The network engineers thread

[paradigm]

Me Too!

Although my CCNP Sec is still valid, then dome some Forti certs mainly moving to more cloud stuff lately, its been cool

Don't get me wrong, if my current employer started jumping back on the Cisco product stack I'd be all over it, but we only use Cisco kit in a handful of places so it just makes no sense at the moment.

Next on the agenda for me is some Azure certs just to round out my "on paper" skills.

 

[Felon]

I find Cisco just too expensive these days, and their DC portfolio sucks pretty bad, especially compared to serious DC players like Arista and Nvidia/Mellanox.

That said, up until the Nvidia acquisition - you could get a Mellanox 3700 for like $10-12k list, since the Nvidia takeover - you're now looking at $30-40k list, they hiked those prices big time.

That said, the Cumulus BGP implementation is one of the best there is for clos/spine-leaf topologies. The only problem I have with Nvidia right now, is that they're going 100mph down the whole GPU route, if you want features adding to the software and it doesn't involve filling the DC with GPUs, forget it.

 

[hamesy]

I wish I went down the network engineer route. When I was at uni, our network modules were basically CCNA. I bought all the books and loved it.

My first job was in house IT so dealt with mainly desktops and some of the servers. Network support was pretty much provided by a 3rd party so there was no need to do my CCNA properly. I carried on down this route throughout various jobs until I left to work for myself. Now I have to be a jack of all trades.

 

[Semple]

Took a delivery of a huge load of eval kit today around $1M worth (list price), including a large delivery of 400G-OSFP-DD DAC cables, they're absolutely huge.

Standard 25G SFP on the left, 400G-OSFP on the right, it's like pushing something the size of a mars-bar into the the router

Shudder at the cost of those. I get my 25GB SFPs at cost price and even they're expensive when I need to fill a switch.

 

[Sinbad2000]

ex networks + unix here (ccna in 2001), now infrastructure management.

Busy wrestling with some cisco 3110 FWs at the moment, never seen such an unstable piece of ***** in my life.

 

[paradigm]

I wish I went down the network engineer route. When I was at uni, our network modules were basically CCNA. I bought all the books and loved it.

My first job was in house IT so dealt with mainly desktops and some of the servers. Network support was pretty much provided by a 3rd party so there was no need to do my CCNA properly. I carried on down this route throughout various jobs until I left to work for myself. Now I have to be a jack of all trades.

Never too late to provide a specialism to your customer base? My background was definitely more "all aspects of Infrastructure" roles, and I do still have a high degree of involvement with our hyperconverged infrastructure.

 

[robj20]

I did CCNA at college because back then I didn't know what I wanted to do.
Never used it and pretty much forgot it all.

 

[XGS]

Greets!

Over 20 years in networking across service provider and enterprise and definitely still a beginner in the grand scheme.

 

[iamdjdz]

Started in 2019 after 3 years general IT field engineer work. First job (and the general IT one) were Cisco centric so got CCNA, the ENARSI (now, prev tshoot) exam and did bunch of wireless and SDWAN stuff. Also learnt my way round Firepower and FTDs and a good bit of GPON. Now in a Juniper and Fortinet house so got my JNCIS SP and ENT and working on NSE4 which shouldn't take too long, then whatever the next step is Fortinet wise in the new cert world. Also heavily involved in L2 carrier Ethernet using ADVA kit which is different.

Goal one day is an IE (Cisco or Juniper) and work in professional services rather than a mix of managed service and support but we shall see.

 

[Felon]

Goal one day is an IE (Cisco or Juniper) and work in professional services rather than a mix of managed service and support but we shall see.

I spent a few years doing consulting work for Juniper, via an elite partner/reseller - to be honest it was great, I got to work with really good customers who knew what they were doing an just needed some help here and there (testing, design, etc). Then I'd end up on the polar opposite - customer's who'd purchased a heap of MX or PTX, but didn't have a clue what they were doing, and I'd end up in a hostile environment trying to help people who didn't want to be helped

So it was cool, as I got to see the best of both worlds - was interesting.

 

[spoon]

Took a delivery of a huge load of eval kit today around $1M worth (list price), including a large delivery of 400G-OSFP-DD DAC cables, they're absolutely huge.

Standard 25G SFP on the left, 400G-OSFP on the right, it's like pushing something the size of a mars-bar into the the router

Holy mother of God - look at the size of that thing!

But then again, 400Gbps is some serious business - what sort of device(s) do these DAC cables go into?

 

[Felon]

But then again, 400Gbps is some serious business - what sort of device(s) do these DAC cables go into?

Those currently connect into Arista 7289R3 edge routers, which I'm using as a DCI interconnect: https://www.arista.com/en/products/7280r3a-modular-series-quick-look (currently evaluating the whole environment)

We did look at Juniper PTX10k, but Juniper were being silly with their pricing ($300k per box), so we stopped talking to them

Those gigantic 400G optics (OSFP), are actually the older standard of 400G (it uses 8x50G lanes to get the 400) and they run really hot (which is why the optic is so much bigger)

The newer version (QSFP56-DD) are smaller, cooler and run 4x100G lanes, they're what we're using in the spine layer.

Only problem is, you can't connect 400G OSFP at one end, and 400G QSFP56-DD at the other, as the SERDES both operate at different rates (one end is 8x50g the other is 4x100) so you need to terminate on different line-cards, which is a headache.