't

(06:26):
help, at least being able tounderstand what they're going
through and seeing how we can,you know, help that, whether it
is automation, whether it isjust being a practitioner,
whether it is more on thearchitecture side.
So it's a pretty you know dayjob, definitely a sales, but it
encompasses, you know, a littlebit of product marketing, a
little bit of, of course,community evangelism and, yeah,
that's pretty much the size ofit Awesome and Forward Networks.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
I am a little bit familiar with Forward, but one
of their primary products is theDigital Twin.
Can you just give us a summaryof what is a Digital Twin?

Speaker 4 (07:00):
Yeah, so high level.
The idea behind a digital twinis that it takes what you know
about your network and creates amathematical copy and software,
so to kind of take it tosomething what people know.
If you think about we usedigital twins all the time you
know when you pop open yourphone and you open up Google
Maps on there, that's a digitaltwin about the world from a

(07:23):
historical perspective, all thestreets and everything and
overlays kind of more up-to-dateinformation, traffic and
weather and things like that toit.
So if you think about what's ina network, take every device,
whether it is Cisco, juniper,arista, palo switches, firewalls
, routers, load balancers theyall do something pretty similar.
You have a packet come into adevice.

(07:43):
It will change some headers, doa Mac rewrite or something, and
then it goes out of a device.
Now there's a lot more of thatbecause it's which output port
does it pick?
I'm going to add VXLAN and PLS,all those kind of fun things
that keep us employed.
But if you think abouteverything that they're doing,
every device does that.
So it's creating a model of allof those things so that I have

(08:06):
an offline copy of what mynetwork looks like and then with
that I can start to do someanalysis.
I can start to look at all ofthe devices I have.
I can start to look at the pathbetween any point to any point.
So it's not necessarily a newconcept.
When you open up EVENG or CMLand start to create your own lab
, you're creating a digital twinof something you know you're

(08:27):
creating a lab.
Maybe it's your CCI, your CCDlab, maybe you're creating
something it's a digital twin ofsome real network.
You know, when I started it wasbuying a rack of Cisco 2500.
Now you can do it all virtually, which is much nicer, a little
bit cheaper, a little bitcheaper and a little less noisy.
Yes, but it's creating thatsort of model and being able to

(08:47):
do it at scale.
It's being able to not do sixor ten but to do 1,000 or 10,000
devices to model that sort ofview of the network.
It's a long-winded answer, butthat's really the idea of a
digital twin.
So it's a space a couple ofvendors in and of course there's
some open source products in it.
But we see it as a very popularspace that a lot of people are
moving towards a new categorythat they have.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, I mean absolutely.
I think there's tremendousvalue in being able to digitally
duplicate your network.
And then you know you can doall sorts of tests, right?
Imagine being able to likefaithfully reproduce your
network and test a maintenancewindow before going into the
maintenance window, right?
And then then you know like, ohhey, it turns out I screwed
something up in my script thatwould have completely, you know,
taken down the network, but Ilearned that before actually

(09:30):
going into the maintenancewindow because of the digital
twin.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
So see, aj, I think I think that's a perfect example,
because I would do that when Iwas a practitioner and I, but it
would be in a virtualizedenvironment where I would try to
get as close as I could to mytrue environment, but I was
never able to get 100% of theway there.
So I could get somewhatcomfortable, but never that 100%

(09:53):
.
I know this is what myenvironment's like.
So I agree with you, that's tobe able to have that digital
twin, that copy of your network,makes a ton of sense, to be
able to test those kinds ofthings and have that assurance.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, I mean it.
It might sound shocking, butpracticing a cutover on a 2921
is a lot different than actuallyexecuting it on like an asr.
So this is true yes, andthere's, like you know, nuance
syntax differences.

Speaker 4 (10:18):
Your, if your script's ready for you know, ios
, it's not ready for ios xe orxr well, and even taking beyond
that a little bit like even ifyou know what your change is
doing and it's modifying someroutes or maybe changing a route
map you don't always know Ifyou have, let's say, even a
modest size network, 30 or40,000 routes in your
environment, you don't knowevery application that affects.

(10:41):
You don't so I mean, I remembermy days in change windows where
you had 100 people on the phonemy app is good, my app is good,
my app is good.
And they don't do that for verylong because they're not going
to be on the phone every weekdoing that.
So you really do need some wayto holistically look at that and
use that to verify.
Okay, before and after I mademy change, does the network look
like what I expect it to?
And even beyond that a littlebit?

(11:02):
Like I mentioned, I worked forCisco for many years.
I'm pretty good at iOS and XOS,but there's a lot of different
OSs out there and while theindustry has tried to kind of
standardize things, you knowthere was open config and a few
things like that.
Really, you know I can.
You know I'm not very.
I'm not all that great on PaloAltos, I'm only okay on some

(11:22):
different OSs and being able to.
But when you, you know everyvendor has their own CLI, which
is great.
But being able to reallynormalize that and view it as it
was without being an expert onany particular vendor, I think
is really key to a lot of thesethings.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
Yeah, absolutely, craig.
If you don't mind, I would liketo kind of step through your
career in a Cliff Don'ts fashionfashion, just kind of set the
stage for our conversation, tounderstand your background.
Uh, how'd you get started?
And let's kind of go from there.
What drew you to networking?

Speaker 4 (11:53):
so do you remember dial up internet I?

Speaker 2 (11:56):
do I do?
I just got the.
I just got the sound goingthrough my head.

Speaker 4 (12:01):
Yeah, so one of my early jobs out of high school
and during college was workingfor a company $99 a year
unlimited 56K well, it was 28Kat the time but they later
upgraded to 56K internet access.
So way better than AOL.
Don't use AOL, this is directinternet access.
Yeah, absolutely, we give youan email address and the whole

(12:23):
thing.
So that was one of my earlyjobs, doing that kind of
technical support and let metell you doing, you know,
troubleshooting people's Windows3.1 and Windows 95 PCs, their

(12:44):
dial-up support.
It really, you know, definitelybloody knuckles for that one.
So that was doing that.
And so you get introduced towhat IP is and kind of how that
can.
But beyond that you talk to thepeople inside that are working
in the NOC and that was wayhigher than us.
I'm just help desk forcustomers.
There's the NOC over there andabove them there was network
engineering that actuallyconfigure these giant Cisco 7500

(13:04):
routers and things like that.
So you start getting into thatmore.
And then I got promoted intonot just dial-up, to doing ISDN
support, which, if any of youraudience remembers that, they've
got gray hairs as well.
So that's where I kind of gotstarted is.
They had that and I was one ofthe early, early people that

(13:25):
when Cisco first introduced theCCNA and this was like in 1999,
you know I they they had aprogram where you could get an
old Cisco, you know, like aCisco 800 router, of where the
ISDN routers, and you couldpractice on it and the CCNA was
just a single test.
It was the.
They had the CCNA and the CCIand that was it.
No, nothing in between at thetime.
So I started going through that.

(13:45):
It's like you know, this stuffreally isn't as difficult and at
the time I was 19 or 20, I'mnot a very good coder and I'm
like, okay, this is, I'm notgoing in the programming path,
but this is an area that Ireally like going into.
So, going along that path andworking for a local VAR for a
while, kind of getting my CCNA.
And then, at the ripe old age of21, I decided to get my first

(14:07):
CCIE and that was back when itwas a two-day exam.
I mean, troubleshooting isalways first and my greatest
love in networking.
So that was absolutely the mostfun part I've ever had in terms
of a test I've ever taken.
But yeah, from there, worked atseveral, worked at a service

(14:27):
provider decided to work atactually on the customer side at
Cisco for several years, movedaround and did the you know data
center, sdn and till, kind ofwhere I'm at now, which is
definitely, you know, past 10years or so been on the pre-sale
side and doing what I'm doingnow where still opening labs up,
still configuring devices butbut really doing a lot more of

(14:48):
the talking in the architectureside.
So really kind of a cliff notesof where I've kind of started
and coming from so last 25 yearsand you know 100 seconds or so
wow, that's three ccies, threeccies.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yes, I did not know that about you until this
conversation.
Yeah, I, I didn't either.

Speaker 4 (15:05):
So now we're switched .
So this is a storage areanetworking podcast now.
So we're going to talk aboutFiber Channel the whole hour.
So that's one of my CCIEs.
So, yes, that one's not veryused to it anymore.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
I did not realize they had a CCIE in storage area.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
They don't anymore.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
Nothing against you, Craig, but if we start talking
about Fiber Channel, I mightquit my own podcast for the next
hour.

Speaker 4 (15:31):
I don't blame you, that's great.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
I did have a question about your role now.
So you're customer facing,you're out there in the
community.
Do you feel like you've got agood line to like product
management, product development?
Let's say, if you're out with acustomer at an event and they
come to you and you start havingthis conversation about this,
this potential feature thatwould really help them, do you

(15:57):
feel like you've got a good lineto potentially get that, get
that change made or or get thatenhancement done?
Is that kind of part of yourrole too?

Speaker 4 (16:07):
Yeah, that's definitely part of what we do.
There's the easy oh I've gotthis new box you want to support
.
But when it is something alittle more high level, like a
good example is, I was atAutoCon in Denver this past
November or so and you reallygot this idea from everyone that
had joined there.
It's a vendor neutralconference where you see all

(16:28):
these people and all these talksabout why haven't we achieved
automation yet, and it reallygives you that sort of strategic
ideas like, hey, you know if wecan do something or even work
with other people to help getautomation in network
engineering to be something thatpeople actually use and not
something we've talked about for15 years or so.
That is kind of those sorts ofthings.

(16:49):
So, yeah, I take what I takefrom individual customers and
what I do in the communitywhether it is, you know in, you
know my local nugs or thingslike that to be able to take it
back to our products.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
So absolutely, so another thing you were
traditional what I calltraditional I probably shouldn't
use that phrase but yeah, youwent from being traditional
network engineer to you weretalking about ccies.
Uh, in the past and in thefuture, you know, you've really

(17:20):
been in.
In the recent past you've beenfocusing on, uh, cloud, public
cloud, like what has taken youfrom traditional network
engineering to more of a cloudand public cloud focus.

Speaker 4 (17:32):
So the reason I kind of made that switch and my focus
there is purely from anetworking perspective in the
cloud.
Like I don't plan on being anapplication developer or an SRE
or anything like that, but I'veseen a real dearth of people
understanding how networkingworks in the cloud and the
secret is it's really mucheasier.

(17:53):
I don't have to configure MPLSor SRV6 or anything like that on
AWS or Azure or anything likethat.
They have a few everything's IP, there's a few extra contracts
they do.
But it really makes me a littlesad when I see really really
smart network engineers that arejust like they see the public
cloud and they're like I don'twant to do that, I don't touch

(18:17):
it.
It's like it's really reallysuper easy.
It's like there are someconstructs and there's some
things you have to understand.
Of course they have their ownquirks and it does like if AWS
is different than Azure, whichis different than GCP, which is
different than Oracle, so it's alittle more work to get there,
but being able to like, hey, youknow, you really can get this
and you know I've just foundevery organization, right or

(18:37):
wrong, has some sort of cloudpresence, either going to the
cloud or repatriating or, youknow, heaven forbid multi-cloud
which terrible idea.
Don't ever do that, but yeah,being able to.
You know you've got to be ableto understand those sort of
constructs here, and whether itis you're using the native tools
or you're using a digital twinto figure those sorts of things
out, I found that to be, youknow, a really good career path

(19:00):
for me, because most of the whenI go to reInfant and go to
re-invent and I was at reinforcelast week, you know, you, you
talked to a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
Even there they like I.
We don't do networking as no,that's just, that's the redhead
stepchild, even in the cloud.
So yeah, well, with thatcomment on uh, multi-cloud, I
think you you just volunteeredyourself to join an episode of
the cables clouds podcast.
I'm sure you'll be getting thatemail.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
I'm sure yes, yes so as, as somebody that's done, you
know the on-prem or traditionalnetwork engineering and then
transition to cloud, what, what?
What advice can you offer tosomebody to get them to to flip
that switch, instead of saying,oh, no, no, that's not for me to
say, yes, charge forward, so Iwill.

Speaker 4 (19:49):
Yeah, I will say first do what I did.
The way I started is getinvolved in the community.
It's absolutely the best.
We've had some really good, youknow, traditional on-prem
whatever you want to call itkind of community meetups and
things like that.
But there's definitely somegreat ones on the cloud side as
well, and there's such a dearthof networking people like us, so
you're absolutely welcome there.

(20:11):
The resources are really good.
Now, don't get me wrong.
You can get yourself in troubleby deploying something and,
oops, I put a charge here, butmost of us really aren't running
traffic, so you can easily lookup all of the things, have game
days where you're looking up.
You know, here's a cloudformation template to to create

(20:31):
something here, and you know, soit's.
I am this is my own bias.
I am much more of a learn bydoing person.
You know I definitely, you know,want to understand the theory
behind things, but being able to, like, really go out there and
play with it, and that's thefirst way you do it.
And then you realize, oh, thisis totally not the way you
should do it at all, becausethis is not the cloud way of
doing things, because now you'rejust clicking around on a

(20:53):
console.
Then you start going to say,okay, maybe I should start
learning how to compose thiswith Terraform or CloudFormation
or something like that, so youreally can.
Then you start understandinghow actual cloud engineers do
their job, which I would lovefor traditional network
engineers to get that same sortof automation mindset and you
can really take those sort oflessons that they have there and

(21:14):
apply it to what you alreadyknow.
So, yeah, it's super easy toget started.
There's some really, reallygreat resources out there
because, yeah, we just need alot more cloud knowledge I'm
sorry, networking knowledge inthe cloud.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
You're an AWS community builder right, that's
correct.
Knowledge I'm sorry, networkingknowledge in the cloud.
You're an AWS community builderright, that's correct.

Speaker 4 (21:28):
Yes, I'm in my second year of that Yep.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
Can you talk a little bit about what that program is?
How did you get into thatprogram and any sort of benefits
either for you personally orotherwise?

Speaker 4 (21:40):
Oh yeah, totally.
So I started doing some simpleblogging and some videos about,
kind of my AWS journey.
You know I have some posts of,hey, I built this and you know I
set this up and here's you know, here's some basic constructs
in here.
I recorded some videos, somepersonally, some for my company,
and that's essentially whatthey want is like hey, if you

(22:00):
are engaged in the community, itdoesn't matter, it doesn't need
to be super technical.
You know, I've seen some very,very simple ones as well, but
everyone starts at a differentlevel.
You put in, you know the thingsyou've done for the community
and you know they, they look atthose sorts of things and yeah,
then they're like hey, you know,we'd like you to be a part of
the program and that's a pretty.

(22:21):
You know they don't have a highacceptance company, but you're
actually contributing to thecommunity in some way.
They're happy to have you andthe benefits are huge.
I mean, of course, they sendyou a nice swag bag.
You get discounts on reInventand reInforce.
You get to, you know, and youget access to all these AWS
people, some really, reallysmart people, and that's a

(22:42):
gargantuan organization.
You been to Cisco Live, which isabsolutely my favorite event,
aws reInvent dwarfs.
It.
It's four times as many peopleas Cisco Live.
Oh my, yes, I didn't realizethat.
Yeah, it's like five differenthotels that you go through for
that one.
So it's so much bigger and it'slike you're just drowning by

(23:02):
the end of that week.
So, yeah, but it's the samekind of vibe and everyone's just
you know, it's the community,so everyone's just building
things and doing things.
So, yeah, it's, it's anabsolutely rewarding program.
You know several of my friends.
I know Tim over at Cables toClouds.
I've, you know, several peopleare are in this and it's it's an

(23:22):
absolutely rewarding program.
So just just start putting outany sort of content.
You know short form blogs.
You know TikTok whatever youthink is most appropriate for
you that helps people whereverthey happen to be with their
cloud journey.
Whether you're starting outlearning or whether you want to
do super advanced Terraformstyle concepts, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Awesome.
So that sounds pretty similarto you know, vmware vExpert or
Cisco Insider Champion programsame kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (23:48):
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, I think at the time I wasactually at Cisco when they
started that program, so I knowa lot of people have really
enjoyed that program as well.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
I enjoyed it right up until I started working for a
competitor.
That's how it goes isn't ityeah?

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Craig, I do appreciate the advice around.
You know the social mediaaspect of things you said.
To approach it as do whatevermakes the most sense for you.
You didn't say you know youneed to blog or you need to do
videos.
It's really do whatever.
I agree with you do whatevermakes the most sense for you and
cause otherwise.
If you think you're trying toconform to something that you

(24:27):
think you need to do to be ableto get ahead or reach people, I
think it ends up feeling like ajob at some point and then you
just get bored and disinterestedwith it.

Speaker 4 (24:38):
Yeah, and that was the advice I'd always gotten to
and I'm kind of with the sameway.
It was like, oh, you need tohave your website and you need
to do long form blog content,because it hits the analytics
and things like that, which I'mnot saying those things aren't
useful and they're definitelygood.
But yeah, I mean most of mineis short form kind of content.
Short form you know things,things on Discord, things, you

(24:58):
know local, actually being inperson and hosting and joining
actual meetups.
So, yeah, I found that to bethe most rewarding for me and,
like you said, doesn't feel likea job.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Now, just talking about being in person and being
at the meetups, I wonder we haveto see if this is tracked
somewhere.
I wonder if you hold the recordfor the most networking user
groups in other States that youattend.
It might be a bit.

Speaker 4 (25:26):
Yeah, there's a.
Last year was quite a few, thisyear has not been as many.
So, on that, last year westarted our our North Texas one
up here.
So I host that one up here, soanyone that's in the Dallas area
.
We host them every quarter and,yeah, like our company sponsors
them sometimes.
But even if we didn't, it's,it's great to go meet people and

(25:51):
talk to people.
And whether you know differentlevels of content I found for
myself, having been in thisindustry for 20, 25 years, the
nugs have a lot of people kindof in that mid early career we
had a lot of university studentsand it's really really cool
people, really cool seeingpeople at different levels of
their journey.
And you know, I feel for peoplelike you know, it's like
networking doesn't get anyeasier.
You know we were doing spanningtree when I was starting in 99

(26:12):
and it's still there.
So we just have to layer awhole bunch of things on top of
it.
So, you know, getting peopleinterested in in network
engineering, you know I hope itdoesn't.
You know I hope it's a growingfield and we need more people
into it because you know, can'tdo it forever.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
So, yeah, yeah, we talk about it all the time, but
the community aspect of it is sohuge, like the, the NUG event
that we hosted here in Nebraskaa little while back and the
event we did through Cisco justlast week.
The common theme is that peoplewill come to those local events
and you keep hearing the hey, Ijust saw so-and-so, I haven't
seen them in 10 years.

(26:50):
This is so cool.

Speaker 4 (26:52):
Yeah, yeah, it's great to do that at a local
level.
You get that at your big Ciscolives, but yeah, to get that at
a local and it really justtalked that sort of shop.
So yeah, I totally agree withthat.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
So Craig.
What are some of?

Speaker 4 (27:15):
the other industry trends that really peak your
interest and have lately.
You're not going to make metalk about AI, are you?
I'm not going to.
No, I'm not going to force thatat all.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
But AI did tell me that you were going to say that.
Oh, that's true, gotcha.

Speaker 4 (27:22):
Yeah, so you can't ignore that.
I wouldn't say I'm an AIskeptic, but I think there is
still a large role to play withthat in networking.
Obviously, it's not escapable,and you were being at Cisco a
lot.
Every conference I've been atin the past six months, some
more than others, really justbeat that drum to death and I
think we're still searching foruse cases for that.

(27:44):
Like, I think smart agents indifferent AI agents is
definitely a thing.
Co-pilots are absolutely athing.
If you were in networking maybeabout I don't know 10 years ago
at this point, when there wasOpenFlow and SDN, I feel like
we're sort of at that level ofthings where we have a
technology but we're stillsearching for the use cases and

(28:06):
we'll get there.
There are some great startups,there are some great AI ops
companies and we're gettingthere.
I definitely think that's goingto be a thing.
But I don't believe that wewill ever get to the point where
you don't need networkengineers.
I mean, obviously.
Obviously you need networkingmore than ever now, because
nothing is getting simpler innetworking.
And, yeah, the the panacea ofopening up an LLM and telling me

(28:28):
why my application doesn't work.
I don't see that, as networkinghas become more complex, not
less complex.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
So what would you say is the closest use case as far
as network engineering?
So we had, we did AJ it's beena little bit now, but we did and
what does AI and networkengineering look like?
And one of the big use casesthat I could see in the recent
future was going to be hey, thiscan help us get proactive as

(28:58):
far as troubleshooting Peoplecall in.
We can have these AI systemsthat help point us in the right
direction.
I saw it more of a operationsmonitoring, visibility,
observability, play, not as muchmaybe on the actual building
and operating networks, but doyou see that?
Conversely, do you think truenetwork engineering use cases

(29:21):
you see coming up soon, or whatdo you see?

Speaker 4 (29:25):
Yeah, I see precisely the same thing.
Like I don't see AI, at leastat this point, helping us to
architect networks and helpingto, you know, to build the right
network architecture.
You know, not saying it's notgonna be.
I see it much more in the wayyou say it, where if I have a
trouble ticket, come in and I'mhaving a problem with a
particular application, it cananalyze the path with something

(29:46):
that actually knows what thenetwork looks like.
You have to have the problemwith I wouldn't say the problem,
but what you have with AI.
You need all of that data aboutyour network before AI can even
start to make the decision.
So until you have a goodunderstanding of all of the
network, ai can't really operateon that.
Whether it's creating a twin ofthe network, adding a bunch of
analytics and observability dataon top of it, you need that

(30:09):
level of data to figure all ofthat out.
And yeah, I see that.
Getting to resolution quicker,figuring out your changes
quicker, reviewing mops, thingslike that I see that as much
more of these.
Obviously, you may be able toget to the point of hey, I'm
having a problem here, it mightsuggest some changes to fix a

(30:29):
particular application.
I could see some of that, but Idon't see it getting to the
point of, hey, I'm building anew data center or I'm building
a new application, tell me how Ishould design my network to do
that.
I don't see that as beingsomething.
So I think it helps all of usbecause it kind of helps us
skill up so that we can be thosenetwork architects, so we can
understand the more complexversions of networking, versus

(30:51):
you know doing the stuff thatyou know I always love doing,
but you know the stuff that'stedious.
You know I have an IP address.
Okay, where am I Log into theswitch?
Show IP up.
Show Mac table Okay, it's outof this port.
Okay, jump to this next switch.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Do that exact same thing so, which is fun, but it's
extremely tedious activity todo so.
Yeah, I think that's where ithelps and that's a good point
that you bring up even on theoperations and the
troubleshooting side is thateven to get to that level the AI
and the decision making in thethings that it shows you it's
only as good as the data that ithas of your network and the
accuracy there.
I think that's a really goodthing to point out.

Speaker 4 (31:30):
Yeah, and I think it's having to know all of those
things, and I think that'swhere the data gets pulled in.
So a lot of things I've seen onthe AI side try to pull in live
traffic and tell you what thatlooks, but that doesn't tell you
what.
The behavior that tells youwhat's going on on your network
right now.
It tells me here.
The behavior like that tellsyou what's going on on your
network right now, like it tellsme here's the flows I'm seeing,
here's all the traffic net flow, whatever it happens to be.

(31:51):
It doesn't look at what are allof my possible future things.
For that you really need toingest all of the state data.
Show me all of my BGP routes.
Show me all my MPLS forwardingtables, show me my VXLAN, vtep
to VTEP connectivity.
You need a lot more data thanpeople are ingesting today for
that to really inform those kindof decisions, to help you kind
of make those sort of smart HStypes decisions.

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Speaker 1 (33:23):
Yeah, you know, craig you made a great point that
what's happening today doesreally feel like a lot like when
we first got introduced to SDN.
You know like, oh, this is agreat thing, sd-wan.
It's just like what are wegoing to do with that, you know,
and SD access and everything,and so now we're starting to see
those products really mature.
And when people think aboutstarting a new WAN today, I
think most people go SD-WAN.

(33:45):
I feel like people are lessinclined to do the old, maybe
more traditional DMVPN stylestuff.

Speaker 4 (33:52):
Yeah, I tend to.
I worked for big switchnetworks for several years, so I
was all in on SDN andeverything it turns out.
The biggest use case you'reexactly right was SD-WAN.
We just don't know exactlywhere it's going to end up.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
Right.
I thought it was really curious.
I heard that Cisco has added AIto the CCNA.

Speaker 4 (34:12):
Interesting.
Oh, wow, yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
And an upcoming refresh.
It's going to be like a reallyminor revision change.
They're going to be adding AIand it's introducing people at
that level, like you know,what's the difference between
you know LLMs and this and that,and between you know LLMs and
this and that, and you know, atfirst I was just like, really
Like, are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
And then they talk about, likeyou know how it's useful now as
a tool and everything, and so Ithought it was very curious,

(34:36):
because it is clear that AI isgoing to be here for the
foreseeable future, so why noteducate people now on how to
properly use it, what thedifferences are, rather than, if
we don't bring it up, peopleare probably going to abuse it,
and that could just lead toworse scenarios.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
You know, speaking of that, AJ, you mentioned the
CCNA.
You also mentioned that you'retoying around and going to jump
into doing the CCDE.
It's also been announced CCDEAI infrastructure, so you might
as well just do that too.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yeah, I think that's going to be an elective.
They're going to drop earlynext year, so we'll.
We'll see when I end up takingthe exam.

Speaker 4 (35:23):
Yeah, aws did something very similar.
They've announced two AIcertifications, so I think
you're going to see it acrossthe board.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
Yeah, AWS did something very similar.
They've announced two AIcertifications, so I think
you're going to see it acrossthe board.
Yeah, absolutely Yep.
Now, craig, I understand youhave a background in 5G networks
.

Speaker 4 (35:37):
Yeah, so my first job out of working for the VAR was
working for an outfit Some ofour older members may remember
them Singular Wireless.
Oh yeah, yes, so they're allAT&T now.
So back then it was not 5G,this was 2G, pre-iphone days

(35:59):
back with the Motorola Razr,some of the early brick Windows
mobile smartphones, and so Ilove that.
I love dealing with those typesof networks.
But the problem is back thenand it's not too dissimilar to
how networking was back then isthat it was all locked up into
vendors, like you had to dealwith.
You know, at the time,motorola's, nokia's, they had

(36:20):
their own sort of applicationsbecause it's a whole different,
like it's all IP under the hood,but it's a whole different
technology stack that you dealwith.
You know, from how does thephone that you have communicate
with the radio tower, whichcommunicates with the 5G backend
network and communicates withall the different components
that you use to talk to, howthey bill you, how they track

(36:41):
your minutes, how they trackyour text messages, how you get
on the internet?
Back then it was very and evenup to very recently it was very
much a closed ecosystem andunless you work for a Verizon or
an AT&T or something like that.
You didn't get to be involvedin that at all.
What I like now is there arelots of carriers now, both in
the US and worldwide, that haveadopted what's called Open RAN

(37:05):
or Open 5GC, which isessentially an open environment
that just like networking ingeneral is.
Anybody can slot their vendorinto it and you can practice and
play around with 5G componentsall the way down to a phone
level with just a simple likeAWS has a cloud formation
template you can just launchright up.

(37:25):
We can even put it in the shownotes and show you exactly how
to launch that environment andsee here's exactly all the
different places.
And so I've absolutely loveddealing with service provider
mobile networks.
5g, of course, is not goingaway.
It's becoming much more of anenabler.
It's.
You know.
I remember when you know whatwas it?
City Wi-Fi was supposed to be athing and 5G just kind of swept
all of that away.

(37:45):
So, yeah, it's becoming muchmore of a global enabler on a
lot of things and it's a pieceof the network that has been
locked up.
And even traditional networkengineers most of them don't
understand what's called the RANnetwork, the radio access
network.
They don't understand that partof the network.
Yeah, oh, you do Okay.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
No, no, no, I am them .
I don't understand.

Speaker 4 (38:05):
Yeah, so being.
But having it all open now,having having you know actual,
real carriers, both here and andabroad, that have adopted this,
let people get into thiswithout having to, you know,
locked up.
Like I said, it reminds me ofthe early days of networking
where, if you wanted to learn,you know Cisco, you, you better
go, you know, go on eBay at thetime, buy a bunch of 2500s, rack

(38:27):
them all up and set them up.
Whereas you know for the pastseveral, you know now it's all
virtual, you know you CML oreven G.
It's the same kind of thing andI'm really excited to see it
happening on the on, the on thatthe carrier side of the network
.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
Wow, that's that's.
I had no idea.
That's really cool.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Well, I think just LTE and 5G in general.
It's been talked about for along time that hey, especially
now with SD-WAN, hey, you canbring in these LTE and these 5G
networks to be your backupcircuit.
But now we're talking about itbeing primetime active.
I mean these carriers are goingafter uh, customers both on the

(39:09):
business and residential sides,to be that active network for
them.

Speaker 4 (39:12):
Oh yeah, when I, when I opened up the speed test on
my phone and it's like 800megabits, I'm like that's,
that's, that's pretty compelling.
So absolutely, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yeah, it's funny that the uh, you know just the the
whole history of wireless andeverything right Like wireless
used to be the long haul methodof communication and then wired
was your last mile, but now it's.
It's very much.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yeah, I didn't think about it that way.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Yeah, craig, how, how do you, how do you manage to
keep up with all of this stuff?
I mean, cloud is huge on itsown, and then you own, and then
you know you're talking about 5gwireless networks.
Like how, how do you do it?

Speaker 4 (39:53):
so I, you know, I I devote a decent amount of my
time to one keeping up with theindustry.
So I'm uh, you know, I'm onyour guys's uh, the the.
That's all about the journeydiscord.
I love talking with people onthat.
People are always posting aboutdifferent cloud things.
Different, you know, new thingscome up or that are done either
by the vendors or just peoplethat are interesting.
I'm very active on X myself and,yeah, it's, it's essentially

(40:16):
just consuming a lot of thatdata to see the new things that
are coming out and to see like,oh, that sounds really
interesting.
I want to kind of dig into thata little bit and that's like
this is the same thing.
That's what drove me to togoing into cloud environments as
well.
It's like I kept seeing people.
Not that I you can ever finishwith traditional networking, but
it was like you know, you knowI've I've kind of got a good

(40:37):
handle on most of the technology.
Obviously, there's there'salways more to do, but this was
something really new to learnand that's I'm always been a
lifelong learner, so I like thatstage in the learning process
where I am kind of the I'm justkind of figuring out, I'm good
enough to be dangerous.
You know it's like, yeah, Imean so.
To me that's the most excitingpart of my career and I love

(40:57):
that.
I get to redo it over and overand over again, whether it's you
know, you know, 20 years ago itwould have been OSPF and BGP.
And then, you know, 10 yearsago it would have been Fiber
Channel and Fabric Path andthings like that.
And you know, eight years ago,sdn.
And then you know, the pastseveral years it's been cloud.
So for me, that is just a andit's something I love to do,
it's something I love to imparton people to like, hey, look at

(41:25):
this cool can build a realsimple network using Terraform
inside AWS.
And I was like just a monthinto like kind of figuring all
of that out, and it was justlike it was to be able to like,
oh, is this like Ansible?
It's like well, sort of it's alittle different, but it's like,
yeah, being able to.
So that to me that's the that'sthe most favorite part of this
industry is being able to bethat kind of eternal learner and

(41:46):
things.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
So there's two key points that I took away from
that statement.
One you stay up on networkingby networking, yes.
And two I'm guessing you don'tsuffer from imposter syndrome.

Speaker 4 (42:02):
No, I mean, I think the imposter syndrome you
definitely had that.
I definitely had that earlierin my career.
But for me, I know most of thetime.
I know the parts that I knowand I know there's a lot that I
don't, but it's being able toknow, like having done this
several times.
It's the confidence in knowing,yes, I don't know this, but I
can figure it out and theresources are there for me to

(42:25):
figure it out.
There was a time, like Imentioned in my career, when
it's like I don't have theresources.
I don't really, but there's somany different ways, whether
they are formal training,whether you want to open up a
Udemy course, whether you justwant to start playing, like I do
.
There's so many resources andyeah, I may not know a
particular piece, but I know Ican figure it out.
So that's how I kind ofovercome that imposter syndrome

(42:47):
side, because, yeah, there'sobviously so much I don't know,
but yeah, it's being able to.
So the resources are there andbeing able to ask for help if I
don't know what it is Like.
You know, I consider myself ina lot of ways the eternal
beginner in a lot of things,even though I've mastered a lot
of things but it's the best partof the career.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
Yeah, yeah, that's great.
I think it's really cool thatyou remember and recognize I've
mastered and learned complextopics in the past.
I know that there are resourcesavailable to me that I can
consume and learn, and then if Ireally need help, I can just
ask for it.
You own what you know, you ownwhat you don't know and you keep
moving forward and I thinkthat's a great way to face it.

Speaker 4 (43:27):
That's awesome yeah, I think it's.
Just don't be afraid to lookstupid.
I mean, it's, it's, it's it.
You know, I do it every day.
It's like oh yeah, I didn'tknow that.
Huh, okay, yeah, it's that's.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
We've got about 150 episodes of looking stupid and
look at us, we're kick-ass, butyou know the the whole uh thing.
I mean.
That really strikes home for usand especially just recently we

(44:00):
did an episode with QuinnSnyder and Jason Belk that if I
was going to teach somebody tosomebody else, then I needed to
be an expert in that given thingbefore I had the confidence to
be able to try to teach that tosomebody else.
And you know, we've kind ofproven that it's the opposite of
that, Because if you knowenough to be able to teach it to

(44:21):
somebody else, it's going tohelp that other person learn,
it's going to help you solidifythose as well.
So what you mentioned aboutdoing that presentation, you
know, within a month of learningsomething new, I think that
that's, you know, a perfectexample of that concept.

Speaker 4 (44:35):
Yeah, I think to drive that home, that's the best
way to make sure you have kindof understood the topic, that is
, being able to teach it.
And you may not know and youknow you're not going to get
everything right the first timebut going through that process
of like, okay, don't just havethis in my head, I'm going to
put this in a slide deck or apresentation or something and be
able to really talk about thisand being able to to play enough

(44:58):
of that stump the chump, whichis obviously my favorite game,
where you know you're doing apresentation.
I was like you know some people.
You know you want to appearsmart, that's fine, or you just
want to.
You know you really aregenuinely curious.
It's like, oh, never consideredthat.
So doing that part is myfavorite part, whether it's in
my job day to day or whetherit's doing presentations and
things like that.
Like you know, I'm doing asession next week on AWS network

(45:20):
troubleshooting using justbasically AWS command line stuff
.
So it's really being able tounderstand that, which I don't
normally do, but being able tolike okay, here's how you would
troubleshoot your AWS networkLike you were a network engineer
not going clicking around, notnot opening up a sniffer, but
being able to do that.
So yeah, it's being able to gothrough that over and over again
I find super rewarding.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
So selfish question for you, Greg, because you do,
you do a lot of community talks,you're you're doing content
creation and all that.
So I'm I'm trying to do more ofthat as well, especially on the
content creation side, andsometimes I'll be honest with
you I have a hard time, kind ofthat writer's block thing where
it's like, okay, what, what do Icreate content on now?

(46:02):
So how do you come up withthose ideas?
Is it something that you'reworking on that you say, hey,
this would be good to createcontent on?
Do you try to find things thatare industry trends?
What does that thought processlook for you for creating
content and also doingpresentations?

Speaker 4 (46:18):
So I will say it is less about industry trends for
me.
If I were doing industry trends, I would hop on AI things and
things like that, which Itotally believe are super
valuable, but it's not exactlymy thing and I don't feel like I
have a particular voice there.
I think it is discovering whereyour voice is and what you're
good at and where you came fromLike mine is having a lot of

(46:40):
experience in networking andmoving on to kind of that
pre-sales role and talking,being able to really empathize
with network engineers, and Itake it from that direction.
It's like what would I haveliked at some point in my career
.
Obviously, it's not the samething, but I wish I would have
had someone to help me out,understand this or tell me how
to, not just, you know, not theproduct level.

(47:00):
Here's how this protocol works,but hey, I've been thrust into
this situation and I need totroubleshoot this.
Help me how to troubleshootthis particular thing, or help
me really understand how aparticular forwarding path works
, because being able to reallyget to that so I find, for me,
that's how I approached it.
So industry trends are always alittle bit so obviously I'm

(47:21):
taking up.
Whenever I see something it'slike oh okay, automation or
something like that.
Definitely you do hit some ofthat, but for me it is really
being able to understand whatexactly I can provide and what
would have been useful to me.
It's like you know, I rememberspending six months on this,
doing building labs myself.
I wish I would have had someoneto point me in the right
direction and not, you know, notwaste my time doing all the

(47:42):
wrong ways of doing something.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
Yeah, that's good advice and I think see that a
lot with with people that createcontent.
I know that in the past I'verun against stuff, that's I just
beat my head against the walltrying to figure something out
and then I find somebody thatdid this article.
That is exactly you know, ablog article.
That's exactly what I'm, uh,what I'm going after, and I
usually, if, if I see that andsee that benefit, I usually try

(48:07):
to find the person, person andhit them up and say, hey, I know
you wrote this thing sevenyears ago, but it just helped me
today.

Speaker 4 (48:15):
Yeah, I get that sometimes too.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yes, if I've written or did a video on years ago,
it's like oh yeah, I guess Isort of did do that one, yeah
the best stories, too, arepeople who do blogs and content
years ago and all of a suddenthey're trying to figure
something out and they Google itand they find their own article
or their own video, yeah.
Aj's done that, yeah.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
I've done that, yeah, yep.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Completely forgot how to do something.
Google it my blog article isthe first entry.
I'm like well, I knew it at onepoint.
I can yeah.

Speaker 4 (48:45):
Yeah, I had a similar one where I had a recent
customer do it I think it wasFabric Path and I was like I
totally forgot how Fabric Pathworks and the first thing I
found was an article I wrote onit in 2011.
So I was like geez.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
That's amazing, I think, given everyone present
here on this particular episode,we should take a minute and
talk about the USNUA and yourlocal NUG.
So all three of us are NUGleaders.
Craig, you lead the NUG down inNorth Texas, tim leads his out
in Omaha and I lead mine here inBurlington, vermont.

(49:19):
How can folks get involved withthe USNUA?

Speaker 4 (49:24):
So, yeah, if you are interested in attending,
usnuacom has all the list of allthe recent ones there.
There's also a really reallygood Slack resource so you can
join the Slack and have somediscussions there about just you
know, similar networking trendsor new events coming up If
you're interested in leading onethat same place and you can
start talking about it, becausethere's plenty of cities out

(49:46):
there.
Like I run the North Texas, wehave one down in Houston, but
there's lots of places that wedon't have one.
So, you know, I found thatthere are, you know, other
places that you know similar to.
You know a couple of other oneswhere there's a lot of vendor
focused networking forums andbeing able to go to a place and
know that it's not talking abouta particular vendor and we're

(50:08):
just we're all just networkengineers and we want to be able
to talk about that and it'slike, yeah, getting those sorts
of things.
So I definitely recommend anyonecome out.
It's not scary, you know, andyou can be at any point in your
career.
Like you know, we haveuniversity students all the way
up to you know people that havebeen doing this for 40 years.
So it's just a great time andeveryone has a really cool topic

(50:29):
to talk about and you alwayslearn something.
No matter where you're at,you're always going to learn
something from somebody.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
Yeah, I will say, having been involved in other
user groups, that is one thingthat is different about the
USNUA and these NUGS.
They are truly low low pressuresales environments so well in
previous groups that I've beeninvolved in we'd have sponsors
and depending on the level ofsponsorship, determine how much

(50:57):
talk time you got in front ofthe audience, and there was
these really hard pitches onproducts and stuff like that.
Uh, and then you might have apresentation from somebody
locally that talked about somereally cool topic, how they did
some automation or whatever.
But these are truly no salespitch events, if they're done
correctly anyway, and so it'sreally great to just hear people

(51:21):
engage on a panel or a reallyneat presentation on how they
tackle the problem or some newemerging tech.
They're just plain fun eventsand there's a lot of time built
in to actually network withlocal network engineers or
people with networking-focusedjobs.
So these are just great eventsand I personally can't encourage

(51:43):
people enough to take a look atthem and get involved.
And, like Craig said, if thereisn't one in your area, start
one up.
They're super easy.
The staff at USNUA they takecare of all the work.
They find the sponsors, theyhelp negotiate rates with places
to do the events.
You don't have to do any ofthat.
You do like a half hour meetingevery couple of weeks leading

(52:06):
up to the event and thenobviously the most work you put
in is day off.
But other than that it's.
They really couldn't be easier.
Tim, what's your experiencebeen like out in Omaha?

Speaker 2 (52:15):
That's exactly what I was going to say, aj.
One of the first questions Iasked when wanting thinking
about starting one of these upwas what's, what's the time
involved?
Because you know, I didn't,because I didn't want to have to
put in a whole bunch of timeand effort, given work and
family and all that.
And I would say my feedback isdon't let the phrase group

(52:36):
leader scare you.
To AJ's point, there is a teamthat does a lot of this.
I mean, you're asked to givesome ideas of what would be good
venues, maybe give some ideasof who you think would be good
sponsors.
And to AJ's point, thatleadership team at the USNUA

(52:56):
handles all of that.
They talk to the venues.
You really need to receive theshirts and the stickers and that
kind of stuff and then you workthe day of the it's.
I think what you get out of itis you know it's converse to
what you usually say what youget out of it is much more than
what you need to put into it.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Yeah, I agree for sure.
Uh, craig, uh, our time isflying by here.
In the last few minutes we have, is there anything that we
should have asked you, or isthere anything that you want to
talk about that we haven't yettouched?

Speaker 4 (53:31):
So yeah, I mean, in terms of, I think you've kind of
covered you know my career anda couple of the interests so I'm
kind of interested in you knowwe talked about kind of moving
on and things.
So I know I tend to be theeternal beginner and I get
inspired by you know.
I know I tend to be the eternalbeginner and I get inspired by
you know events like like AWSreinvent and Cisco live and
things like that.

(53:52):
So I I'm kind of curious onyour guys.
So just flip it around.
What are your sources of, ofinspiration of, like you said
you were going for the CCD, what?
What made you kind of decide todo that?
Cause I have the same sort of.
I'm going for the solution, I'mgoing for the AWS solutions
architect one which is a not notas not to that level, of course
, but it's, it's the premiercertification.
So I'm kind of curious here andjust anybody else's perspective

(54:13):
.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
Yeah, so.
So there was.
There was a couple of thingsthat really pushed me to decide
to go for the CCDE.
So at one point I wanted itright.
Like I've always been intonetwork design, it's been one of
my favorite topics.
You know, when thecda was athing that, like I got my ccna
and then I immediately went andgot my ccda, uh, and I love
design so much like I studiedthe crap out of that exam, you

(54:36):
know, and I and that's one ofthe few cisco exams I passed
like the first time around Ireally wanted to do the ccdp but
they changed the cert program.
Uh, before I was able to get myCCNP, I did the enterprise
design exam for my CCNP.
So I love design.
I'm at a point in my careerwhere I'm doing an architect
position.
Now I don't really touch thekeyboard anymore.

(54:58):
Does it make sense to go forthe CCIE?
No, not really.
It's just not part of myday-to-day anymore.
But thinking about, how do Icreate these environments that
support demos and stuff likethat?
that is a very big part of myjob and always, having been
interested in the CCDE from thebeginning, cisco Live definitely

(55:20):
inspired me to want to get backout there and study again.
There was this fire inside meat one point that said go for an
expert level, sir.
You know, I never thought Iwould get my CCNP.
So to be this close to go andget an expert level, sir, I I
gotta at least try it.
You know, the other thing thatactually inspired me to go do it
was Nick Russo's passing.

(55:41):
So as we record this episode, afew weeks ago we lost Nick
Russo to a very early, uh,untimely passing.
Uh, and.
And nick nick's 38, that's,he's younger than I am now.
Wow, uh, and.
And as far as expert levelcertifications go, he'd
accomplish three and I've gotzero.
Um, I mean, he's done countlessother things for the community
where the content is created.

(56:02):
Uh, there's.
There's absolutely nocomparison there, but
remembering that, hey, we're nothere forever and time's just
ticking, so I have decided tomake the commitment to go and
get the CCDE.
I've bought a whole bunch ofbooks that I'm very excited to

(56:23):
read.
I reinvested in a Kindlebecause I don't have room for
all those physical books again,and so I'm very excited to get
started on this journey.
And I'm hoping I'm thinking youknow, because, as we kind of
discussed earlier in the episode, the best way to learn
something is to learn it withthe intent to teach it.
So I want to learn these topicson the CCDE and teach them

(56:45):
through either, you know,blogging, short form content,
you know, maybe talk about it ona podcast episode if it makes
sense for us to talk about it asa group.
But you know that's that's thegoal.
So I'm hoping to be able totake the written at some point
in the next year and then we'llsee when, when we do the actual
lab.
But that's the short term.

Speaker 4 (57:09):
Very cool, very cool.
Yeah, I tend to agree with thata little bit Like I'm at a
point in my career that anactual certification probably
won't help me in career wise andthings like that.
But yeah, it's definitelyseeing everyone out there and
seeing like it's, it's a mark ofkind of yes, I, I know I have
at least got this kernel of.
You know, we used to say when I, when I did the CCIE, that was

(57:29):
just the beginning and I believeit's the same thing for any
level, any sort of an expertlevel certification that's just
the beginning of the journey ofit.
You know, it's a way for mepersonally to kind of mark, give
me kind of a hard marker model.
So it's like, okay, I've donethis, now I can.
You know, I feel better aboutmoving on to the next thing or
enhancing my knowledge in aparticular area.

(57:49):
So I totally agree.
There's expert levelcertification.
Well, definitely not easy anddon't you know, don't overdo
them in terms of your work-lifebalance, but 100%.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
Awesome Tim.
Any thoughts on expert levelcertification for you?

Speaker 2 (58:06):
No, nothing wrong with that.
The commentary I do want to addthere is that I think I'm I'm
at a point in my career that Ithink I can really start leaning
into things that interest memore and more.
Um, I, I've for the longesttime it's been with a network
focus, uh, but for the longesttime I've's been with a network

(58:27):
focus but for the longest timeI've really been intrigued by
different security concepts.
So I'm kind of starting to leaninto that a little bit.
But you know, craig said thathe was the eternal newcomer, the
eternal, not newcomer, buteternal learner.
I think I am the eternalgeneralist and I get my, I

(58:50):
really get my fire from from,you know, finding those adjacent
things and, where I like, beingable to to see as close as I
can, to provide that the, thebig picture or the whole picture
.
And I, I really haven't everbeen drawn into, um, you know,
becoming narrowly narrow,focused on on a specific thing,
at least enough to go aftersomething at the expert level.

(59:12):
But if I were AJ, I wouldprobably align with where you're
at, because I've been big onthe design, being able to look
at that big picture.
When I did the CCMP, theenterprise, the design specialty
was what I had my sights set onand got, so I think you and I
align a lot there.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
Well, I'm trying to start a study group, man, so if
you have second thoughts aboutwanting to do that, there's a
seat here for you.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
That seat might get cold.

Speaker 1 (59:42):
And the last time I started a study group, a podcast
came out of it.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
Yeah, maybe you'll make a movie this time.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
I'm trying to think of what's going to happen next.
Nice, nice, awesome Craig.
This has been a funconversation.
If people want to get to knowmore about you, where can they
go?
So?

Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
on X.
I'm at Captain Packet.
Of course I'm on LinkedIn aswell.
You can just search for my namethere.
But as well, you can justsearch for my name there.
But yeah, I'm also active onthe All About the Journey
Discord.
So any one of those placesgenerally, any one of the
platforms you search for CaptainPacket, you'll find me Xbox
Live, anything.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
Literally everywhere.
That's awesome, craig.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
This has again been such areally fun conversation.
It was great to get to know youand your career.
I love all the little tidbitswe pulled out here about just
really owning being a learner,so thank you very much for
sharing those insights.
Thank you very much, awesome,and we'll see you next time on

(01:00:40):
another episode of the Art ofNetwork Engineering podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
Hey there, friends, we hope you enjoyed listening to
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(01:01:13):
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You can also find us on thatweaving web that is the internet
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There you'll find our shownotes and some blog articles
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(01:01:34):
their thoughts down on thatvirtual paper.
Until next time, friends,thanks for listening.