Certification and Career Goals for 2020

[Otanx]

I agree with you on the Arista certs. I looked at them after I posted, and not really seeing the benefit. We don't do EVPN yet, but maybe in the next few years. We are still migrating our DC over from IOS/NX-OS, and I am trying to keep it simple for the junior guys. I am probably going to do Palo Alto which I didn't even mention. We have a few, and are probably moving that way. ASA is EOLing, and I don't like FTD.

-Otanx

[wintermute000]

One of our Arista regulars will kill me but imma saying it anyway: a colleague of mine worked on an Arista network for 18 months (as in built it out, not just ops), went for the exam and got stumped by questions like what is the colour on component X of model Y. He bombed, and he's an amazing engineer, he said that it was just trivial pursuit and barely asked any 'real' questions on MLAG, VXLAN, EVPN etc.

That was a while back though maybe its different now to be fair. But still the return you'll get isn't great as most recruiters/companies aren't looking for it.

EVPN is amazing but complex to learn, good thing there are PLENTY of reference guides out there. Its actually beneficial (like MPLS) reading the same thing again from Cisco and then Juniper and then Arista or whoever, to drill the protocol concepts in. You can thankfully lab at least the control plane these days with vEOS / NXOSv images, when I started messing around with it in ~2016 it was a bit bleeding edge on virtual images. I am out of date though as I did a giant project 2017-2018 then I haven't touched it since so a lot of the details are fading into the background LOL

But if you're going Arista soon and you aren't buying Cloudvision then yeah get ready to Ansible.

PAN is definitely worth doing if you're buying it, its now more recognised, and like all FW platforms there is a LOT to take in. But esp. as its really a layer-7 firewall that can also do packet filters (rather than a packet filter with L7 profiles bolted on like, I dunno, the entire competition). They're not as mind blowing as say 4-5 years ago but still pretty rad, if painful (in the same way that ALL firewalls are painful lol). I recall working on them for the first time in 2015 and being amazed at things like app-id, user-id, and the ability to restrict on a pure application basis (that is actually reliable and updated daily) and cross reference on an identity basis from AD groups (e.g. allow only netadmin group SSH). The App recognition is smart enough to detect non-standard ports, tunnelling (e.g. try running openVPN against a HTTPS rule, or tunnelling over SSH when the rule only allows vanilla SSH. denied), you can even block say facebook messenger but still allow facebook website. And of all the on-prem FWs the SSL decryption is best in class (though not as painless as ZScaler I'd say). THe standard partner playbook back in the day was to simply loan the customer a unit and hook up a span port to it BEHIND their existing FW and watch their faces as all the stuff it catches scrolls past - that flew right past their existing ASA/SRX etc

[wintermute000]

Microsoft Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-103) done, just in time before it updates to AZ-104 FTW

[Otanx]

Congrats. Do you have to do the AZ exams in order (103 then 104), or is that just how you are doing it?

-Otanx

[dlots]

CCNA- Dev
hopefully CCNP dev

[wintermute000]

Dlots you'd pass that on your sleep congratulations
Otanx straight to AZ103, AZ104 is the replacement so I just snuck in. You get the same cert

[wintermute000]

PCNSE renewed. Onto more Azure

[wintermute000]

300-415 ENSDWI down

[Otanx]

Congrats. I see someone is using this shutdown to their advantage.

-Otanx

[deanwebb]

^ That, or he's now in a 100% certification hound FTE role so his VAR can maintain Gold status for all its vendors.

[config t]

I am pushing forward with SCOR and Azure certs. Honestly the Azure certs are an effort to leverage my contacts within an organization that rhymes with Icrosoft to see if my clearance can get me a job in the organization. Would I be happy there? Hell I don't know. From what I have seen of the cleared PFE community just showing up, caring and doing your job makes you a rockstar. I suppose I would do well.

Otherwise I think SCOR and VPN perhaps would make me look sexy. Same with the Palo Alto I have been harping on for months now.

[deanwebb]

Clearance + Vendor = yay you can do all the military contracts

[wintermute000]

Azure Solutions Architect Expert down

Disclaimer: I am not an Azure expert. Don't ask me about databases, I drive routers FFS!!!!!

[deanwebb]

Azure Solutions Architect Expert down

Disclaimer: I am not an Azure expert. Don't ask me about databases, I drive routers FFS!!!!!

Can I move all my on-prem network infrastructure to the cloud?

[wintermute000]

Yes, for the price of a burrito