Podcasts about cisco champion

Join us as we celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the Cisco Champion program. In this special episode, long-time members who have been part of the program reflect on its evolution and success. We delve into the program's growth, highlighting its global diversity, the integration of new technologies, and its expanded focus beyond blogging to include podcasts and sessions at Cisco Live. Discover how the Cisco Champion program has transformed from a content creation initiative to a vibrant community where like-minded individuals connect and network. Hear firsthand how participation in Cisco Live enriches the experience, allowing for real-life connections and feedback on Cisco products and solutions. Despite the challenges of maintaining a work-life balance, these dedicated champions share their independent insights and opinions about Cisco, influencing the company's perspective and future releases. Tune in to learn more about the passion and commitment that drives the Cisco Champions and how they build a strong, supportive community. Don't miss this engaging discussion on the impact and future of the Cisco Champion program. Cisco Champion hosts Bill Burnam, Networking Engineer IV, Asurion Micheline Murphy, Consulting Systems Engineer, WWT Ben Story, Senior Network Security Engineer, RedEye Network Solutions LLC Stew Goumans, Director of Community and Customer Engagement, Ekahau Moderator Danielle Carter, Customer Voices and Cisco Champion

Emerging forms of wireless connectivity are growing in popularity as a new way to reach people in highly remote, rural, and difficult-to-reach locations. They are particularly important in getting sites connected more quickly. 5G and satellite internet offer crucial connectivity to businesses to deliver their offerings to more people in more places, though they lack sophisticated technologies to secure and optimize end-user experiences against disruptions, packet loss, latency, jitter, and cybersecurity incidents. Learn how Catalyst SD-WAN enhances satellite internet by using embedded threat defense, intelligent application prioritization, and packet management capabilities to protect and optimize connectivity for smooth, secure, and reliable end-user performance. Resources https://community.cisco.com/t5/networking-knowledge-base/catalyst-sd-wan-quickstart-guide-for-using-starlink/ta-p/5112291 Cisco guests Pratik Desai, Product Marketing Lead, Cisco Meraki Jason Yang, Principal TME, Cisco Cisco Champion Hosts Ryan Harris, Sr. Network Engineer, BlueAlly Dan Kelcher, Sr. Cisco Network Architect, BGSF Sijbren Beukenkamp, Director/Owner, 2Corners Peter Foppen, Technical Solutions Architect, Comstor Nederland Moderator Danielle Carter, Customer Voices and Cisco Champion

In this episode, our Cisco Champions dive into the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence (AI). From transforming industries to enhancing everyday experiences, AI is reshaping how we live and work. Join us as we discuss the current trends, breakthroughs, and potential challenges that come with integrating AI into various sectors, including IT, healthcare, finance, and beyond. Whether you're curious about how AI impacts business innovation or what it means for personal data privacy and security, this episode will provide valuable insights on the future of technology in a world powered by AI. Cisco Champion hosts Micheline Murphy, Consulting Systems Engineer, WWT Girard Kavelines, Network/Security Engineer, Aqueduct Technologies, Inc. David Macias, Independent Consultant Moderator Danielle Carter, Customer Voices and Cisco Champion Program, Cisco

Packet captures are an invaluable tool for network teams, yet the traditional process of capturing can be manual and cumbersome, turning what should be an asset into a chore. With the new Cloud PCAP integration in the Meraki dashboard, we've reimagined embedded packet captures to be even easier to take and analyze, streamlining network and security operations with enhanced monitoring. Join our Cisco Champion hosts, Brennan Martin (Technical Marketing Leader, Cisco Meraki) and Zach Chadwick (Innovation Strategist) from QA Cafe as we delve into the strategic outcomes and practical use cases of Cloud PCAP. Learn to unlock its full potential and seamlessly incorporate network analytics into your workflow for impactful results. Resources: Cisco Guest: Brenan Martin, Technical Marketing Leader, Cisco Meraki Guest speaker: Zach Chadwick, Innovation Strategist, QA Cafe Cisco Champion Hosts: Rickey Keith (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickey-keith-4567bb8/), Consulting Systems Engineer, WWT Pierre Besombes (https://www.linkedin.com/in/pierrebesombes/), Sr. Network Engineer, Technical Leader, Rakuten Alexander Deca (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderdeca/), Principal Network Engineer, NTT Moderator Danielle Carter, Cisco, CCR Program/ Customer Voices

Deirra Footman is a Senior Network Engineer, Cisco Champion,  Blogger, and Podcaster operating at the intersection of Technology and Content Creation. In this conversation, we discuss the merits of vocational education, common hurdles of starting a career in tech, the impact that social media has on educational pursuits,  and strategies for how to approach continued learning.Where to find DeirraBlog: https://ccieby30.com/Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thrive-in-tech/id1677846448YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CCIEBY30LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deirrajfootman/Twitter: https://twitter.com/ccieby30TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ccieby30_Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ccieby30Follow, Like, and Subscribe!Podcast: https://www.thecloudgambit.com/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCloudGambitLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thecloudgambitTwitter: https://twitter.com/TheCloudGambitTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thecloudgambit

As industries become increasingly interconnected and reliant on technology, the need for robust security measures has never been more critical. In this podcast, we will explore the evolving threat landscape, discuss the potential consequences of industrial cyberattacks, and shed light on the vulnerabilities that commonly exist within industrial control systems. Resources Industrial security: https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/products/security/industrial-security/index.html Industrial visibility with Cisco Cyber Vision: https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/products/security/industrial-security/cyber-vision/index.html Secure remote access with Cisco Secure Equipment Access: https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/products/security/industrial-security/secure-equipment-access/index.html Cisco Guests Andrew McPhee, Solutions Manager, industrial Security, Cisco Cisco Champion Hosts Jonathan Mahady (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanmahady/), Senior PCN Network Engineer, BHP Marc Luescher (https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcluescher/), Sr. Solutions Architect, AWS Liam Keegan (www.linkedin.com/in/liamjkeegan/), Solutions Architect, 24/7 Networks Moderator Danielle Carter, Customer Voices and Cisco Champion Program Link to 2024 Cisco Champion application: https://smarturl.it/CiscoChampion2024Application

In this episode of the PowerShell Podcast, we were thrilled to sit virtually with none other than Joe Houghes, engaging him in an insightful discussion about his dynamic journey and participation in community activity. Woven throughout with humor and knowledge, our ponderings with Joe centered around the significance of building relationships within the community. We ventured further into the dialogue surrounding the emphasis on soft skills and their interaction with professional growth. The conversation pivoted towards effective communication as an investment into one's self, bringing about palpable value in the workplace. Walk away with a newfound reflective insight and tangible advice for involvement in the community, all courtesy of Joe's enlightening experiences.   Bio: Joe Houghes is a co-leader of the Denver PowerShell & VMware User Groups and he is a Sr. Solutions Architect with Pure Storage. He focuses on automating us out of our IT operations while freeing us to perform higher-level tasks. Joe has been the #1 speaker internationally for VMUG in 2021 and 2022 for virtual and in-person events, and is always working to help & encourage the next community speaker(s) to take his place, while helping to get them started. Joe also works to evangelize the message that automation should be a focus for admins & engineers, even though it requires more in-depth thinking and focus beyond performing a task once. He knows that even though it is not always someone's default method, the result is then repeatable and consistent. Joe tries to help others understand why we should do the easy tasks better, and he challenges everyone to push themselves outside of their comfort zone and learn more about any topic of interest. Joe is a collector of communities as a leader for 2 User Groups, and a member of many evangelist groups including Microsoft MVP, Veeam Vanguard, VMware vExpert, Cisco Champion, Tanzu Vanguard, plus he helps out to host events as part of the vBrownBag crew. He tells people not to let fear keep them from sharing their knowledge with others and teaching from their unique perspective. He's also easy to spot by the colored hat, big grin, and the loud "Howdy Y'all."   Watch The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vQb21FFcwo Resource links: https://github.com/HCRitter/PSModuleAnalyzer https://twitter.com/AndrewPlaTech/status/1709594063370928639 https://mikefrobbins.com/2023/09/27/create-calculated-properties-in-powershell/ https://clatent.com/2023/09/getting-started-with-365automatedlab-part-1/ https://psconf.eu/ https://fullstackgeek.net/ https://twitter.com/jhoughes @jhoughes@vmst.io https://github.com/jhoughes https://www.youtube.com/@joehoughes

Nate Avery, Outbound Product Manager at Google, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss what it's like working in the world of tech, including the implications of AI technology on the workforce and the importance of doing what you love. Nate explains why he feels human ingenuity is so important in the age of AI, as well as why he feels AI will make humans better at the things they do. Nate and Corey also discuss the changing landscape of tech and development jobs, and why it's important to help others throughout your career while doing something you love. About NateNate is an Outbound Product Manager at Google Cloud focused on our DevOps tools. Prior to this, Nate has 20 years of experience designing, planning, and implementing complex systems integrating custom-built and COTS applications. Throughout his career, he has managed diverse teams dedicated to meeting customer goals. With a background as a manager, engineer, Sys Admin, and DBA, Nate is currently working on ways to better build and use virtualized computer resources in both internal and external cloud environments. Nate was also named a Cisco Champion for Datacenter in 2015.Links Referenced: Google Cloud: https://cloud.google.com/devops Not Your Dad's IT: http://www.notyourdadsit.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nathaniel_avery LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathaniel-avery-2a43574/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: It's easy to **BEEP** up on AWS. Especially when you're managing your cloud environment on your own!Mission Cloud un **BEEP**s your apps and servers. Whatever you need in AWS, we can do it. Head to missioncloud.com for the AWS expertise you need. Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn, and my guest today is Nate Avery, who's an outbound product manager over at Google Cloud. Nate, thank you for joining me.Nate: Thank you for having me. This is really a pretty high honor. I'm super thrilled to be here.Corey: One of my questions that I have about any large company when I start talking to them and getting to know people who work over there, pretty quickly emerges, which is, “What's the deal with your job title?” And it really doesn't matter what the person does, what the company is, there's always this strange nuance that tends to wind up creeping into the company. What is an outbound product manager and what is it you say it is you do here?Nate: Okay. That's an interesting question because I've been here for about a year now and I think I'm finally starting to figure it out. Sure, I should have known more when I applied for the job, [laugh] but there's what's on the paper and then there's what you do in reality. And so, what it appears to be, where I'm taking this thing now, is I talk to folks about our products and I try to figure out what it is they like, what it is they don't like, and then how do we make it better? I take that information back to our engineers, we huddle up, and we figure out what we can do, how to do it better, how to set the appropriate targets when it comes to our roadmaps. We look at others in the industry, where we are, where they are, where we think we can maybe have an advantage, and then we try to make it happen. That's really what it is.Corey: One of the strange things that happens at big companies, at least from my perspective, given that I've spent most of my career in small ones, is that everyone has a niche. There are very few people at large companies whose job description is yeah, I basically do everything. Where do you start? And where do you stop because Google Cloud, even bounding it to that business unit, is kind of enormous? You've [got 00:02:47] products that are outbound that you manage. And I feel like I should also call out that a product being outbound is not the same thing as being outgoing. I know that people are always wondering, what's Google going to turn off next, but Google Cloud mostly does the right thing in that respect. Good work.Nate: [laugh]. Nice. So, the products I focus on are the DevOps products. So, those are Cloud Build, Cloud Deploy, Artifact Registry, Artifact Analysis. I also work with some of our other dev tooling such as Cloud Workstations. That's in public preview right now, but maybe by the time this goes to air, it'll actually be in general availability.And then I also will talk about some of our other lesser-known tools like Skaffold or maybe on occasion, I'll throw out something about minikube. And also, Cloud Code, which is a really deep browser plugin for your IDE that gives you access to lots of different Google tools. So yeah, that's sort of my area.Corey: Well, I'm going to start with the last thing you mentioned, where you have Cloud Code as an IDE tooling and a plug-in for it. I'm relatively new to the world of IDEs because I come from the world of grumpy Unix admins; you never know what you're going to be remoting into next, but it's got VI on it, so worst case, you'll have that. So, I grew up using that, and as a result, that is still my default. I've been drifting toward VS Code a fair bit lately, as I've been regrettably learning JavaScript and TypeScript, just because having a lot of those niceties is great. But what's really transformative for me has been a lot of the generative AI offerings from various companies around hey, how about we just basically tab-complete your code for you, which is astonishing. I know people love to argue about that and then they go right back to their old approach of copying and pasting their code off a Stack Overflow.Nate: Yeah. That's an interesting one. When it works, it works and it's magical. And those are those experiences where you say, “I'm going to do this thing forever and ever I'm never going to go back.” And then when it doesn't work, you find yourself going back and then you maybe say, “Well, heck, that was horrible. Why'd I ever even go down this path?”I will say everyone's working on something along those lines. I don't think that that's much of a secret. And there are just so many different avenues at getting there. And I think that this is so early in the game that where we are today isn't where we're going to be.Corey: Oh, just—it's accelerating. Watching the innovation right now in the generative AI space is incredible. My light bulb moment that finally got me to start paying attention to this and viewing it as something other than hype that people are trying to sell us on conference stages was when I use one of them to spit out just, from a comment in VS Code, “Write a Python script that will connect to AWS pricing API and tell me what something costs, sorted from most to least expensive regions.” Because doing that manually would have taken a couple hours because their data structures are a sad joke and that API is garbage. And it sat and spun for a second and then it did it. But if I tell that story as, “This is the transformative moment that opened my eyes,” I sound incredibly sad and pathetic.Nate: No, I don't think so. I think that what it does, is it… one, it will open up more eyes, but the other thing that it does is you have to take that to the next level, which is great. That's great work, gone. Now that I have this information, what do I do with it? That's really where we need to be going and where we need to think about what this AI revolution is going to allow us to do, and that's to actually put this stuff into context.That's what humans do, which the computers are not always great at. And so, for instance, I see a lot of posts online about, “Hey, you know, I used to do job X, where I wrote up all these things,” or, “I used to write a blog and now because of AI, my boss wants me to write, you know, five times the output.” And I'm thinking, “Well, maybe the thing that you're writing doesn't need to be written if it can be easily queried and generated on the fly.” You know? Maybe those blog posts just don't have that much value anymore. So, what is it that we really should concentrate on in order to help us do better stuff, to have a higher order of importance in the world? That's where I think a lot of this really will wind up going is… you know, just as people, we've got to be better. And this will help us get there.Corey: One area of nuance on this, though, is—you're right when I talked about this with some of my developer friends, some of their responses were basically to become immediately defensive. Like, “Sure, it's great for the easy stuff, but it's not going to solve the high-level stuff that senior engineers are good at.” And I get that. This ridiculous thing that I had to do is not a threat to a senior engineer, but it is arguably a threat to someone I find on Upwork or Fiverr or whatnot to go and write this simple script for me.Nate: Oh yeah.Corey: Now, the concern that I have is one of approachability and accessibility because. Senior engineers don't form fully created from the forehead of some God somewhere that emerges from Google. They start off as simply people who have no idea what they're doing and have a burning curiosity about something, in many cases. Where is the next generation going to get the experience of writing a lot of that the small-scale stuff, if it's done for them? And I know that sounds alarmist, and oh, no, the sky is falling, and are the children going to be all right, as most people my age start to get into. But I do wonder what the future holds.Nate: That's legit. That's a totally legit question because it's always kind of hanging out there. I look at what my kids have access to today. They have freaking Oracle, the Oracle at Delphi on their phone; you know, and—Corey: If Oracle the database on their phone, I would hate to imagine what the cost of raising your kids to adulthood would be.Nate: Oh, it's mighty, mighty high [laugh]. But no, they have all of this stuff at their hands and then even just in the air, right? There's ambient computing, there's any question you want answered, you could speak it into the air and it'll come out. And it'll be, let's just say, I don't know, at least 85% accurate. But my kids still ask me [laugh].Corey: Having my kids, who are relatively young, still argue and exhaust their patience on a robot with infinite patience instead of me who has no patience? Transformative. “How do I spell whatever it is?” “Ask Alexa,” becomes a story instead of, “Look it up in the dictionary,” like my parents used to tell me. It's, “If I knew how to spell it, I would need to look it up in the dictionary, but I don't, so I can't.”Nate: Right. And I would never need to spell it again because I have the AI write my whole thing for me.Corey: That is a bit of concern for me when—some of the high school teachers are freaking out about students are writing essays with this thing. And, yeah, on the one hand, I absolutely see this as alarmism, where, oh, no, I'm going to have to do my job, on some level. But the reason you write so many of those boring, pointless essays in English class over the course of the K through 12 experience is ideally, it's teaching you how to frame your discussions, how to frame an argument, how to tell a compelling story. And, frankly, I think that's something that a lot of folks in the engineering cycle struggle with mightily. You're a product slash program manager at this point; I sort of assume that I don't need to explain to you that engineers are sometimes really bad at explaining what they mean.Nate: Yeah. Dude, I came up in tech. I'm… bad at it too sometimes [laugh]. Or when I think I'm doing a great job and then I look over and I see a… you know, the little blanky, blanky face, it goes, “Oh. Oh, hold on. I'll recalibrate that for you.” It's a thing.Corey: It's such a bad trope that they have now decided that they are calling describing what you actually mean slash want is now an entire field called prompt engineering.Nate: Dude, I hate that. I don't understand how this is going to be a job. It seems to be the most ridiculous thing in the world. If you say, “I sit down for six hours a day and I ask my computer questions,” I got to ask, “Well, why?” [laugh]. You know? And really, that's the thing. It gets back—Corey: Well, most of us do that all day long. It's just in Microsoft Excel or they use SQL to do it.Nate: Yeah… it is, but you don't spend your day asking the question of your computer, “Why.” Or really, most of us ask the question, “How?” That's really what it is we're doing.Corey: Yeah. And that is where I think it's going to start being problematic for some folks who are like, “Well, what is the point of writing blog posts if Chat-GIPITY can do it?” And yes, that's how I pronounce it: Chat-GIPITY. And the response is, “Look, if you're just going to rehash the documentation, you're right. There's no point in doing it.”Don't tell me how to do something. Tell me why. Tell me when I should consider using this tool, that tool, why this is interesting to me, why it exists. Because the how, one way or another, there are a myriad ways to find out the answer to something, but you've got to care first and convincing people to care is something computers still have not figured out.Nate: Bingo. And that gets back to your question about the engineers, right? Yeah. Okay. So sure, the little low-level tasks of, “Hey I need you to write this API.” All right, so maybe that stuff does get farmed out.However, the overall architecture still has to be considered by someone, someone still has to figure out where and how, and when things should be placed and the order in which these things should be connected. That never really goes away. And then there's also the act of creation. And by creation, I mean, just new ideas, things that—you know, that stroke of creativity and brilliance where you just say, “Man, I think there's a better way to do this thing.” Until I see that from one of these generative AI products, I don't know if anyone should truly feel threatened.Corey: I would argue that people shouldn't necessarily feel threatened regardless because things always change; that's the nature of it. I saw a headline on Hacker News recently where it said that 90% of my skills are worthless, but 10% of them are 10x what they were was worth. And I think that there's a lot of truth to that because it's, if you want a job where you never have to—you don't have to keep up with the continuing field, there are options. Not to besmirch them, but accountants are a terrific example of this. Yes, there's change to accountancy rules, but it happens slowly and methodically. You don't go on vacation for two years as an accountant—or a sabbatical—come back and discover that everything's different and math doesn't work the way it once did. Computers on the other hand, it really does feel like it's keep up or you never will.Nate: Unless you're a COBOL guy and you get called back for y2k.Corey: Oh, of course. And I'm sure—and now you're sitting around, you're waiting because when the epic time problem hits in 2038, you're going to get your next call out. And until then, it's kind of a sad life. You're the Maytag repair person.Nate: Yeah. I'm bad at humor, by the way, in case you have noticed. So, you touched on something there about the rate of change and how things change and whether or not these generative AI models are going to be able to—you know, just how far can they go? And I think that there's a—something happened over the last week or so that really got me thinking about this. There was a posting of a fake AI-generated song, I think from Drake.And say what you want about cultural appropriation, all that sort of thing, and how horrible that is, what struck me was the idea that these sorts of endeavors can only go so far because in any genre where there's language, and current language that morphs and changes and has subtlety to it, the generative AI would have to somehow be able to mimic that. And not to say that it could never get there, but again, I see us having some situations where folks are worried about a lot of things that they don't need to worry about, you know, just at this moment.Corey: I'm curious to figure out what your take is on how you see the larger industry because for a long time—and yes, it's starting to fade on some level, because it's not 2006 anymore, but there was a lot of hero worship going on with respect to Google, in particular. It was the mythical city on the hill where all the smart people went and people's entire college education was centered around the idea of, well, I'm going to get a job at Google when I graduate or I'm doomed. And it never seems to work out that way. I feel like there's a much more broad awareness these days that there's no one magical company that has the answers and there are a lot of different paths. But if you're giving guidance to someone who's starting down that path today, what would it be?Nate: Do what you love. Find something that you love, figure out who does the thing that you love, and go there. Or go to a place that does a thing that you love poorly. Go there. See if you can make a difference. But either way, you're working on something that you like to do.And really, in this business, if you can't get in the door at one of those places, then you can make your own door. It's becoming easier and easier to just sort of shoehorn yourself into this space. And a lot of it, yeah, there's got to be talent, yeah, you got to believe in yourself, all that sort of thing, but the barriers to entry are really low right now. It's super easy to start up a website, it costs you nothing to have a GitHub account. I really find it surprising when I talked to my younger cousins or someone else in that age range and they start asking, like, “Well, hey, how do I get into business?”And I'm like, “Well, what's your portfolio?” You know? And I ask them, “Do you want to work for someone else? Or would you like to at least try working for yourself first?” There are so many different avenues open to folks that you're right, you don't have to go to company X or you will never be anything anymore. That said, I am at [laugh] one of the bigger companies and do there are some brilliant people here. I bump into them and it's kind of wild. It really, really is.Corey: Oh, I want to be very clear, despite the shade that I throw at Google—and contemporary peers in the big tech company space—there are an awful lot of people who are freaking brilliant. And more importantly, by far, a lot of people who are extraordinarily kind.Nate: Yeah. Yeah. So, all right, in this business, there's that whole trope about, “Yeah, they're super smart, but they're such jerks.” It doesn't have to be that way. It really doesn't. And it's neat when you run into a place that has thousands of people who do not fit that horrible stereotype out there of the geek who can't, you know, who can't get along well with others. It's kind of nice.But I also think that that's because the industry itself is opening up. I go on to Twitter now and I see so many new faces and I see folks coming in, you know, for whatever reason, they're attracted to it for reasons, but they're in. And that's the really neat part of it. I used to worry that I didn't see a lot of young people being interested in this space. But I'm starting to notice it now and I think that we're going to wind up being in good hands.Corey: The kids are all right, I think, is a good way of framing it. What made you decide to go to Google? Again, you said you've been there about a year at this point. And, on some level, there's always a sense in hindsight of, well, yeah, obviously someone went from this job to that job to that job. There's a narrative here and it makes sense, but I've never once in my life found that it made sense and was clear while you're making the decision. It feels like it only becomes clear in hindsight.Nate: Yes, I am an extremely lucky person. I am super fortunate, and I will tell a lot of people, sometimes I have the ability to fall ass-backwards into success. And in this case, I am here because I was asked. I was asked and I didn't really think that I was the Google type because, I don't know what I thought the Google type was, just, you know, not me.And yet, I… talked it out with some folks, a really good, good buddy of mine and [laugh] I'll be darned, you know, next thing, you know, I'm here. So, gosh, what can I say except, don't limit yourself [laugh]. We do have a tendency to do that and oh, my God, it's great to have a champion and what I'd like to do now, now that you mention it and it's been something that I had on my mind for a bit is, I've got to figure out how to, you know how to start, you know, giving back, paying it forward, whatever the phrase it is you want to use? Because—Corey: I like, “Send the elevator back down.”Nate: Send the elevator back down? There you go, right? If that escalator stopped, turn it back on.Corey: Yeah, escalator; temporarily, stairs.Nate: Yes. You know, there are tons of ways up. But you know, if you can help someone, just go ahead and do it. You'd be surprised what a little bit of kindness can do.Corey: Well, let's tie this back to your day job for a bit, on some level. You're working on, effectively, developer tools. Who's the developer?Nate: Who's the developer? So, there's a general sense in the industry that anyone who works in IT or anyone who writes code is a developer. Sometimes there's the very blanket statement out there. I tend to take the view that a developer is the person who writes the code. That is a developer, that's [unintelligible 00:21:52] their job title. That's the thing that they do.The folks who assist developers, the folks who keep the servers up and running, they're going to have a lot of different names. They're DevOps admins, they're platform admins, they're server admins. Whatever they are, rarely would I call them developers, necessarily. So, I get it. We try to make blanket statement, we try to talk to large groups at a time, but you wouldn't go into your local county hospital and say that, “I want to talk to the dentist,” when you really mean, like, a heart surgeon.So, let's not do that, you know? We're known for our level of specificity when we discuss things in this field, so let's try to be a little more specific when we talk about the folks who do what they do. Because I came up on that ops track and I know the type of effort that I put in, and I looked at folks across from me and I know the kind of hours that they put in, I know all of the blood sweat and tears and nightless sleeps and answering the pagers at four in the morning. So, let's just call them what they are, [laugh] right? And it's not to say that calling them a developer is an insult in any way, but it's not a flex either.Corey: You do work at a large cloud company, so I have to assume that this is a revelation for you, but did you know that words actually mean things? I know, it's true. You wouldn't know it from a lot of the product names that wind up getting scattered throughout the world. The trophy for the worst one ever though, is Azure DevOps because someone I was talking to as a hiring manager once thought that they listed that is a thing they did on their resume and was about to can the resume. It's, “Wow, when your product name is so bad that it impacts other people's careers, that's kind of impressively awful.”But I have found that back when the DevOps movement was getting started, I felt a little offput because I was an operations person; I was a systems administrator. And suddenly, people were asking me about being a developer and what it's like. And honestly, on some level, I felt like an imposter, just because I write configuration files; I don't write code. That's very different. Code is something smart people write and I'm bad at doing that stuff.And in the fullness of time, I'm still bad at it, but at least now unenthusiastically bad at it. And, on some level, brute force also becomes a viable path forward. But it felt like it was gatekeeping, on some level, and I've always felt like the terms people use to describe what I did weren't aimed at me. I just was sort of against the edge.Nate: Yeah. And it's a weird thing that happens around here, how we get to these points, or… or somehow there's an article that gets written and then all of a sudden, everyone's life is changed in an industry. You go from your job being, “Hey, can you rack and stack the server?” To, “Hey, I need you to write this YAML code that's going to virtually instantiate a server and also connect it to a load balancer, and we need these done globally.” It's a really weird transition that happens in life.But like you said, that's part of our job: it morphs, it changes, it grows. And that's the fun of it. We hope that these changes are actually for the better and then they're going to make us more productive and they're going to make our businesses thrive and do things that they couldn't be before, like maybe be more resilient. You know, you look at the number of customers—customers; I think of them as customers—who had issues because of that horrible day in 9/11 and, you know, their business goes down the tube because there wasn't an adequate DR or COOP strategy, you know? And I know, I'm going way back in the wayback, but it's real. And I knew people who were affected by it.Corey: It is. And the tide is rising. This gets back to what we were talking about where the things that got you here won't necessarily get you there. And Cloud is a huge part of that. These days, I don't need to think about load balancers, in many cases, or all of the other infrastructure pieces because Google Cloud—among other companies, as well, lots of them—have moved significantly up the stack.I mean, people are excited about Kubernetes in a whole bunch of ways, but what an awful lot of enterprises are super excited about is suddenly, a hard drive failure doesn't mean their application goes down.Nate: [Isn't that 00:26:24] kind of awesome?Corey: Like, that's a transformative moment for them.Nate: It totally is. You know, I get here and I look at the things that people are doing and I kind of go, “Wow,” right? I'm in awe. And to be able to contribute to that in some way by saying, “Hey, you know what, we'll be cool? How about we try this feature?” Is really weird, [laugh] right?It's like, “Wow, they listened to me.” But we think about what it is we're trying to do and a lot of it, strangely enough, is not just helping people, but helping people by getting out of the way. And that is huge, right? You know, because you just want it to work, but more than it just working, you want it to be seamless. What's easier than putting your key in the ignition and turning it? Well, not having to use a key at all.So, what are those types of changes that we can bring to these different types of experiences that folks have? If you want to get your application onto a Kubernetes cluster, it shouldn't be some Herculean feat.Corey: And running that application responsibly should not require a team of people, each making a quarter million bucks a year, just to be able to do it safely and responsibly. There's going to be a collapsing down of what you have to know in order to run these things. I mean, web servers used to be something that required a month of your life and a fair bit of attention to run. Now, it's a checkbox in a cloud console.Nate: Yeah. And that's what we're trying to get it to, right? Why isn't everything a checkbox? Why can't you say, “Look, I wrote my app. I did the hard part.” Let's—you know, I just need to see it go somewhere. You know? Make it go and make it stay up. And how can I do that?And also, here's a feature that we're working on. Came out recently and we want folks to try it. It's a cloud deploy feature that works for Cloud Run as well as it does for GKE. And it's… I know it's going to sound super simple: it's our canary deployment method. But it's not just canary deployment, but also we can tie it into parallel deployment.And so, you can have your new version of your app stood up alongside your old version of the app and we can roll it out incrementally in parallel around the world and you can have an actual test that says, “Hey, is this working? Is it not working?” If it does, great, let's go forward. If it doesn't, let's roll back. And some of the stuff sounds like common sense, but it's been difficult to pull off.And now we're trying to do it with just a few lines a YAML. So, you know, is it as simple as it could be? Well, we're still looking at that. But the features are in there and we're constantly looking at what we can do to iterate and figure out what the next thing is.Corey: I really want to thank you for taking the time to speak with me. If people want to learn more, where's the best place for them to find you?Nate: Best place for them to find me used to be my blog, it's Not Your Dad's IT, However, I've been pretty negligent there since doing this whole Google thing, so I would say, just look me up on Twitter at @nathaniel_avery, look me up on Google. You can go to a pretty cool search engine and [laugh]—Corey: Oh, that's right. You guys have a search engine now. Good work.Nate: That's what I hear [laugh].Corey: Someday maybe it'll even come to Google Docs.Nate: [laugh]. Yes, so yeah, that's where to find me. You know, just look me up at Nathaniel Avery. I think that handle works for almost everything, Twitter, LinkedIn, wherever, and reach out.If there's something you like about our DevOps tools, let me know. If there's something you hate about our DevOps tools, definitely let me know. Because the only reason we're doing this is to try and help people. And if we're not doing that, then we need to know. We need to know why it isn't working out.And trust me, I talk to these engineers every day. That's the thing that really keeps them moving in the morning is knowing that they're doing something to make things better for folks. Real quick, I'll close out, and I think I may have mentioned this on some other podcasts. I come from the ops world. I was that guy who had to help get a deployment out on a Friday night and it lasted all weekend long and you're staring there at your phone at some absurd time on a Sunday night and everyone's huddled together and you're trying to figure out, are we going to rollback or are we going to go forward? What are we going to do by Monday?Corey: I don't miss those days.Nate: Oh, oh God no. I don't miss those days either. But you know what I do want? I took this job because I don't want anyone else to have those days. That's really what it is. We want to make sure that these tools give folks the ability to deploy safely and to deploy with confidence and to take that level of risk out of the equation, so that folks can, you know, just get back to doing other things. You know, spend that time with your family, spend the time reading, spend that time prompting ChatGPT with questions, [laugh] whatever it is you want to do, but you shouldn't have to sit there and wonder, “Oh, my God, is my app working? And what do I do when it doesn't?”Corey: I really want to thank you for being as generous with your time and philosophy on this. Thanks again. I've really enjoyed our conversation.Nate: Thank you. Thank you. I've been a big fan of your work for years.Corey: [laugh]. Nate Avery, outbound product manager at Google Cloud. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice whereas if you hate this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry, insulting comment that you had Chat-GIPITY write for you in YAML.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

Our Principal IP Consultant Charlie Draper was joined by Daniel Dib.Daniel is a Senior Network Architect with expertise in routing, switching, and security. As well as a CCIE, CCDE, Cisco Champion, Cisco Learning Network VIP, and the winner of several awards at different forums. During the podcast, the pair discussed whether it is enough to just be a network engineer anymore and how skills such as automation and python are becoming crucial for the role. They also discussed whether there will still be a demand for network engineers in the future, or whether the development of automation will have the capabilities of completing the tasks of engineers.Learn more from David:https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieldib/

Today on the episode we will be talking to Daren Fulwell, Network Automation Evangelist at IP Fabric. Daren is CCDE2015::41, CCIE 20443, member of the CCIE Advisory Council, host of #Init6, and my fellow Cisco Champion for the last few years. With so much experience under his belt, in my opinion, Daren has his pick in whatever field he would choose to work on in network engineering. I asked Daren about his experience in networking engineering, what led him to IP Fabric, and all the cool projects he is working on. Just prior to our scheduled interview, IP Fabric was named as one of the 'Cool Vendors in Network Automation' for 2022. Daren is kind enough to offer a lab license for our listeners. LinksConnect with Daren on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daren-fulwell/ Follow Daren on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DarenFulwell IP Fabric: https://ipfabric.io/ IP Fabric YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/IPFabric Init6: https://www.youtube.com/c/init6  IP Fabric lab license: https://ipfabric.io/lab-licence-page/--- Support the Show ---Subscribe on Apple Podcast for Bonus Episodes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/network-automation-nerds-podcast/ Patreon of the show: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=62594522 --- Stay in Touch with Us —Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/EricChouNetworkAutomationNerdsFollow Eric on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericchou

Our Co-Founder & Director George Barnes had the pleasure of being joined by A. J. Murray. A.J. Murray is a Sr. Engineer LAN/WAN/Security at Presidio. Additionally, he writes articles, is a Cisco Champion and VMware vExpert, a teacher AND is also the creator and co-host of The Art of Network Engineering Podcast.With so many amazing achievements and stories to tell, George & A. J delve into discussing everything from the nitty-gritty tech, to the importance of looking after your mental health when working in such a demanding industry. It was great to learn so much from this incredible man!Learn more from A. J: The blog: https://blog.noblinkyblinky.com Podcast: https://artofnetworkengineering.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/noblinkyblinkyIG: https://www.instagram.com/noblinkyblinky/LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/ajmurrayvt/

Sometimes, situations require temporary fixes. Sometimes, the network becomes an afterthought in overall office design and planning. In either situation, it may require network engineers to declare “I'll fix that later.” In this episode, Cisco Champions draw from their experiences to share some of the craziest technical setups they've encountered—from the weirdest AP configurations to the oddest design decisions, showing how often a temporary solution can become a permanent mistake. Their stories will surely make you scratch your heads. Follow us: twitter.com/ciscochampion Cisco Champion Hosts: Amr Nasher (twitter.com/Amr_Nasher), Twaasol, Business Development Manager and Solution Architect Ben Story (twitter.com/ntwrk80), Redeye Network Solutions, Sr. Network Security Engineer Dan Kelcher, Sleep Number, Senior Network Engineer Gert-Jan de Boer (twitter.com/gjdeboer), aaZoo, CTO and Network Archeologist Guest: Denise Donahue (twitter.com/LadyNetwkr), Cisco, Systems Architect Moderator: Amilee San Juan (twitter.com/amileesan1), Cisco, Customer Voices and Cisco Champion Program

In this episode, Cisco Champions draw from their experiences to share some of the craziest technical setups they've encountered—from the weirdest AP configurations to the oddest design decisions. Their recollections are sure to make you scratch your heads. Follow us: twitter.com/ciscochampion Cisco Champion Hosts: Amr Nasher (twitter.com/Amr_Nasher), Twaasol, Business Development Manager and Solution Architect Ben Story (twitter.com/ntwrk80), Redeye Network Solutions, Sr. Network Security Engineer Dan Kelcher, Sleep Number, Senior Network Engineer Gert-Jan de Boer (twitter.com/gjdeboer), aaZoo, CTO and Network Archeologist Guest: Denise Donahue (twitter.com/LadyNetwkr), Cisco, Systems Architect Moderator: Amilee San Juan (twitter.com/amileesan1), Cisco, Customer Voices and Cisco Champion Program

Cisco Champions Unfiltered is a different flavor of Cisco Champion Radio episodes dedicated to facilitating informal and informative conversations among Cisco Champions—focused on topics related to technology, trends or career. In this episode, Cisco Champions bring in their collective experiences to discuss the complexities of breach notifications—sharing when breaches should be communicated, how they should be communicated and more. Learn more about the Cisco Champion program: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/training-events/events-webinars/influencer-hub.html Follow us: https://twitter.com/ciscochampion Cisco Champion Hosts: Evan Mintzer (twitter.com/EvanMintzer), Ashfield Engage, Information Security Manager Gert-Jan de Boer (twitter.com/gjdeboer), aaZoo, CTO and Network Archeologist John Agunbiade (twitter.com/responficient11), FirstBank Nigeria, Network Security Engineer Mark Sibering (twitter.com/netcicd), Devoteam, Principal Architect Zoë Rose (twitter.com/RoseSecOps), Canon EMEA, Regional and Supplier Information Security Lead Moderator: Amilee San Juan (twitter.com/amileesan1), Cisco, Technical Influencer Marketing and Cisco Champion Program

Cisco Champions Unfiltered is a different flavor of Cisco Champion Radio episodes dedicated to facilitating informal and informative conversations among Cisco Champions—focused on topics related to technology, trends or career. In this episode, Cisco Champions bring in their collective experiences to discuss the complexities of breach notifications—sharing when breaches should be communicated, how they should be communicated and more. Learn more about the Cisco Champion program: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/training-events/events-webinars/influencer-hub.html Follow us: https://twitter.com/ciscochampion Cisco Champion Hosts: Evan Mintzer (twitter.com/EvanMintzer), Ashfield Engage, Information Security Manager Gert-Jan de Boer (twitter.com/gjdeboer), aaZoo, CTO and Network Archeologist John Agunbiade (twitter.com/responficient11), FirstBank Nigeria, Network Security Engineer Mark Sibering (twitter.com/netcicd), Devoteam, Principal Architect Zoë Rose (twitter.com/RoseSecOps), Canon EMEA, Regional and Supplier Information Security Lead Moderator: Amilee San Juan (twitter.com/amileesan1), Cisco, Technical Influencer Marketing and Cisco Champion Program

If you’ve ever wondered what a Cisco Champion is, you’ll find the answer in this episode. In our very first episode of the Cisco Champion Unfiltered series—where we feature Champion on Champion conversations—we have an informative, yet casual, discussion. In this discussion, we gain insights into their backgrounds and experiences as technologists and as Cisco Champions. You’ll quickly discover that Cisco Champions are next-level technologists who have a passion for technology and a passion for connecting with their peers and Cisco experts, technology and solutions. Learn more: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/training-events/events-webinars/influencer-hub.html?dtid=opdcsnc001469 Follow us: twitter.com/ciscochampion Cisco Champion Hosts: Amr Nasher (twitter.com/Amr_Nasher), Twaasol, Business Development Manager and Solution Architect David Peñaloza Seijas (twitter.com/davidsamuelps), Verizon Business, Principal Engineer Michael van Kleij (twitter.com/mvankleij_nl), Axians NL, Technical Consultant Rodrigo Rovere (twitter.com/rar_21), Sencinet, Sales Engineer Sijbren Beukenkamp (twitter.com/sijbrenb), 3Corners, Director/ Owner Moderator: Amilee San Juan (twitter.com/amileesan1), Cisco, Technical Influencer Marketing and Cisco Champion Program

If you’ve ever wondered what a Cisco Champion is, you’ll find the answer in this episode. In our very first episode of the Cisco Champion Unfiltered series—where we feature Champion on Champion conversations—we have an informative, yet casual, discussion. In this discussion, we gain insights into their backgrounds and experiences as technologists and as Cisco Champions. You’ll quickly discover that Cisco Champions are next-level technologists who have a passion for technology and a passion for connecting with their peers and Cisco experts, technology and solutions. Learn more: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/training-events/events-webinars/influencer-hub.html?dtid=opdcsnc001469 Follow us: twitter.com/ciscochampion Cisco Champion Hosts: Amr Nasher (twitter.com/Amr_Nasher), Twaasol, Business Development Manager and Solution Architect David Peñaloza Seijas (twitter.com/davidsamuelps), Verizon Business, Principal Engineer Michael van Kleij (twitter.com/mvankleij_nl), Axians NL, Technical Consultant Rodrigo Rovere (twitter.com/rar_21), Sencinet, Sales Engineer Sijbren Beukenkamp (twitter.com/sijbrenb), 3Corners, Director/ Owner Moderator: Amilee San Juan (twitter.com/amileesan1), Cisco, Technical Influencer Marketing and Cisco Champion Program

The COVID-19 pandemic set a new high bar for organizations and their need for increased business resiliency. When the pandemic hit, thousands of organizations around the world found themselves forced to rethink how to keep things running while keeping their employees safe and serving customers and the community. Cisco was one of them. When work-from-home policies took effect in March, Cisco sent home virtually its entire workforce of 100,000—plus employees, contractors, and partners almost overnight. Tune in to this episode to hear from Distinguished Engineer, Brian Christensen, and Cisco Champion hosts as they discuss how Cisco continues to enable its workforce to connect and collaborate securely and how it plans to enable a return to the office and hybrid work experience. Learn more: https://blogs.cisco.com/perspectives/businessresiliencyplan?dtid=opdcsnc001469 Cisco Champion Hosts: Michael Rhoades (twitter.com/ciscomikey), North American Hoganas, Manager Information Technology Sijbren Beukenkamp (twitter.com/sijbrenb), 3Corners, UC Cloud Architect Guests: Brian Christensen (twitter.com/brchrist2), Cisco, Distinguished Engineer, Cisco IT Moderator: Amilee San Juan, (twitter.com/amileesan1), Cisco, Technical Influencer Marketing and Cisco Champion Program Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CiscoChampion

The COVID-19 pandemic set a new high bar for organizations and their need for increased business resiliency. When the pandemic hit, thousands of organizations around the world found themselves forced to rethink how to keep things running while keeping their employees safe and serving customers and the community. Cisco was one of them. When work-from-home policies took effect in March, Cisco sent home virtually its entire workforce of 100,000—plus employees, contractors, and partners almost overnight. Tune in to this episode to hear from Distinguished Engineer, Brian Christensen, and Cisco Champion hosts as they discuss how Cisco continues to enable its workforce to connect and collaborate securely and how it plans to enable a return to the office and hybrid work experience. Learn more: https://blogs.cisco.com/perspectives/businessresiliencyplan?dtid=opdcsnc001469 Cisco Champion Hosts: Michael Rhoades (twitter.com/ciscomikey), North American Hoganas, Manager Information Technology Sijbren Beukenkamp (twitter.com/sijbrenb), Triple P, UC Cloud Architect Guests: Brian Christensen (twitter.com/brchrist2), Cisco, Distinguished Engineer, Cisco IT Moderator: Amilee San Juan, (twitter.com/amileesan1), Cisco, Technical Influencer Marketing and Cisco Champion Program Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CiscoChampion

What better way to kick off the 2020 IT Blog Awards season than to bring together technical bloggers, vloggers and podcasters to share their unique experiences? In this episode, you'll gain insights into what inspired some of our Cisco Champion bloggers, vloggers and podcasters to pursue their craft; what challenges they faced (and overcame); and some of the amazing outcomes of pursuing their passion and sharing their unique insights and perspectives. (The IT Blog Awards, hosted by Cisco, is accepting submissions through October 16, 2020. Apply today.) Learn more: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/training-events/events-webinars/influencer-hub/blog-awards.html?dtid=opdcsnc001469 Cisco Champion Hosts: Aaron Weiler (twitter.com/aaronengineered), Comcast, Sales Engineer Daren Fulwell (twitter.com/darenfulwell), IP Fabric, Network Automation Evangelist Deirra Footman (twitter.com/ccieby30), 14 West, Senior Network Engineer Kevin Blackburn (twitter.com/theroutingtable), Aultman Hospital, Director of Network and Communication Services Guest: Lauren Friedman (twitter.com/lauren), Cisco, Technical Influencer Marketing and Cisco Champion Program Moderator: Amilee San Juan (twitter.com/amileesan1), Cisco, Technical Influencer Marketing and Cisco Champion Program

What better way to kick off the 2020 IT Blog Awards season than to bring together technical bloggers, vloggers and podcasters to share their unique experiences? In this episode, you'll gain insights into what inspired some of our Cisco Champion bloggers, vloggers and podcasters to pursue their craft; what challenges they faced (and overcame); and some of the amazing outcomes of pursuing their passion and sharing their unique insights and perspectives. (The IT Blog Awards, hosted by Cisco, is accepting submissions through October 16, 2020. Apply today.) Learn more: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/training-events/events-webinars/influencer-hub/blog-awards.html?dtid=opdcsnc001469 Cisco Champion Hosts: Aaron Weiler (twitter.com/aaronengineered), Comcast, Sales Engineer Daren Fulwell (twitter.com/darenfulwell), IP Fabric, Network Automation Evangelist Deirra Footman (twitter.com/ccieby30), 14 West, Senior Network Engineer Kevin Blackburn (twitter.com/theroutingtable), Aultman Hospital, Director of Network and Communication Services Guest: Lauren Friedman (twitter.com/lauren), Cisco, Technical Influencer Marketing and Cisco Champion Program Moderator: Amilee San Juan (twitter.com/amileesan1), Cisco, Technical Influencer Marketing and Cisco Champion Program

In this episode of Cisco Champion Radio, you'll hear from Cisco spectrum and policy expert, Mary Brown as well as Cisco Wireless CTO, Matt MacPherson, along with Cisco Champion hosts Sam Clements of Presidio and Shai Silberman from San Jose State University. In April of this year, the FCC opened the 6 GHz spectrum for unlicensed use. When devices hit the market in the next couple of years, they will allow consumers and businesses to take full advantage of the next generation of wireless technology. This means better video and mixed reality for virtual interactions, more connected devices in healthcare and manufacturing, a more productive and agile remote workforce, and lots more. Join this important conversation to hear from five passionate experts as they discuss topics ranging from working with the FCC and how we'll take advantage of this new spectrum to how it all works, what it means for the enterprise, wireless security, and more. For more information on 6GHZ and Mary Brown's work with the FCC, check out her blog at https://blogs.cisco.com/author/marybrown?dtid=opdcsnc001469 Cisco Champion Hosts: Sam Clements (twitter.com/samuel_clements), Presidio, Engineering Director, Office of the CTO, Mobility Shai Silberman (twitter.com/shaidom ), San Jose State University, Director, Network Services Guest: Mary Brown (twitter.com/MaryBrownindc), Cisco, Director, Public Policy Matt MacPherson (twitter.com/macpherson7), Cisco, CTO, Wireless Moderator: Lauren Friedman Albert (twitter.com/lauren), Technical Influencer Marketing and Cisco Champion Program

In this episode of Cisco Champion Radio, you'll hear from Cisco spectrum and policy expert, Mary Brown as well as Cisco Wireless CTO, Matt MacPherson, along with Cisco Champion hosts Sam Clements of Presidio and Shai Silberman from San Jose State University. In April of this year, the FCC opened the 6 GHz spectrum for unlicensed use. When devices hit the market in the next couple of years, they will allow consumers and businesses to take full advantage of the next generation of wireless technology. This means better video and mixed reality for virtual interactions, more connected devices in healthcare and manufacturing, a more productive and agile remote workforce, and lots more. Join this important conversation to hear from five passionate experts as they discuss topics ranging from working with the FCC and how we'll take advantage of this new spectrum to how it all works, what it means for the enterprise, wireless security, and more. For more information on 6GHZ and Mary Brown's work with the FCC, check out her blog at https://blogs.cisco.com/author/marybrown?dtid=opdcsnc001469 Cisco Champion Hosts: Sam Clements (twitter.com/samuel_clements), Presidio, Engineering Director, Office of the CTO, Mobility Shai Silberman (twitter.com/shaidom ), San Jose State University, Director, Network Services Guest: Mary Brown (twitter.com/MaryBrownindc), Cisco, Director, Public Policy Matt MacPherson (twitter.com/macpherson7), Cisco, CTO, Wireless Moderator: Lauren Friedman Albert (twitter.com/lauren), Technical Influencer Marketing and Cisco Champion Program

In this episode of Cisco Champions Radio, our Cisco Champion talks to the Cisco Modeling Lab (CML) team about all things CML. The discussion addresses topics such as CML as an orchestration platform; the feedback that motivated the team to re-design CML and how it differs from the prior version; the reliability and robust functionality, as well as the provisions for growth and expansion; security and encryption; and licensing. Cisco Champion hosts Malcolm Booden (@malcolmbooden), MNB Networks Ltd, Network & Security Consultant Guests Ralph Schmieder, Cisco, VIRL Technical Lead Simon Knight (@eskaytwo), Cisco, VIRL SW Engineer Vernon Palango (@vpalango), Cisco, VIRL/CML Product Manager Moderator Amilee San Juan (@amileesan1), Cisco, EN Product Marketing Manager

In this episode of Cisco Champions Radio, our Cisco Champion talks to the Cisco Modeling Lab (CML) team about all things CML. The discussion addresses topics such as CML as an orchestration platform; the feedback that motivated the team to re-design CML and how it differs from the prior version; the reliability and robust functionality, as well as the provisions for growth and expansion; security and encryption; and licensing. Cisco Champion hosts Malcolm Booden (@malcolmbooden), MNB Networks Ltd, Network & Security Consultant Guests Ralph Schmieder, Cisco, VIRL Technical Lead Simon Knight (@eskaytwo), Cisco, VIRL SW Engineer Vernon Palango (@vpalango), Cisco, VIRL/CML Product Manager Moderator Amilee San Juan (@amileesan1), Cisco, EN Product Marketing Manager

E aí seus trem bunitooowwss! Saiu novo Episódio, fresquinho! Ihuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuul No episódio de hoje, batemos um papo com o nosso amigo Alexandro Prado, que está fazendo aniversário hoje inclusive!

Tony Cuevas is a Solutions Consultant at Five9 with a deep history in Cisco collaboration. We talk through his Cisco background, including becoming a Webex Master and a Cisco Champion, and highlight the current state of Unified Comms and Contact Centre.

In this episode, join Cisco Champion hosts, Jeff Levensailor and Micheline Murphy to understand the different functionalities of data center switching and VXLAN. They also uncover the differences between VPC, VXLAN, and ACI and so much more! Cisco Champion hosts Micheline Murphy (twitter.com/MichyfishMurphy) Jeff Levensailor (twitter.com/levensailor) Cisco Guests Lukas Krattiger (twitter.com/CCIE21921) Robert Parten (twitter.com/greathairengnr) Moderator Lauren Friedman (twitter.com/lauren), Cisco Champion Program Discussion Topics: 1. What engineers can do to improve the functionalities of VXLAN 2. VXLAN vPC revamp in NX-OS Release 9.0 does away with peer-link. 3. DCNM 11 gets a complete revamp 4. How do the iterations of DCNM differ from version 7 to 11? 5. What are the differences between VPC, VXLAN, and ACI? 6. VXLAN multisite 7. Getting telemetry data using Network Insights

In this episode, join Cisco Champion hosts, Jeff Levensailor and Micheline Murphy to understand the different functionalities of data center switching and VXLAN. They also uncover the differences between VPC, VXLAN, and ACI and so much more! Cisco Champion hosts Micheline Murphy (twitter.com/MichyfishMurphy) Jeff Levensailor (twitter.com/levensailor) Cisco Guests Lukas Krattiger (twitter.com/CCIE21921) Robert Parten (twitter.com/greathairengnr) Moderator Lauren Friedman (twitter.com/lauren), Cisco Champion Program Discussion Topics: 1. What engineers can do to improve the functionalities of VXLAN 2. VXLAN vPC revamp in NX-OS Release 9.0 does away with peer-link. 3. DCNM 11 gets a complete revamp 4. How do the iterations of DCNM differ from version 7 to 11? 5. What are the differences between VPC, VXLAN, and ACI? 6. VXLAN multisite 7. Getting telemetry data using Network Insights

How does the Cisco Investments team handle their day to day routines? Director of Business Development, Phil Kirk sits down with our champions and talks about how Cisco Investments finds start-ups to invest in, how regional differences between the US and Europe affect decisions, and what the Champs think of Cisco Investments in general! Cisco Champions: Pieter-Jan Nefkens (twitter.com/pjnef), Cisco Champion member, Consultant, Nefkens Advies Paul Campbell (twitter.com/paulmc3) Cisco Champion member, CEO & Founder, Quaversal LLC Cisco Guest: Phil Kirk (twitter.com/TechyPhil), Director of Business Development Moderator: Lauren Friedman (twitter.com/lauren), Cisco Champion Program. Discussion Topics: - What are the daily responsibilities of the Cisco Investments team - How Cisco Investments finds start-ups - What regional difference exists between the US and Europe - AI/ML investment trends - How Cisco Investments makes decisions on where they invest - Trends in collaboration and analytics - How are decisions made on the acquisition side for integrating the new companies into Cisco? - What the Cisco Champion hosts think about Cisco Investments

How does the Cisco Investments team handle their day to day routines? Director of Business Development, Phil Kirk sits down with our champions and talks about how Cisco Investments finds start-ups to invest in, how regional differences between the US and Europe affect decisions, and what the Champs think of Cisco Investments in general! Cisco Champions: Pieter-Jan Nefkens (twitter.com/pjnef), Cisco Champion member, Consultant, Nefkens Advies Paul Campbell (twitter.com/paulmc3) Cisco Champion member, CEO & Founder, Quaversal LLC Cisco Guest: Phil Kirk (twitter.com/TechyPhil), Director of Business Development Moderator: Lauren Friedman (twitter.com/lauren), Cisco Champion Program. Discussion Topics: - What are the daily responsibilities of the Cisco Investments team - How Cisco Investments finds start-ups - What regional difference exists between the US and Europe - AI/ML investment trends - How Cisco Investments makes decisions on where they invest - Trends in collaboration and analytics - How are decisions made on the acquisition side for integrating the new companies into Cisco? - What the Cisco Champion hosts think about Cisco Investments

In this episode of Cisco Champion Radio, learn about My Cisco Entitlements and what you can leverage with MCE. Our Cisco guests give us a in-depth view of MCE and the different features MCE has to offer! Cisco Champions: Pieter-Jan Nefkens (twitter.com/pjnef), Cisco Champion member, Consultant, Nefkens Advies David Peñaloza (twitter.com/davidsamuelps), Cisco Champion member, Lead Network Consulting Engineer, Verizon Enterprise Solutions Matt Ouellette (twitter.com/mattouellette), Cisco Champion member, Systems Engineer, Presidio Cisco Guest: Ali Neemuchawala, Program Lead for MCE Tim Knapp (twitter.com/tweettimk), Business Operations Manager Moderator: Brett Shore (twitter.com/brettshore) Cisco Product Marketing Discussion Topics: - What is MCE (My Cisco Entitlements) - What you can do with MCE? - What visibility can you gain with MCE? - What is in a Smart Account? - Smart account vs smart licensing - What are the three things you should know about your products to successfully use MCE? - What is LRP? - What is in the MCE dashboard? To learn more: http://cs.co/90041ugdC

In this episode of Cisco Champion Radio, learn about My Cisco Entitlements and what you can leverage with MCE. Our Cisco guests give us a in-depth view of MCE and the different features MCE has to offer! Cisco Champions: Pieter-Jan Nefkens (twitter.com/pjnef), Cisco Champion member, Consultant, Nefkens Advies David Peñaloza (twitter.com/davidsamuelps), Cisco Champion member, Lead Network Consulting Engineer, Verizon Enterprise Solutions Matt Ouellette (twitter.com/mattouellette), Cisco Champion member, Systems Engineer, Presidio Cisco Guest: Ali Neemuchawala, Program Lead for MCE Tim Knapp (twitter.com/tweettimk), Business Operations Manager Moderator: Brett Shore (twitter.com/brettshore) Cisco Product Marketing Discussion Topics: - What is MCE (My Cisco Entitlements) - What you can do with MCE? - What visibility can you gain with MCE? - What is in a Smart Account? - Smart account vs smart licensing - What are the three things you should know about your products to successfully use MCE? - What is LRP? - What is in the MCE dashboard? To learn more: http://cs.co/90041ugdC

In this episode of Cisco Champion Radio, we invite Fred Niehaus to uncover and dig into all the elements of Wi-Fi 6. Our champs ask some in-depth questions about different situations about the new generation of access points, operating softwares, the Aironet developer platform, and MORE! Cisco Champions: Francois Verges (twitter.com/vergesfrancois), Cisco Champion member, Wireless Network Engineer, SemFio Networks Inc. Rowell Dionicio (twitter.com/rowelldionicio) Cisco Champion member, Network Engineer, Stanford University. Cisco Guest: Fred Niehaus (twitter.com/ohiofred), Technical Marketing Engineer. Additional Guest: Gurpreet Singh and he works for Bell Canada Moderator: Brett Shore (twitter.com/brettshore), Cisco Product Marketing. Discussion Topics: - What Fred is most excited about when it comes to Wi-Fi 6. - What is OFDMA and what does it do? - What is BSS covering and what are the benefits? - Target wakening in Wi-Fi 6 - How IEEE standards and the Wi-Fi Alliance interoperability protocols are integrated into the latest APs. - MU-MIMO - How the new generation of Cisco APs compares to the previous models. - The evolution of Aironet to the Catalyst name. - Details on the Catalyst 9120 Series AP. - Wi-Fi chipsets. - What the Aironet developer program allows you to do? - What’s involved with creating radio hardware and/or access points? - External and DART antennas - WP3 and WUAE support - What gets Fred excited? The RF ASIC! Learn more: http://cs.co/90061Xx9p

In this episode of Cisco Champion Radio, we invite Fred Niehaus to uncover and dig into all the elements of Wi-Fi 6. Our champs ask some in-depth questions about different situations about the new generation of access points, operating softwares, the Aironet developer platform, and MORE! Cisco Champions: Francois Verges (twitter.com/vergesfrancois), Cisco Champion member, Wireless Network Engineer, SemFio Networks Inc. Rowell Dionicio (twitter.com/rowelldionicio) Cisco Champion member, Network Engineer, Stanford University. Cisco Guest: Fred Niehaus (twitter.com/ohiofred), Technical Marketing Engineer. Additional Guest: Gurpreet Singh and he works for Bell Canada Moderator: Brett Shore (twitter.com/brettshore), Cisco Product Marketing. Discussion Topics: - What Fred is most excited about when it comes to Wi-Fi 6. - What is OFDMA and what does it do? - What is BSS covering and what are the benefits? - Target wakening in Wi-Fi 6 - How IEEE standards and the Wi-Fi Alliance interoperability protocols are integrated into the latest APs. - MU-MIMO - How the new generation of Cisco APs compares to the previous models. - The evolution of Aironet to the Catalyst name. - Details on the Catalyst 9120 Series AP. - Wi-Fi chipsets. - What the Aironet developer program allows you to do? - What’s involved with creating radio hardware and/or access points? - External and DART antennas - WP3 and WUAE support - What gets Fred excited? The RF ASIC! Learn more: http://cs.co/90061Xx9p

What’s it like being a nerd in a Cisco Innovation Centre? Dive into this episode of Cisco Champion Radio to learn about where our innovation centers are and the journey our Cisco Guest, Justin Cohen, has embarked on to get to where he is today. Cisco Champions: Ben Story (twitter.com/ntwrk80), Cisco Champion member, Technical Analyst, Hospital Sisters Health System. Matt Ouellette (twitter.com/mattouellette), Cisco Champion member, Systems Engineer, Presidio. Cisco Guest: Justin Cohen (twitter.com/cantechit), Innovation Architect. Moderator: Michelle Trick (twitter.com/trickorydickory), Marketing Manager. Discussion Topics: - How Justin Cohen went from Cisco Champion to working at the Cisco Innovation Centre - Where the Innovation Centres are and how they operate - What the Cisco Innovation Centre does - Products that have started in the Cisco Innovation Centre that have turned into Cisco products - The birth of the Catalyst Digital Building switch - How to get involved with the Cisco Innovation Centre - Failed projects and what the Cisco Innovation Centre learned from them

What’s it like being a nerd in a Cisco Innovation Centre? Dive into this episode of Cisco Champion Radio to learn about where our innovation centers are and the journey our Cisco Guest, Justin Cohen, has embarked on to get to where he is today. Cisco Champions: Ben Story (twitter.com/ntwrk80), Cisco Champion member, Technical Analyst, Hospital Sisters Health System. Matt Ouellette (twitter.com/mattouellette), Cisco Champion member, Systems Engineer, Presidio. Cisco Guest: Justin Cohen (twitter.com/cantechit), Innovation Architect. Moderator: Michelle Trick (twitter.com/trickorydickory), Marketing Manager. Discussion Topics: - How Justin Cohen went from Cisco Champion to working at the Cisco Innovation Centre - Where the Innovation Centres are and how they operate - What the Cisco Innovation Centre does - Products that have started in the Cisco Innovation Centre that have turned into Cisco products - The birth of the Catalyst Digital Building switch - How to get involved with the Cisco Innovation Centre - Failed projects and what the Cisco Innovation Centre learned from them

Dive into Cisco SD-WAN Cloud onRamp and what exactly it is. Our Cisco Champions and Cisco Guests chat about Viptela history, vManager, multi-cloud strategies and MORE! Cisco Champions: Jeff Levensailor (twitter.com/levensailor), Cisco Champion member, Developer Engineer, Presidio. Chuck Keith (twitter.com/networkchuck) Cisco Champion member, Network Engineer, Xceptional Networks. Cisco Guest: David Klebanov (twitter.com/davidklebanov), Technical Marketing Manager. Additional Guests: Tom Davis, Practice Lead Network Solutions, WWT. Bill Thompson, Practice Manager Network Solutions, WWT. Moderator: Teresa Sonal (twitter.com/tsonal) Cisco Product Marketing. Discussion Topics: - What is SD-WAN Cloud onRamp? - The differences in cloud architecting the WAN when it comes to the cloud. - Viptela history - Why vManage is a one-stop-shop - What are the biggest drivers for SD-WAN Cloud onRamp - Security options in SD-WAN Cloud onRamp - Will SD-WAN Cloud onRamp help cloud adoption - Multi-cloud strategies - Evolution of the network engineer - Programmability of VManage - What skills do engineers need to be proficient in SD-WAN Learn more about SD-WAN Cloud onRamp: http://cs.co/90041XQIu

Dive into Cisco SD-WAN Cloud onRamp and what exactly it is. Our Cisco Champions and Cisco Guests chat about Viptela history, vManager, multi-cloud strategies and MORE! Cisco Champions: Jeff Levensailor (twitter.com/levensailor), Cisco Champion member, Developer Engineer, Presidio. Chuck Keith (twitter.com/networkchuck) Cisco Champion member, Network Engineer, Xceptional Networks. Cisco Guest: David Klebanov (twitter.com/davidklebanov), Technical Marketing Manager. Additional Guests: Tom Davis, Practice Lead Network Solutions, WWT. Bill Thompson, Practice Manager Network Solutions, WWT. Moderator: Teresa Sonal (twitter.com/tsonal) Cisco Product Marketing. Discussion Topics: - What is SD-WAN Cloud onRamp? - The differences in cloud architecting the WAN when it comes to the cloud. - Viptela history - Why vManage is a one-stop-shop - What are the biggest drivers for SD-WAN Cloud onRamp - Security options in SD-WAN Cloud onRamp - Will SD-WAN Cloud onRamp help cloud adoption - Multi-cloud strategies - Evolution of the network engineer - Programmability of VManage - What skills do engineers need to be proficient in SD-WAN Learn more about SD-WAN Cloud onRamp: http://cs.co/90041XQIu

In this episode of Cisco Champion Radio, we get into what is so important about hardware and the different PSIRT advisories when it comes to vulnerabilities. Cisco Champions: Jeff Levensailor, (twitter.com/levensailor), Cisco Champion member, Developer Engineer, Presidio. Cisco Guest: Kureli Sankar, (twitter.com/jmckg), Technical Marketing Manager. Dan Backman, Portfolio Architect Moderator: Leslie Zan Vee, (twitter.com/storiesbyleslie) Product Marketing Discussion Topics: - The importance of security when it comes to hardware - Cisco PSIRT advisories: Cisco’s communications on vulnerabilities - What is UEFI and where is it used? - What happens if you don’t trust the BIOS? - What is a SUDI certificate? - Zero-touch provisioning

In this episode of Cisco Champion Radio, we get into what is so important about hardware and the different PSIRT advisories when it comes to vulnerabilities. Cisco Champions: Jeff Levensailor, (twitter.com/levensailor), Cisco Champion member, Developer Engineer, Presidio. Cisco Guest: Kureli Sankar, (twitter.com/jmckg), Technical Marketing Manager. Dan Backman, Portfolio Architect Moderator: Leslie Zan Vee, (twitter.com/storiesbyleslie) Product Marketing Discussion Topics: - The importance of security when it comes to hardware - Cisco PSIRT advisories: Cisco’s communications on vulnerabilities - What is UEFI and where is it used? - What happens if you don’t trust the BIOS? - What is a SUDI certificate? - Zero-touch provisioning

Extending Intent-Based Networking to the IoT Edge, the Sequel! In this episode of Cisco Champion Radio, Tim Szigeti comes back to chat with Cisco Champs on how this technology is transforming the customer experience. Cisco Champions: David Peñaloza (twitter.com/davidsamuelps), Cisco Champion member, Lead Network Consulting Engineer, Verizon Enterprise Solutions. Malcolm Booden (twitter.com/malcombooden) Cisco Champion member, Network & Security Consultant. Cisco Guest: Tim Szigeti (twitter.com/tim_szigeti), Principal Technical Marketing Engineer. Moderator: Lauren Friedman (twitter.com/lauren), Cisco Champion Program. Discussion Topics: - What is Intent-Based Networking - What do you do with Intent-Based Networking as it applies to IoT - The strongest use case for Intent-Based Networking and IoT - What kinds of customers benefit from these products and what are the benefits - Cisco IW 6300 - How Emerson, Suncorp, and the city of New Orleans uses this technology - Tim’s Tech Field Day presentation - What does “ruggedizing” mean - How this technology transforms the customer experience Learn more here http://cs.co/90071OhdF

Extending Intent-Based Networking to the IoT Edge, the Sequel! In this episode of Cisco Champion Radio, Tim Szigeti comes back to chat with Cisco Champs on how this technology is transforming the customer experience. Cisco Champions: David Peñaloza (twitter.com/davidsamuelps), Cisco Champion member, Lead Network Consulting Engineer, Verizon Enterprise Solutions. Malcolm Booden (twitter.com/malcombooden) Cisco Champion member, Network & Security Consultant. Cisco Guest: Tim Szigeti (twitter.com/tim_szigeti), Principal Technical Marketing Engineer. Moderator: Lauren Friedman (twitter.com/lauren), Cisco Champion Program. Discussion Topics: - What is Intent-Based Networking - What do you do with Intent-Based Networking as it applies to IoT - The strongest use case for Intent-Based Networking and IoT - What kinds of customers benefit from these products and what are the benefits - Cisco IW 6300 - How Emerson, Suncorp, and the city of New Orleans uses this technology - Tim’s Tech Field Day presentation - What does “ruggedizing” mean - How this technology transforms the customer experience Learn more here http://cs.co/90071OhdF

Welcome to another episode of Cisco Champion Radio! In this episode, learn more about what the automation exchange is and the different tools you can use to help with automation and programmability. Cisco Champions: Pieter-Jan Nefkens (twitter.com/pjnef), Cisco Champion member, Consultant, Nefkens Advies. Jeff Levensailor (twitter.com/levensailor), Cisco Champion member, Developer Engineer, Presidio. Cisco Guest: Adrian Iliesiu (twitter.com/aidevnet), DevNet Engineer. Moderator: Michelle Trick (twitter.com/trickorydickory), Marketing Manager. Discussion Topics: - What is the automation exchange? - What automation tools does the Cisco DevNet network automation kit work with? - Distinctions between the various levels of network automation (Day 0, Day 1…) - Network automation around Cisco DNA Center - Other network automation tools: Ansible, Puppet, Chef, etc. - What is NetDevOps? - What’s next in network automation? - Cisco DevNet certifications For more information vist: developer.cisco.com/networkautomation developer.cisco.com/cocreations

Welcome to another episode of Cisco Champion Radio! In this episode, learn more about what the automation exchange is and the different tools you can use to help with automation and programmability. Cisco Champions: Pieter-Jan Nefkens (twitter.com/pjnef), Cisco Champion member, Consultant, Nefkens Advies. Jeff Levensailor (twitter.com/levensailor), Cisco Champion member, Developer Engineer, Presidio. Cisco Guest: Adrian Iliesiu (twitter.com/aidevnet), DevNet Engineer. Moderator: Michelle Trick (twitter.com/trickorydickory), Marketing Manager. Discussion Topics: - What is the automation exchange? - What automation tools does the Cisco DevNet network automation kit work with? - Distinctions between the various levels of network automation (Day 0, Day 1…) - Network automation around Cisco DNA Center - Other network automation tools: Ansible, Puppet, Chef, etc. - What is NetDevOps? - What’s next in network automation? - Cisco DevNet certifications For more information vist: developer.cisco.com/networkautomation developer.cisco.com/cocreations

The PrivSec Podcast is a series of discussions that covers the complete privacy, data protection and security spectrum, featuring subject matter experts. Zoë Rose is a highly regarded hands-on security specialist, who helps her clients embed resilience across their personal and professional lives. Zoë is a Cisco Champion, Splunk Architect, and has been recognised in the top 50 women in the UK along with the PrivSec 200. She frequently speaks at conferences, is quoted in the media, presented on national news, has been featured in Vogue Magazine, and was the spokesperson for Nationwide’s Oversharing campaign that reached 306 Million citizens.

Did you ever wonder why IT diagrams always use a cloud to show an element where stuff goes in and comes out, but we're not 100% sure what happens inside? That was originally called a "TAMO Cloud" - which stood for "Then A Miracle Occurred". It indicated an area of tech that was inscruitable, but nevertheless something we saw as reliable and consistent in it's output. For IT pros who hold a strong religious, ethical, or moral point of view, our journey has had its own sort of TAMO Cloud - where grounded technology and lofty philosophical ideals blend in ways that can be anything from challenging to uplifting to humbling. In this series, we sit down with members of the IT community to explore their journeys - both technical and theological - and see what lessons we can glean from where they've been, where they are today, and where they see themselves in the future. This episode features my talk with friend, sysadmin, Tech Field Day representative, and recurring Technically Religious guest Al Rasheed. Listen or read the transcript below. Josh: 00:00 Welcome to our podcast where we talk about the interesting, frustrating and inspiring experiences we have as people with strongly held religious views working in corporate IT. We're not here to preach or teach you our religion. We're here to explore ways we make our career as it professionals mesh - or at least not conflict - with our religious life. This is Technically Religious. Leon: 00:22 Did you ever wonder why it diagrams always use a cloud to show an element where stuff goes in and comes out, but we're not 100% sure what happens inside. That was originally called a TAMO cloud, which stood for Then A Miracle Occurred. It indicated an area of tech that was inscrutable, but nevertheless something we saw as reliable and consistent in its output for it pros who hold a strong religious, ethical or moral point of view. Our journey has had its own sort of TAMO cloud, where grounded technology and lofty philosophical ideals blend in ways that can be anything from challenging to uplifting to humbling. In this series, we sit down with members of the IT community to explore their journeys, both technical and theological and see what lessons we can glean from where they've been, where they are today, and where they see themselves in the future. Leon: 01:08 My name is Leon Adato, and the other voice you're going to hear on this episode is my friend and recurring guest on Technically Religious, Al Rasheed. Al: 01:16 Hi Leon. Thanks for allowingme to participate. As you mentioned, my name is Al Rasheed. I'm a systems administrator. I can be found on Twitter, @ Al_Rasheed, and you can follow me or follow my blog, I should say at http://www.alarasheedblog.wordpress.com I'm a Muslim. I believe in practicing good Karma, in remaining conscious of your decisions in life, and in one. Leon: 01:40 Okay. And if you are madly scribbling down all those websites and stuff, you can stop and just listen and relax. We're going to have show notes so that you can find all that stuff without having to write it down. So let's dive right into it. I want to start off with the technical side of your life. Where, what do you, what work are you doing today? Al: 02:01 Ah, so currently I'm a systems administrator. I've been in it for approximately 15 years plus. Um, I've got various certifications. I've been, I've worked at all different gamuts. I've been in the education field for IT. I've worked as a federal contractor forITt. I'm a DCVmug leader. I'm also a member of the VMVanguards, the a Vmware Vexperts, Cisco Champion, Nutanix NTC. I'm also Tech Field Day delegate. And most recently I was awarded, uh, with The VMug President's award at VMWorld 2019 in San Francisco. Leon: 02:37 Right. I was there for that. So that was kind of exciting. That was amazing to see. Congratulations on that one. Um, okay, so that's where you are today. All things virtual. Uh, that's incredible. And it's always a lot of fun to have. For me, it's always fun to have friends who have those bases of knowledge because A) I have somewhere to turn when I have a question, but also B) when I get more curious, I can always turn and say, okay, "what's the cool thing? Like what should I be working on next?" So it's always neat. Um, but you probably didn't start off in all the virtual stuff with 15 years. VMWare wasn't around. So what did you do when you were just starting out? Al: 03:13 So, just starting out right out of school, uh, relatively new. Uh, I was relatively new to marriage and in my early twenties, I was in retail. And at the time it was a career that I pursued. Also, it was the, um, degree that I pursued in school. Uh, it paid well. It got me through it, provided what I needed at the time, but as my wife and I sat down and started to focus on putting, you know, we were working on a family and then having kids, the along hours got tiresome working from four to midnight and then being back four hours later, uh, gets a little bit old after a while. Again. Weekends weren't off the, there were long days. And as most of us can really relate, whenever you're in retail, a customer service customer is always right. Um, but not necessarily, but you have to take your medicine and accept it. Leon: 04:05 Yeah, it's a lot of "grin and bear it" kind of stuff. Right. Okay. So that's where you started, but how did you get from there, from that retail space into where you are today? Al: 04:16 So, um, I took a chance on myself and when I say myself, that obviously includes my wife and at the time my son, he was about two years old. Um, I jumped into IT into a help desk position. It was a relatively low paying job, but it was a starter. It was a starter role within IT and it was a sacrifice that I was willing to make. Um, but at the same time I held onto my retail job in a part time position to make up for some of the money that I'd lost during this transition. And I held both jobs roughly for about five years. So give or take on average and I'm not making excuses for myself. Everybody's got to go through this, but it's, it's worth the sacrifice and the challenge. Um, for about five years I was putting in 60 to 70 hours a week and that included weekends, but, but I knew there was going to be a reward because IT was booming. Everybody was jumping on it. The Internet had just blown up for lack of better way of putting it. And um, you know, I just wanted just like anybody else, a comfortable... I thought at the time, low stress job. But IT can be stressful. We all know that as well. Um, I don't have any regrets. I'm glad I did it. It's definitely elevated me to a point in my life in career, but also provided for my family in areas where I never thought were imaginable. Leon: 05:36 Great. That's, that's, I mean it's a lot of dedication and as a lot of us who've been sort of through that in that time period, you know, those 10 to 15, 20 years ago or (cough) more for some of us, uh, whose beards are a little grayer, it, you know, there is some sacrifice at the, at the beginning, but you see that there is you, there's a brass ring, you see that there's a reward at the end and so you're not just working for the sake of working more. Um, and that's, that's an important lesson to take away I think. Um, all right, so we're going to come back to that, but I want to, I want to flip over to the religious side. This being Technically Religious. So we're going in order, we talked about the technical, now I want to talk about the religious side of your journey, of your growth. Now I find that labels are really hard for folks. Um, you know, you say, "So what kind of Blah Blah..." whether it's Christian, Jew, Muslim, Mormon, "...like what kind?" And the answer is always, "Well, I'm sort of this and I'm sort of that..." There's, there's always an explanation to go with it. So labels are imprecise, but I'm curious how you would define yourself. Uh, you know, in a religious way. Al: 06:42 Correct. So as I mentioned, to start off this conversation, I am Muslim, but I would consider myself a conscience, conscious based Muslim, a conscious based religious person. Can I be better? Absolutely. Am I terribly bad? I don't think so. I know my right from my wrong, I try to convey these lessons learned not only to, you know, for myself but for my wife and my kids, but those around me. And um, we just try to focus on positivity, help others out as best as possible. But you know, when I have to, if I have to look myself in the mirror, I do have a lot of room to grow with and uh, there's a lot expected of me and um, I can always improve. But there are, you know, religion is a delicate subject depending on who you speak to. It can be interpreted in so many different ways. So I'm trying to be as gentle as possible when I explain how I approach it. Um, because you know, just some people take it to another level and I, I don't want to A) offend anyone, nor do I want to get into a, a "beef" for lack of a better way of putting it online or on Twitter or however, if I were to see somebody in person. Leon: 07:47 Got It. Okay. Well I will respect those boundaries too. But, uh, you know, again, I know from our other conversations that you have, you know, a pretty strong point of view for yourself, not for, uh, for anyone else, but you hold yourself to a very high standard and it definitely informs the way that you approach work. And, um, okay, so the same way I asked you about how, where you started in IT and how you got, uh, to, you know, this point in your life. So is this where you are now? Is that where you started? Is that, you know, your sort of level of observance and consciousness, religious consciousness when you started out? Al: 08:22 I would probably say no. Um, maybe prior to getting married I wasn't as conscious of everything that's around me or what's expected of me as a Muslim or someone that's following any faith. Um, it's probably, it probably has to do with just being immature at the time or just, um, not really keeping those ideologies in mind that I think as you get older you start to realize life is a little bit shorter, especially as you become, especially as you become a parent. Um, maybe you want to become, you know, obviously you do want to act as a role model and a mentor and more so when I was more actively involved with my kids' activities, now that they've gotten older, you know, they want to distance themselves from dad and mom because they seem to know everything. But we were just like them. So, you know, when I was younger I was actively involved in like their sports, their activities, but I didn't necessarily do it for my kids. I also did it for myself in the young people that they were surrounded by. Uh, one thing that I, I really cherish and I, and I can't get enough of it, is if I happen to see somebody, like one of my son's friends who I coach, let's say for example in basketball 10 years ago, so that was my son was 12 years old at the time. They'll approach me and say hello, Mr Rasheed. And I don't even recognize them because they changed. You know, they're now young adults. My son's 22 and he doesn't look like he did when he was 12, but you know, they'll always approach me and they will call me by, you know, my name. But not only that, they'll take a moment or two and say, "You know what, thank you. Because what you taught us and then has helped us grow to where we are now." And when it was, when I went up, when I was involved in their lives at that time, it was predominantly around sports. I am a sports junkie, but I tried to also teach them life lessons and I think they've taken that and learned from it. Leon: 10:22 Nice. Okay. So, uh, I think we've, we've covered your sort of religious journey or your spiritual journey along the way. Um, now what I want to do is talk about blending the two because I know that for people who have strongly held religious, moral, ethical points of view that work in general, and IT specifically can be interesting. I'm not saying it's a challenge, I'm not saying like it's a problem, but it creates a set, a set of layers to the work that folks who may not have that strong a point of view don't always, uh, have to manage or deal with. So I'm curious as a Muslim and you know, as somebody who's worked for decades in IT, you know, what challenges have you had with that overlap? Al: 11:12 I think both your career in it and your faith as a Muslim, in my case, they both require an insane amount of patience, especially when you are out of your comfort zone or you don't live in your faith-based country. Uh, I, you know, I've, I've been a US citizen for pretty much my entire life. I've lived here in this, in the States for my entire life. So I've adapted to that culture, that way of life in general. But there are times, especially in IT, and I don't know why it has to be IT-related or specific to IT, but, um, your patients. Yeah, I want to say your faith, you keep faith in the back of your mind more times than not how you are going to react to a certain situation, especially if there is a potential for it to become unnecessarily, uh, provoked or heated. Leon: 12:06 Okay. Al: 12:08 Um, I, as you can relate, many of us in, in this industry, As IT professionals, we're acknowledged, we're appreciated, but they don't know we exist until there's a problem. And they will let us know when there's a problem. Nine times out of ten,it's not done in a manner in which you would prefer to be notified there's a problem. And so when you've got a herd of people coming at you and you're already well aware of what's going on and you're attempting to fix the situation on the back end and try to keep it to a minimum, those are the, uh, those are the opport... Those are the moments where you find yourself questioning, not necessarily why you got into IT, but why do we have to go to this level to report something that can be relatively low key and fixed in a quick amount of time. Leon: 12:56 Right. But I liked it. I liked the word you almost said - it's an opportunity to have a chance to first of all reframe their point of view. And again, as somebody who has a strong, you know, moral, ethical, religious point of view to be that, uh, to be that example, to be that role model. Um, sometimes we do end up representing a segment of the population. You know, I know that a lot of times for people who especially don't know, me personally, I am a 5' 8" kippah and you know, seat seat. I'm just this religious dude who's standing there. And that's what they see. And so I do recognize that my interactions carry a weight that isn't just, hey, Leon didn't handle this well. It, it goes further than that. So you have an opportunity to not only help manage expectations as an IT person, but you have a chance to manage expectations as the whole person who you are standing in front of them. Al: 14:00 Correct. Correct. And I find it's not, like I said, it's not about me when I put it this way. I think it does apply to a lot of us in IT. Honesty can be a challenge. And I'm not saying that we always have to lie, but sometimes you've got to beat around the bush to put it mostly because if there is an issue and you're upfront and you give the end user who the individual, whoever the individual is, that's asking for an update to the situation, uh, the truth, they may overreact and take it up to another level that's completely unnecessary. And unprovoked. I'm not saying lie, but sometimes, and I hate to use expression beat around the bush, but kind of just give them as little as possible without putting yourself out there in a tough, in a tough area. Leon: 14:48 Well, and I would also say that there's, there's a way to, you don't have to say everything right. And that counts for lots of people in lots of situations. That truth is answering the question that you're being asked. Um, I will never forget that one of my children asked me, you know, 'Dad, where did I come from?" And so we sat down and had this very long, very specific conversation about biology and when I was done, my childhood, oh cause Bobby's from St. Louis and I realized I was not being asked the question. I thought I was being asked. And so answering the question that, that you're being asked, you know, "what's wrong" is a very open ended question. And if you give too much detail, people can, at best they'll ignore the answer. But at worst you're giving them bits of information they didn't really, they weren't really looking for in the first place. Al: 15:47 No, that's, that's a valid point. As the kids say TMI, too much information. I totally get it now as we've gotten older, but I know we've mentioned on previous segments on your podcast, I've acted as a mentor in my career in IT, and one of the pieces of pieces of advice that I give to young people getting into IT is keep it - and with all due respect - keep it simple stupid, the KISS method. Don't go out of your way to offer the end user, whoever you're explaining this to, an opportunity to twist your words around or maybe they just don't quite understand what you're trying to explain to them and then they can convey it incorrectly to someone else that could elevate it to a just a very challenging awkward position to be in. Leon: 16:32 Okay. So any, any other challenges that you've had again with your ethical, religious, moral point of view, blending that with your IT experiences? Al: 16:42 Um, communication is very important to me. Everyone should have an open door policy. Um, feedback should always be provided in good and bad situations cause we can only improve from it. Um, there are times where if you are going back to the honesty key point, if you are honest and upfront, there is a tendency, not, not necessarily all the time, but the occasionally that it could backfire. And um, it's, you know, the old expression, "you have to play the game" or "don't hate the player, hate the game." I don't like to be that way. I don't think anyone wants to be that way. And it's not something that I would encourage anyone to go down that path or act in that way. Um, but you know, it's a delicate balance and you just gotta be aware of your surroundings, but do it morally and ethically without not only, you know, putting yourself in a bad position, but your team as well. At the end of the day, you're a team. You have to function as one and, uh, we have to improve collectively. Leon: 17:39 Right. And, and again, you want to answer the question you're being asked, you want to offer the, you know, that those pieces of information don't overshare because at the end of the day, people, you know, they have a quick question. They want a quick answer usually, especially when something's really happening in IT. You want to be able to be brief and be brilliant and be gone. Al: 18:01 Yes, right. And all but, but be authentic, be original. You know, it's going back to what you just said and don't try to create something that you're not cause that that hero mentality sooner or later we'll come back and get you. And before, you know, you have a reputation of being that type of person and it's not something that anyone in IT or any, any, any career for that matter wants to be. Because once you've been singled out or blackballed or considered this type of individual, it's really hard to recover from. Leon: 18:35 It definitely can be. All right. So, so that's sort of the challenges. But, um, I'm curious if there have been benefits or surprises, uh, or just, you know, positive things that this overlap between your religious perspective and the IT work that, uh, you've had. If there's anything that, that you've experienced over the last 15 years. Al: 18:54 I think getting more involved more recently in the, the community in general, that the community, regardless of what platform it is, has been inspiring for me. It's opened up so many doors and created so many friendships, including with you and Josh on the podcast. Uh, it's refreshing to know that there are individuals out there that care for one another, not only from a professional aspect but from a human perspective as well. Because, you know, we work to live and we'd hate to work or we'd hate to live to work. And so I, I, that's something that I've learned over the past few years is, you know, you can put in 70 hours, but it's, and that's fine and dandy, but sooner or later it's gonna catch up to you. And before you know it, you're not going to be happy professionally. If you can't do your job in a 40 hour a week. And, and I get it occasionally you have to over your, you know, you have to overextend yourself. You have to sacrifice an hour or two here and there. But when it becomes a consistent part of your life, when you're putting in 70 hours a day, you're defeating the whole purpose of everything that you've worked so hard to get to. Leon: 20:00 Right. And again, I think that the, some of the guiding principles of our, our faith lives start to put, to put that into a particular framework of, you know, what are you doing this for? What's the point? Um, I was listening to someone speak the other day and they said, you know, if someone showed you a machine that was a perfectly self running machine, "Look, I turned it on and it never, it just completely feeds itself!" And you'd say, "That's wonderful. What does it do?" "Well, it does that, it just, it runs and it, it, it keeps itself moving and it keeps itself oiled and it's self repairs and stuff." "Yeah. But what does it do?" "Well, that's what it does. It just, you know...", You'd say, "Well that's cute, but a machine that works so that it works, it doesn't even make me a cup of coffee. It doesn't, you know, Polish the dog or like that. That's sort of a pointless, a pointless machine." And if we've become that pointless machine where we are working so that we can work so that we can keep working so that we can work, it's that sort of never ending loop. And I think that again, our faiths point us toward like, that's not it, that's not what you're supposed to do. Al: 21:06 I was just going to say, sorry to interrupt you, but then you do lose sight of faith when you're working night and day and all you do is think about work, work, work. And I don't want to come across the wrong way. Um, I, you know, I would hate for someone to characterize me in a different manner. Um, but I, you know, I, I'm a hardworking individual. I'm diligent, I'm thorough. I'll do the best to my ability. I am a team player, as I pointed out earlier. But you know, at the end of the day, I want to come home and separate work from life. Leon: 21:37 Absolutely. And I think that when you have that, when you have that ethic, everybody except the most, uh, abusive or small minded people will respect you more for it. Okay. So any final thoughts? Anything? If somebody listening this and saying, "Wow, that sounds just like me except, you know, he's way further ahead than I am" or whatever. Like what lessons do you want to share? What final thoughts do you want to leave everyone with? Al: 22:02 I would say based on where my path has taken me, you should always take a risk on yourself, especially if you've got an opportunity to do so. Uh, without, you know, without risking a lot, you'll realize sooner than later that the effort that you put into it, you'll be rewarded for it in time. Um, if you sit back and wait for someone to do something for you, nine times out of 10, it's not going to happen, but do it the right way. Um, seek help, uh, become a part of, you know, the various community groups. Um, occasionally, you know, you've got to volunteer because you've got to give and take. So you can't have everything, uh, put out on a silver platter. You've got to put in the time and effort, the blood, sweat and tears as they say. But a don't make yourself miserable doing so. And when I reflect back, I, I don't really have any regrets, uh, with what I chose to do at the time. I'm happy I'm, I'm, I've gotten to this point in my life and in my career, but moving forward, I, I still want to elevate and I still want to grow. And, um, I'm looking for that next challenge in my career. And, uh, if that opportunity presents itself for the right reasons, and if that a organization finds, um, that I am the person that they're looking for, you can always reach out to me. I'm more than willing to have a conversation. Leon: 23:17 They'd be idiots not to take you. I will, I will go out on a limb and say, Al, it is always so much fun to talk to you. Uh, I know we're gonna have you back on the Technically Religious podcast here in the near future, but thank you so much for taking some time out of your evening to talk with me. Al: 23:36 Thank you as always, and I appreciate your time and support and if there's anything I can do for you, the podcast or anybody in general, you've got my contact information, you're more than welcome to share with me if they reach out to you directly. Doug: 23:48 Thanks for making time for us this week. To hear more of Technically Religious, visit our website, http://www.technicallyeligious.com where you can find our other episodes, leave us ideas for future discussions and connect to us on social media.  

How is Edge compute defined? How does Edge Compute fit within your overall network design? How is Panduit doing it? What are some IoT applications? All that and more! Cisco Champions: Jeff Levensailor (twitter.com/levensailor), Cisco Champion member, Developer Engineer, Presidio. Steve Kostyk (twitter.com/lightbulb1), Cisco Champion member, Lead Network Engineer, Avangrid. Cisco Guest: Peter Jones (twitter.com/petergjones), Distinguished Engineer. Other Guest: Brian Kelly, Mgr, Network Architecture Research, Panduit. Moderator: Brett Shore (twitter.com/brettshore), Product Marketing Discussion Topics: - Edge Computing defined - Fog – a cloud that’s close to you - Are there extra costs with Edge Computing? - CORD initiative (Central Office Rearchitected as a Data Center) - The concept of Right-Location – think about the value edge compute brings to the assets it’s supporting. - CDNs (The original edge compute location?) - Examples of edge compute (like Amazon’s Outpost) - Reasons you might not want to put some on-prem content on the public cloud. - Panduit’s 4 environments for Edge Computing o Highly Protected Indoor o General Indoor o Harsh Indoor o Outdoor - Panduit’s NEMA devices - What’s a classic example of Edge Compute? Virus scanning! - The key to Edge Compute? Remote management…. dare we say, Single Pane of Glass? [Bingo!] - IoT applications for Edge Computing - What is the cost of unplanned outages? - How is Cisco changing by becoming Customer Zero? Ruthless standardization.

How is Edge compute defined? How does Edge Compute fit within your overall network design? How is Panduit doing it? What are some IoT applications? All that and more! Cisco Champions: Jeff Levensailor (twitter.com/levensailor), Cisco Champion member, Developer Engineer, Presidio. Steve Kostyk (twitter.com/lightbulb1), Cisco Champion member, Lead Network Engineer, Avangrid. Cisco Guest: Peter Jones (twitter.com/petergjones), Distinguished Engineer. Other Guest: Brian Kelly, Mgr, Network Architecture Research, Panduit. Moderator: Brett Shore (twitter.com/brettshore), Product Marketing Discussion Topics: - Edge Computing defined - Fog – a cloud that’s close to you - Are there extra costs with Edge Computing? - CORD initiative (Central Office Rearchitected as a Data Center) - The concept of Right-Location – think about the value edge compute brings to the assets it’s supporting. - CDNs (The original edge compute location?) - Examples of edge compute (like Amazon’s Outpost) - Reasons you might not want to put some on-prem content on the public cloud. - Panduit’s 4 environments for Edge Computing o Highly Protected Indoor o General Indoor o Harsh Indoor o Outdoor - Panduit’s NEMA devices - What’s a classic example of Edge Compute? Virus scanning! - The key to Edge Compute? Remote management…. dare we say, Single Pane of Glass? [Bingo!] - IoT applications for Edge Computing - What is the cost of unplanned outages? - How is Cisco changing by becoming Customer Zero? Ruthless standardization.

Cisco’s head of Investments & M&A, Rob Salvagno, joined Cisco Champions Radio to discuss why and how Cisco invests in startups, some of the most exciting investments Cisco has made recently, some of our recent acquisitions, and how Todd Nightingale owes him two bottles of scotch. We cover Cohesity, Meraki, Kespry and more! Show Notes: • How does Cisco gets plugged into the startup community? • Cisco sees an opportunity to participate in external innovation through investing. Cisco invests (on average) around 200M+ every year. • Cisco invests at scale, up and down the stack, globally. Global approach to investment strategy as innovation happens everywhere. Cisco is currently invested in companies in about 40 countries and in about 120 companies. • Cisco invests in areas it’s in today (such as security, DC, cloud) and things that are over the horizon (such as AR, ML, Drones, etc.) to get a unique perspective on what may be happening in the future. • COHESITY: One of Cisco’s fastest growing investments. Cisco & Cohesity combined bring a lot to our customers by working with UCS and Hyperflex • How do you decide when to purchase something? Cisco invests to test out interesting new products, usually on the order of $1-5M. When Cisco acquires a company, it is because Cisco has confidence they can bring it to a wider market. • Cisco acquisitions are not one-size fits all. • Meraki is one of the most successful recent acquisitions. Saw saw they had a new approach when they were coming up with cloud management. • Todd Nightingale owes Rob 2 bottles of scotch. I recommend Lagavulin • FUN FACT: Cisco had moved out of SF right before the Meraki acquisition. Meraki was the foundation for Cisco’s resurgence in San Francisco • DRONES: For example, mining companies used drones to change their business. Cisco has invested in drone company Kespry and has created a greater solution for customers by adding drone technology to solutions. • The Cisco Investments team look for people with conviction. • Teams are asked to focus on different areas. US: Sec, Collab, Big Data, Cloud. Teams spend all day in their topic. Half the time with the startups and half the time within the BUs. • APPROACH: Cisco Investments utilizes a structured and unstructured approach. The structured approach includes the approval processes for investments and acquisitions. Cisco has also built muscle and a sense of how to meet and find investments in the many years of investing. • Cisco Investments doesn’t determine the direction of Cisco but is trying to help accelerate the innovation • SaaS: Startups have to build solutions that are most relevant to today’s business. Most of the time they are software-centric companies with subscription business models. Thus, many of the recent acquisitions have SaaS / subscription services-based business models. • LEADERSHIP: Hire the right people and set them free to do their job. • Sometimes companies approach Cisco, we usually have our eyes on people, and we get tips from other VC firms we’ve invested who value Cisco as a strategic partner. • DECIBEL: Cisco investments has been series B and up. However, Cisco also recently launched an independent investment fund for Seed & Series A opportunities, called Decibel. • Surfing: chart uncharted territory. Like investing Cisco Champions: Jeff Levensailor (http://www.twitter.com/levensailor), Cisco Champion member, Developer Engineer, Presidio. David Peñaloza (http://www.twitter.com/davidsamuelps), Cisco Champion member, Lead Network Consulting Engineer, Verizon Enterprise Solutions. Cisco Guest: Rob Salvagno (http://www.twitter.com/salvagno), VP Corporate Development and Cisco Investments. Moderator: Lauren Friedman (http://www.twitter.com/lauren), Cisco Champion Program.