Hey Everyone! Long time no talk! Hard to believe it’s been almost a year since i’ve posted. That’s on me… I started this blog to follow my studies and to keep me accountable, but it really hasn’t done that. I’m writing this post to try to kickstart this journey… but we’ll see how it goes.

A lot has changed since my post in October 2021 so I figured I should give a quick update on where i’ve been, where i’m at, and where i’m going!

Where I’ve Been!

AZ-700: The results are in!

I’m happy to report that I passed the AZ-700 in December of 2021! If you recall from my last post that is the Azure Certified Network Engineer Exam. I’m not going to lie I think studying for that exam is what led me to push this blog to the side. I put 100% of my time and effort into it and was laser focused to take it and pass before 2022. I learned a lot, but to be honest I didn’t fully apply everything I learned and push myself to become a “Cloud Network Engineer”. I’ve done other things which we’ll be discussing shortly.

New Roles and Responsibilties

At my employer I had been the Lead Network Engineer for some time. I hadn’t been a Network Engineer for long, but I think because of my eagerness to learn and try to optimize our environment. In January of 2022 I was promoted to Managee of Network Services with my employer. I now would officially be managing our WAN/LAN, VoIP/Collaboration, and Network Security teams. This was a role I was eager to dive into as I was excited at the opportunity to hire like minded invidiuals and build a strong group of Network individuals. I continue to operate in this role and i’m happy to say i’ve hired two awesome engineers who are continuing to push myself and others on team.

New Addition to the Family

In November 2021 my wife and I welcomed a Miniature Daschund to our family! Her name is Butters and she is the most adorable and cuddly dog i’ve ever had. Since my wife travels for work it was good to have some companionship at home after those tough days at work.

AONE Meetup!

If you’ve never heard of the Art of Network Engineering… you’re missing out! AONE (Art of Network Engineering for short) was a podcast started during COVID by a couple of Network Engineers who were all studying for their CCNP. Long story short the podcast blew up, a Discord Community was created, and the first ever Live Recording of the Podcast was held in Asheville, NC. Living in Atlanta, GA and not being too far I was lucky enough to attend and meet up with a bunch of different people from the community! This was an awesome weekend full of laughs, stories, and shenanigans that i’ll never forget!

Cisco Live 2022!

This year I had the opportunity to attend Cisco Live! This was my first time going and boy did it not disappoint. I once again got to meet up with a bunch of people from the AONE Community, but also was able to meet a ton of new people from Networking Twitter! Usually twitter is a dumpster fire of a place IMO, but one of my colleague’s introduced me to some people to follow and it’s been really awesome. Cisco Live was everything I expected in more! I was able to attend a bunch of awesome sessions, tour the World of Solutions, and even take part in some DevNet workshops. Cisco Live is a must for any Networking professional and I can’t wait to attend next year!

Incoming photo dump!

Where I’m At!

You Win some you Lose some

Well it’s now July of 2022… we’re pretty much half way through the year and what have I done so far? It’s been mostly work unfortunately, but I have continued my studies! During Cisco Live you have the option to take any Cisco Exam for free. I decided that I was going to go after the ENSDWI which is the Cisco SDWAN CCNP Specialty exam. Let’s just say I did not prepare the way I should have and my exam showed it. I failed that exam and it left me in a peculiar place. I work on my company’s SDWAN weekly, but that was not enough and left me questioning if I was still a Network Engineer.

I’d been in this Manager role for a couple months now and i’m not going to lie it hasn’t been the easiest transition. Every week I feel myself losing some of my technical prowess. I see the engineers on my team implementing cool new solutions and tools, but I don’t have the time to dig into them. Instead there are meetings to attend, invoices to approve, and projects to plan.

After the failure I immediately scheduled the new CCNA exam. My CCNA had been expired for a couple years, but I needed to know if I still knew what I was doing/talking about. Might seem a little silly, but failing that test did something to me and I just had to know. I went and sat the CCNA the next day and passed to renew my CCNA. It was a relief as there was a weight of doubt on my shoulders, not for long, but enough to make me question what I was working on and doing.

Return to Office (RTO)

My company has announced that ourt RTO would be August 1st and lets just say i’m very nervous. Not about coming into the office as I come into the office a decent bit already, but the state of the Network… Since we left the office in March of 2020 A LOT has changed. We were primarily a VDI shop in all of our remote offices. The wireless supported only personal devices such as cell phones, ipads, and the occasional laptop for a Regional Manager or Director of Operations.

That’s all changed now and every single user in our org has a laptop and our VDI is gone. It keeps me up at night on what this RTO experience is going to be like. We’ve had users slowly trickling back in 1 to 2 days a week and we’ve seen an assortment of issues. We recently performed a Wireless Assessment and remediation with a VAR and now only time will tell on what we encounter when all 6000 of our employees are back in.

My time from now until August will be identifying, troubleshooting, and training up the team in preperation for August 1st.

Where I’m Going!

More Responsibility/Another new Addition!

As I mentioned earlier my job roles and responsilties have changed and their about to change again. My wife and I are expecting our first child, a baby girl, on November 1st! We’ve slowly been getting things together and the house in order, but now that the furniture is put together and clothes are starting to come in things are getting real! I’m excited and nervous, but thankful for my awesome wife keeping it all together and organized. We’re also lucky to be going through this journey with a couple of close friends who are also expecting their firsts!

Cert Goals for 2022/2023

I’m currently studying for the DevNet Associate and hoping to clear that before our Baby coming in November/by the end of 2022. After that depending on time and workload i’m going to pursue the CCNP 2023.

Blog Goals

I’m going to try and commit to blogging at least once a month. It might be something as short as a How-To, Status update on how things are, or maybe even something that was accomplished at work. We’ll see how the workload is once the baby comes as that will be priority number one.

Closing: Thank you!

I know this was a long one so for everyone who made it to this point, thank you! To everyone in the AONE and Networking Twitter Community, thank you! and to my beautfiul wife, thank you! I appreciate and i’m grateful for everyone in my life who continues to support me and push me to accomplish my goals.

Keep an eye out for future posts and may your weeks be outage free!