When you open a TAC case, how exactly does the customer support engineer (CSE) figure out how to solve the case? After all, CSEs are not super-human. Just like any engineer, in TAC you have a range of brilliant to not-so-brilliant, and everything in between. Let me give an example: I worked at HTTS, or […]
CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure
There were quite a few big announcements at Cisco Live this year. One of the big ones was the overhaul of the certification program. A number of new certifications were introduced (such as the DevNet CCNA/CCNP), and the existing ones were overhauled. I wanted to do a post about this because I was involved with […]
Cisco Live is over! Long Live Cisco Live!
I think it’s fair to say that all technical marketing engineers are excited for Cisco Live, and happy when it’s over. Cisco Live is always a lot of fun–I heard one person say “it’s like a family reunion except I like everyone!” It’s a great chance to see a lot of folks you don’t get […]
Inside Cisco Live
While I’m thinking about another TAC Tale, I’m quite busy working on slides for Cisco Live. I figured this makes for another interesting “inside Cisco” post, since most people who have been to the show don’t know much about how it comes together. A couple years back I asked a customer if I could […]
What are we getting ourselves into?
It seems to be rank heresy for someone working in the valley to say it, but let me say it anyways. I don’t agree with the axiom of the technology industry which states that all technological progress is always good. Many in our society instinctively realize this, which is why they oppose genetic engineering and […]
Blog Updates
A lot of the blog posts I write begin with “I’m just too busy to blog these days!” Luckily, I have dozens of drafts so often blogging is just a question of cleaning up something I wrote a long time ago. However, I’d like to keep things up here even as life becomes more hectic […]
Interviewing #1: How I got my first networking job
I’ve wanted to kick off a series for a while now on technical interviewing. Let me begin with a story. My first job interview for a full network engineering role was at the San Francisco Chronicle in 2000. I had been working for five years in IT, mostly doing desktop and end-user support. I then […]
Moving carpets for $2000
I worked for two years at a Cisco Gold Partner. The first year was great. We were trying to start up a Cisco practice in San Francisco (they were primarily a Citrix partner before), so my buddy and I wined and dined Cisco channel account managers trying to impress them with our CCIE’s and get […]
I am not a coder!
I recently replied to a comment that I think warrants a full blog post. I’ve been here at Cisco working on programmability for a few years. Brian Turner wrote in to say, essentially: Hang on! I became a network engineer precisely because I don’t want to be a coder! I tried programming and hated it! […]
TAC Tales #16: To microburst or not to microburst
I’ve mentioned before that EIGRP SIA was my nightmare case at TAC, but there was one other type of case that I hated–QoS problems. Routing protocol problems tend to be binary. Either the route is there or it isn’t; either the pings go through or they don’t. Even when a route is flapping, that’s just […]