inevitable

And then what?

2012-01-01T09:02:00.001+04:00

You went to the best school in the country. You studied hard competing with many others. And finally you were graduated. And then what?

You got accepted in your first job. You worked hard trying to distinguish yourself from others. And finally you got yourself a promotion. And then what?

You were among the best at work. Suddenly you felt money is not the object anymore. Finally you could afford all the things you always wanted. And then what?

It's a new year and I feel like I haven't done much during the past one year to contribute to the community. For 2012 I set a target to put more focus on helping the professionals and students from my country so they know how to compete in global market too. Expect more WebEx sessions, more writings, more social media, and more knowledge and experience sharing workshops.

The new year's eve has passed. The firework show is over. Those who went out for hangover are already in bed.
And then what?

Happy new year 2012.

Why Would I Hire You?

2011-12-09T16:49:00.001+04:00

So you sent me email saying you want to join my company, along with your CV attached or at least with the request asking me to provide my recommendation. It's funny because of three things:

One - I'm not the owner of my current company nor the decision maker in my company's hiring process.
Two - How can I provide recommendation if I never meet or work with you personally? Do you expect me to just blindly believe in everything you said in the email or your CV?
Three - You expect me to provide recommendation but your email contains basic grammatical errors. Your CV can't be read easily, it contains unnecessary information, it doesn't tell who you are, what you are looking for, and what you are capable of, and it contains many spelling mistakes.

Let's just say I was the owner of the company. Or at least I had big influence in company's hiring process. Why would I hire you?

I would hire someone who has better skills than me. So go ahead, impress me.

I would hire someone who has extensive experience in multiple roles. Who has real experience in different type of customers. Who has been in many challenging situations.

I would hire someone who can work with minimum supervision, but at the same time can get along with the team.

I would hire someone who can adapt quickly. Who is open for options. Who's willing to look from another perspective. Technical competency can be built but someone attitude may not change after many years.

I would hire someone who will bring new values to the team. Who comes with different mindset. Who will bring up new and fresh ideas.

But above all, I would definitely hire someone if I could say: Hey, I know you. I have seen your work. And I heard lots of good things about you.

Now you just need to change the question to: why would (insert your dream company name here) hire you?

Good day.

What's Your Story? Version 2

2011-11-03T03:10:00.001+04:00

Five weeks ago I was escorted by a vehicle with 3 guys carrying automatic weapons, just to get into Lagos airport.

Four weeks ago I led 10 cars to Fossil Rock in Dubai, and for some it was their first experience desert driving for real.

Then on Sunday morning I took another Emirates flight from Dubai airport.

Reached Vienna, moved to the Schengen side.

Took small airplane to reach Budapest. Thank God, it still really works.

Met and got envious by so many couples in this amazing place.

And watched the time pass by from Danube bank.

But I felt lonely so I know I should spend my weekend somewhere else.

On Thursday three weeks ago I packed my bag and took the train to Bratislava.

Took a budget airline from Letisko airport to...

.. Barcelona! Visited Camp Nou stadium directly, home of FC Barcelona!

Then spent most of the Friday afternoon in Barcelona with the seagulls at Moll de la Fusta.

Time seems to stop moving here.

Probably the best place to have one own time.

Life is like a boat, they said.

I really wished you were here.

My first sunset in Barcelona.

It reminded me why I love traveling. I'm like a bird, I'll only fly away.

The next day I spent time from morning to walk around Ribera, Gothic Church, Picasso Museum.

But the most impressive experience was watching the game between FC Barcelona against Racing on Saturday evening, live from Camp Nou stadium with more than 80,000 spectators!

I even stayed outside the parking exit with all other fans, trying to catch the FC Barcelona players driving their Audi home.

The next day on Sunday morning I passed Arc de Triomf before leaving Barcelona.

Then I took Ryan Air flight back to Bratislava.

I almost missed my train to Budapest. Got on board a minute before it left, literally.

So two weeks ago I spent another few days in Budapest.

Listen to Speak Softly Love on the street.

Took some risk just to make a photo of Budapest tram.

And spent the last night in Budapest at Danube.

Really said goodbye to Budapest when I left through Keleti train station.

Reached Bratislava again.

Leaving from Letisko airport again for one last trip before heading home.

On Wednesday night two weeks ago, guess which city map I was checking?

Guess where did I listen to cool song that night?

Rome! It was raining though.

Didn't stop me to walk around.

And climbed the Spanish Steps.

Fontana di Trevi was cleaned up due to the rain.

Good thing the sun started coming up when I went to Vatican.

Felt lost at San Pietro square.

Took the long and impossible stairs to reach the top of the Basilica San Pietro dome.

The view of Vatican city from the top was amazing.

The sunset here is unforgettable too.

And the trip to Rome wouldn't be completed without visiting the amazing Colosseo.

Watched the gladiator getting prepared.

And passed through the road tunnel.

Friday two weeks ago was the time to go back home in Dubai. To go back to the desert too.

But before that, on Tuesday last week I went out to see Metallica performing live at Yas Arena, Abu Dhabi!

I grew up listening to their music, so can't get enough screaming and headbanding that night.

I must gave my respect to James by showing the fingers.

Last week I also reached the magic number 444 somehow on Instagram.

And last Friday it was just a usual weekend at Dubai desert.

Finally yesterday I watched the sunset from the beach next to Burj Al Arab hotel.

What's your story?

Follow my life story @hnugroho on Instagram.

And thank you, God, for the amazing time during the past 5 weeks.

What's Your Story?

2011-10-11T08:33:00.000+04:00

Two weeks ago I was escorted by a vehicle with 3 guys in uniform carrying automatic weapons, just to get into Lagos airport.

Last Friday I led 10 cars to Fossil Rock, and for some it was their first experience desert driving for real.

Sunday morning I took another Emirates flight from Dubai airport.

Reached Vienna, moved to the Schengen side.

Took small airplane to reach Budapest. Thank God, it still really works.

Met and got envious by so many couples in this amazing place.

And watched the time pass by from Danube bank.

What's your story?

Follow my eurotrip @hnugroho on Instagram.

Lagos, First Trip

2011-10-02T17:49:00.000+04:00

First trip to Lagos, Nigeria. First trip to Africa.

Before I left I received a document from the corporate security team regarding a list of dos and don'ts for my trip. Some of them may not be really necessary, but the team don't want to take risk and put them all as precautions. I would like to share my own experience here that may be useful for fellow travelers who are planning to visit the place someday.

Please note I have no intention to offend anyone from Nigeria with this post. You guys are locals and know the real situation better. The following is just based on what I have seen and been through during my short trip.

1. Take yellow fever injection and the certificate

I was suggested to take 6 injections by the security team as well as the doctor that I have to consult before flying. So I did. The truth: we just need only the Yellow Fever injection with the certificate to prove it. And it has to be done at least 10 days before the trip. I was stopped at the airport because I took the injection only 2 days before. Luckily I was using point no. 2 below :)

2. Use fast track at the airport

The immigration queue can be very long. After that there is still another checkpoint to verify the yellow fever certificate. As highly recommended by the security team, I was using the fast track service so someone picked me up before the immigration counter, took me to pass the counter quickly, and even with my issues with yellow fever injection that I took only 2 days before the trip she was able to make me through all the way until I got into the SUV with bodyguard to take me to the hotel.

3. Malaria mosquito in general bite at night

Don't go out at night if it's not required. If necessary to go, use mosquito repellant and long sleeve shirt to cover. The doctor told me to take malaria pills but I think the best way is to avoid getting bitten in the first place. The hotel set the AC to very cold to keep the mosquito away. I saw many people had their breakfast and lunch in the terrace outside the hotel restaurant. So I think we just need to be careful during the night.

4. Don't drink tap water

Well, the doctor told me to use bottled water even to brush my teeth. She had a patient who got sick after the trip, suspected due to the bacteria in the water. He didn't drink the tap water but used it to brush his teeth. I don't want to take risk so I did as what she advised. And the hotel provides lots of bottled water for free anyway.

5. Use armed escort vehicle in the evening

As part of the security protocol from many companies, we have to use armed escort vehicle to travel between the hotel and the airport in the evening (after 4 pm). I can't judge how dangerous the street is after dark, but what I can tell:
- traffic is very heavy during that time so the escort can get through it faster
- just outside the airport the road is not that smooth and many people drive recklessly
- the escort company is very professional they make sure the car is at the best condition, fuel is always full, to ensure we don't have to stop at all during the trip and can reach the airport as soon as possible

On my way to the airport I was in SUV no. 2. I had a vehicle in front of me with the siren and 3 guys carrying automatic weapons. Behind me there is another SUV for another guests, and the last car is another car with siren and 3 guys with weapons.

6. Always carry small change, either in Neira or USD

I didn't want to write it down first, but please allow me to share my experience at the airport: even when I have all my documents ready, there were few people trying to ask money from me in order to let me go quickly without many questions. I didn't have change at that time, and I felt it was not necessary to give them since I have nothing they can use against me. But if you are stopped because you carry let's say a liquid which is a little bit beyond the limit, and you want them to let you go with it, this may be the way out :)

In summary, I really enjoy my first trip to Lagos. The place is beautiful, people are nice, view is stunning, and the food are delicious.

Thank you, Lagos. Until next time.

Why We Photograph

2011-09-17T10:23:00.000+04:00

Have we ever asked question why we make photos?

Most of us started photography as a hobby. But what is our objective? Are we doing it just to fill up our spare time or because we are thinking to become a professional someday? Or perhaps because we want to be popular and get social with other photographers? To document our personal life? To share our current location with friends and relatives? Or because we just enjoy the experience?

The type of photography we would like to do obviously affects the gears we use. But the objective that we want to achieve at the end I believe will affect our selection of gears and the sharing media as well.

To achieve certain objectives below, personally I would use the following:

- Make money or for future career
Depends on the business I want to get into, for example sport and wildlife require DSLR and telephoto lens, landscape needs big sensor camera probably medium format, studio photography requires all the strobes. I'd use professional photo editing software and digital storage system at home to archive my works. To represent and market my photos I would create online gallery, photoblog and perhaps Facebook page. I may submit some of my work to stock photo website. And I'd try to win photo competition or get into a magazine as part of my profile advertisement.

- Document personal life
Any gear but probably fast lens and AF if I want to capture my kids running around, lightweight photo editing software, can use Flickr for archive and Facebook to share with relatives, print the photos to paper so they can be framed and hanged on the wall.

- Capture surrounding life as it happens
Probably small camera or mobile phone, may go with RF and distance focusing lens for hip shot, use Flickr for digital archive, and may upload to Twitter or Facebook for real time update.

- Enjoy photography as it was
Film camera, manual lens, one hour lab or darkroom at home. Even to share the result I will need to scan the negatives or slides, and archive the result digitally either at home storage or using online service.

- Digital postcard, to update my current location to friends and relatives
Mobile phone, upload to Facebook.

- Social photography: to follow, comment, like, and getting social with others
iPhone, Instagram

- Just to be happy
Use any gear, use any sharing media, ignore all criticisms :)

My regular photography gears and sharing media:
Leica M6, 35/f2 summicron lens, Kodak Ektar, Ilford XP2, one-hour lab, USB drive, macbook air, iPhoto, Flickr, Facebook

My social photography gears and sharing media:
iPhone 4, Camera+, Instagram

Find me @hnugroho on Instagram.

My Daughter Art Gallery

2011-09-16T00:30:00.000+04:00

Gallery for paintings made by my 12 years old daughter: virasart.com. Few were made when she was 10. A father couldn't be more proud!

Ten Years CCIE

2011-09-13T23:29:00.000+04:00

Today I become a 10-year CCIE.

I passed CCIE lab in Routing and Switching track exactly 10 years ago. Now I can use the special Ten Years CCIE logo anywhere I like.

Looking back the past 10 years, I would say it's been a roller coaster journey. Even before I passed CCIE, the attempt to take the lab exam already brought me some interesting memories: how I switched from mechanical engineering to computer networking when I was jobless, how I was able to join Schlumberger the company that I thought was my dream company, how I then moved to IBM and felt like working as part of the family, how they sent me to CCIE Lab in Brussels with business class, and finally how I became a CCIE after the second attempt in Tokyo.

Having CCIE landed me a job with a gold partner company in Dubai. Got the second CCIE in Security track self funded. Involved in multiple projects with different roles, from solutions architect to project manager to technical lead to design consultant to field engineer who mounted the devices. The experiences and the certifications made me able to work as a contractor several years later. Until finally I joined Cisco Advanced Services in Singapore 5 years ago. And got my third CCIE in Service Provider track a year later with them.

I've been traveling to 26 countries since I started working as CCIE. I'm blessed with chances to visit many fascinating places: Amsterdam, Bangkok, Bratislava, Budapest, Hanoi, Hongkong, Istanbul, London, Mexico City, Munich, Paris, Prague, San Francisco, Taipei, Venice, Vienna and many more.

Travel. Meet new people. Meet new customers. Become friends with some.

I remember several difficult projects that I used to handle and lead: from Data center project in Malaysia, Migrating Vietnam Internet, CRS proof of concept in Sydney and San Jose, first full fledge IPv6 on IOS XR in Czech, Flat L2 to VPLS migration in Slovakia, Fixed Mobile Convergence in UAE, to impossible project in Saudi.

To celebrate my 10-year CCIE I'm thinking to release the story of the challenging situation from each project above. Just like what I did already with Project Malaysia. Let's see if I have time to do so.

Passing CCIE lab exam will not automatically make us entitled to be called as an expert. But it can open doors of opportunity to work in more complex projects, to assume higher responsibilities, to get into challenging situations, to get more exposures. And to work and get surrounded by another senior level engineers and the experts. Until someday we can become like one of them. Perhaps even better.

CCIE was really the beginning for me.

10 Lessons from Project Malaysia

2011-09-09T01:18:00.003+04:00

September 2007. One week before my CCIE SP lab exam.

I arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday. I was tired. I just came back from finishing up a project in some other country, and I got assignment directly to come here for a 3-day project kickoff meeting and design workshop. I heard the project was about migrating one of our key customer's multiple data centers from non-Cisco equipments to Cisco, but I didn't even bother to read the RFP or other project documents.

I met the Project Manager during dinner at Hard Rock cafe, and I told her I didn't prepare anything for the workshop. She said it's fine. There is another architect had been working with the customer for months during the pre-sales stage, and he would be the one who lead the workshop. My job was just to introduce myself to the customer, make notes during the workshop and take over the project from him later on.

Lesson #1: never meet the customer unprepared

After enjoying the live music at the cafe I came back to the hotel and studied for my CCIE SP lab. I spent more than 1000 lab hours practicing for my first CCIE, about 600 lab hours for my second, but for this attempt I had not even reached 200 hours. I ended not sleeping that night, practicing hard in my CCIE lab, instead of reading the project document. The other guy would take care everything, I told myself.

Lesson #2: do not assume someone will take care of everything

We met the customer at 9 sharp, just as the meeting schedule. I was still able to look good that morning due to the Red Bull that I consumed whole night. I looked around and tried to find a seat in the corner. The customer should not see me that much, I thought. Let the other guy run the show while I can just keep quite in the corner and if possible use the time to practice for my lab exam.

Ten minutes past 9, and the other architect was not there. The room was full with people from both customer and our partner company. I counted more than 20. Perhaps 30. My project manager saw the architect online on our internal IM. She pinged him. Told him to be hurry to come to the customer's office, as she thought the guy was still in his hotel room. He didn't reply. She started to feel that something was wrong. She pinged him again.

Then finally the guy replied. He said he was still in Australia.

Both the project manager and I didn't understand. After a quick chat with him, it seems like there was a misunderstanding. His manager assigned him for another task, that prevented him to come to the workshop, and he thought his manager had already informed us about it. His manager thought the same thing. It doesn't matter now. The most important fact is: he was there in Australia, and we were here in Malaysia. In front of the customer who expected a fully prepared workshop.

Lesson #3: there is no point for finger pointing

I looked at the project manager. She looked at me. I didn't even read the RFP. I didn't really know the scope of the project. The other guy was ready to lead the workshop. He had spent months with the customer to understand not only the project scope but as well as the existing setup.

It was almost half past 9.

The project manager only looked at me, she didn't say anything. She knew she couldn't ask much from me.
And I knew we need to do something.

Lesson #4: stand up and assume responsibility

I stood up and started the meeting. I introduced myself as the person who would lead the workshop. I told the customer the other guy had some personal issue and must cancel his flight in the last minute. From the face of customers I could see some of them were unhappy. They expected to see the other guy. He was the one who had been with them for some time. The other guy knew everything about this project.

Lesson #5: do whatever it takes to save the team

I wrote down the workshop agenda on the whiteboard. I didn't plan for it. Everything was on the fly. I didn't even think. I just followed my instinct. I had been in many design workshops so I just let myself run with the flow. I explained to the customer just like any project design workshop we would discuss the existing setup in day one, the second day was to discuss about the new high level network design, and the last day for migration options discussion.

Lesson #6: follow your instinct, the knowledge is already inside you

I didn't think. I just tried my best to show everyone that I knew what I was doing.

And some people from the customer were not convinced. They expressed their concerns regarding the other guy who should lead the workshop. Some other said we should not discuss the existing setup anymore because the other guy already knew everything. They expected to see the presentation of the new design. They wanted to focus on the new thing. They wanted to see more prepared workshop.

The other guy was not there, only me.

We spent some time to listen to customer's complaints. Then the project manager and I explained that everything that was discussed before during the pre-sales process needed to be discussed again in the kickoff meeting and the workshop as part of the methodology of any project we do with every customer.

Lesson #7: if you have to lie, do it full hearted

One person was still not convinced. He was so angry he left the meeting room.

I saw my project manager silently tried to send messages to our management about the situation. And I had to carry on.

We were moving slowly with the discussion. I asked the customer to draw the existing setup on the whiteboard. I asked lots of questions. Sometime the customer mentioned some of the questions had been explained to the other architect. I replied I need to do this to get official confirmation that will be written down in the meeting minute. I really didn't think to come up with such answer. I was just trying to keep the ball rolling and pass the day.

And amazingly we managed to achieve it. Day 1 workshop was over.

Lesson #8: continue to do whatever you think is right

That night I had dinner with the project manager and we discussed the plan for the second day. We had two options, either to give up and say we did the best we could but we can't just go back to Day 2 workshop without any new material, or try to do something. And we both knew whatever we wanted to do we had only that night.

It was easier to give up. To surrender. And to blame the other guy. It was not our mistake we were not prepared. We could go tomorrow to the customer and admit that we don't have any material to be presented. All the materials were with the other guy. The management team from our company would understand. The management would not blame us.

But we decided to go with the second option.

We worked together the whole night. I asked the project manager to summarize the requirements from the RFP and from project scope document. I compiled all the information about the customer's existing setup, put it into nice slides, took the requirements work from the project manager, and added the new high level network design based on Cisco architecture blueprint for data center. This was the project kickoff and the first design workshop anyway, so it should be fine to discuss only the high level of the new design.

I remember I had several cans of Red Bull to keep me awake that night, and to stay alive for the whole day during the second day workshop. I still don't know what my project manager was using to make her survive.

Lesson #9: always refuse to give up without any fight

With our material we managed to run the Day 2 workshop more successfully. I started the morning with reviewing the current setup and asked for more detail info. Then I discussed the requirements and I presented the new high level design. The slides looked good and professional. Everything looked good and the customer felt we were much prepared this time. Our manager arrived in the afternoon just to see everything was already under control.

And in the evening after the workshop he treated us in a very nice Japanese restaurant. All we-can-eat-and-drink style. I had never seen that many Japanese food on the table in my life.

Lesson #10: celebrate every achievement, no matter small

The third day was just to discuss the high level options available for the migration.

Until now I still can't believe we were able to complete the 3 days workshop with such short preparation, if you can even call it that. The workshop was not perfect but I would say still within the acceptable level compared to other design workshop that we did for any customers. And the most important, we didn't get kick out from the meeting room by the angry customer.

It was already Wednesday night and my CCIE SP lab exam was on Monday morning.

I told the project manager, and my manager, that I would be unreachable until the exam to focus on my study. She told me one thing that I probably would remember for the rest of my life: "you were able to handle such situation the past 3 days, no CCIE lab exam can test you more than that".

I was not planning for anything. It was my first lab attempt for SP track, so it should be fine even to fail.
But I was just doing exactly what I did during the workshop: refuse to give up.

From Wednesday I spent every minute I had to practice for my lab exam. I don't think I even slept from Thursday to Sunday. I flew to Brussels on Saturday, just to found out the Internet was not working in my hotel, so I stayed at Cisco office from Saturday until Monday morning. Even when all other CCIE candidates had already came to Cisco Brussels office around 7 morning on Monday, I was still there connecting to my lab console and practicing to the last minute.

I finished the 8-hour lab and I was happy at least I had given everything I got.
I decided to stay at Cisco office waiting for the result.

Around midnight I received the result email saying that, against all odds, I passed the SP lab exam in my first attempt.

That's the day I became a Triple CCIE.

And my project manager was right, the pressure in the lab exam felt much less compared to what we had been through during the workshop.

Bonus Lesson: no certification can beat what real world experience can offer

I hope this long story is useful.

Just Switched to iPhone

2011-09-07T08:47:00.000+04:00

Just switched from BlackBerry to iPhone. It's about time, I guess :)

And you know what, I'm not really missing much from BB. Well, except the international BB roaming paid by the company. I used BBM to communicate only with my wife, and she's on Whatsapp now.

So goodbye Messenger.
Welcome ipod, Instagram, Myquran, Angry bird, Camera+ and all other useful apps!

Btw, my wife asked me to sell my car. So I made this app for that ;)

Last Letter from a Colleague

2011-08-28T23:48:00.002+04:00

Last week I saw the last email sent by a colleague who was let go by the company as part of the reduction program announced recently. I can't forward his email, and despite his joke in the email saying he's part of the 'winners' list who will get 6 months of advanced salary payment, I can see lots of disappointments in his other words.

His name sounds familiar, so I decided to google him. The result: author and co-author of many patents, several IETF RFCs, many Internet drafts, and speaker in International events, member of International forums, to name a few of his achievements in 5 minutes googling.

I can't stop asking myself: why can a good technical person get fired?
In a company that really focuses on new innovation?
In a company that relies on engineering excellence?

Can someone really stays technical in career?
Is it true that no one is indispensable?

After couple of days thinking, there are three reasons that I can come up of why even a good technical person can be let go by the company.

First, many companies appreciate what we did in the past, but I bet they can keep only those who can contribute for today's business and support the companies' future vision. It means even I did something spectacular in the past it may not be enough for the company today, especially if I am considered obsolete.

Second, as I mentioned in my other post it's really difficult to justify and evaluate a technical person. Sales person has a target number associated with her, if she can achieve or even go beyond that it means she's successful. How about a technical person? From the number of patents? From the feedback from the customers? From the number of initiatives?

Third, no matter how valuable I am I may still be out of the team if I'm not a team player. Unless someone has reached the top notch level, gained respectable reputation in the industry, and has become legend, no individual can survive by working alone. It's about making connection.

I may be wrong. I may be too naive.
You are more than welcome to share your thoughts here.

Beyond CLI

2011-08-25T12:48:00.001+04:00

So you passed CCIE yesterday. Congratulations.

Now what?

Don't stop learning. The lab exam forces you to know lots of concepts in IP network, to implement them by putting the configuration in the network devices using CLI*, to run all the protocols and features in a complex scenario, to debug and troubleshoot the problems. Not to forget all the non-technical aspect such as to work under the pressure and very tight timeline, to make lots of quick decisions, to learn how to find the information and to ask the right question.

But that's all.

With all my respect to CCIE program, there are lots more you need to learn when it comes to the real production network. There are lot of things you need to understand outside the topics asked in the lab exam.

There is a difference between running a feature, and running a feature with scalability, for example. Configuring BGP with route-reflector and lots of route policy, with multiple address-family and community set, seems like a piece of art. But will the same setup work when there are hundred of thousands IP prefixes? When thousands of prefixes are using /32 and /31? When the route-policy needs to balance the utilization between links to multiple upstream providers?

Multicast means a network device needs to do the replication from one incoming packet to multiple packets and send them each to interested outgoing interfaces. Who is doing the replication inside the device? Incoming or ingress side, or outgoing aka egress? Why does it matter? If the device is doing replication on ingress side it may congest the backplane or switch fabric in between the incoming and outgoing interface. If the replication is done on egress side, who should do the lookup to see which interfaces are interested? And how?

High availability, beyond the OSPF fast convergence configuration that you can copy paste from the documentation to the device console. Will you rely on IGP FC or would like to use MPLS TE? When the link fails, how to detect and inform the upper layer protocol? Will BGP flush the whole table immediately when the next hop is not reachable?

Talking about passing layer 2 over pseudowire, do the devices need to learn about the Mac address? If yes, how many number of Mac address maximum it can handle? How to carry the customer dot1q tag transparently? Can you bridge and route at the same time? How about the layer 2 mechanism to break the loop, how to integrate it with the pseudo wire network?

Which traffic needs to be protected when there is congestion? How if you have business customers and residential coming from the same physical interfaces? Will you use sub-interface to identify them or just match based on VLAN? Do you shape the residential or let them take the whole bandwidth when the business is not using it? How about protecting the voice traffic inside one type of customer? How many layers of QoS mechanism can you go?

What will happen if one of the Route Processor fails? What will happen if there is line card inserted when the device is online? What will happen if one switch fabric fails when the traffic is passing through?

What is In Service Software Upgrade? Can it really happen?

How about stress test? How to ensure the CPU can handle and process the request when it receives hundreds of thousands routes at the same time? What if the neighbor flaps during the process? Will you even consider to implement dampening?

How to protect the CPU when there is flooding in the control plane? And the most important, how to ensure the forwarding packet is not disrupted even when the CPU stays 100%?

And don't forget about interoperability. Interoperability of products from two different vendors, some bits may need to be changed even when you try to have a simple physical connection between two different vendors using Sonet. Interoperability of products from the same vendor but using different software. Interoperability between network devices and any other components in the network like load balancer, security devices, caching and clustered servers?

Typing fast in the console is not the most important anymore.
There are lots more beyond CLI.

And we are just talking about a small portion of the technical aspect here.

CCIE really is just a beginning.

*A command-line interface (CLI) is a mechanism for interacting with a network device operating system or software by typing commands to perform specific tasks.

10 Tips for Backpacking in Europe

2011-08-23T22:39:00.002+04:00

I've been traveling a lot but it's usually part of business trip with the company. So the plan is always fixed, the flight and hotel are booked far in advance, and there is travel agent from the company taking care of everything.

I've been in Hungary for the project I'm currently working on, and I have opportunity to explore places in Europe during the weekend. So last weekend I decided to go to Vienna and take the night train to Venice, Italy. I made the plan only 2 days before the trip and booked everything from public website. Based on what I saw and experienced, I would like to share some tips:

1. These days backpacker doesn't have to use only backpack! You can use wheeled luggage if it makes it easier to move your stuff. And it won't hurt your back for sure.

2. Use the "Left Luggage" facility available on most destination airports or train stations. Leave your big heavy bag there and carry only the valuables or most important in a small bag so you can explore the place without burden. Pay attention to the opening hours of the Left Luggage facility or public toilet.

3. With airline, especially budget airline, you can get better price if you book far in advance and non-changeable flight ticket. But I don't see the different price with train ticket. The train network in Europe is very good, and it's a better choice for someone with no plan like me. The night train makes it possible to save some money for the hotel. Sleep inside the train, reach destination in the morning, freshen up in public toilet, enjoy the place for the day, take a hotel room for a night, enjoy the second day, take the night train to go back or to another place. Paying one night for hotel instead of three.

4. Cheap hotel can be found easily using booking.com. Check the review. For train ticket I found that booking directly with the train company is easier and cheaper.

5. Don't buy heavy souvenirs. Buy the experience.

6. One purpose of traveling is to explore local custom and to taste local food and local drink. Be careful though, I've been lying on the hotel room bed in Hungary for 2 days due to the last seafood dinner that I had in Venice (and yes, it was delicious :))

7. Split some money and keep at least one credit card in one bag other than inside your wallet. Just in case you lose your wallet you still have them to go home.

8. Exchange the money at your place instead of at the destination. The exchange rate at the destination especially tourist area is very bad. And always carry some coins since most public facilities require them. Usually there is a coin machine nearby, but you never know perhaps you need to use the facility at night and the machine is broken.

9. Don't bring too many gadgets. Bring gadgets that use the same power charger, the one that can be charged using USB cable. You should carry all-in-one travel power plug adapter with USB output. Better to carry one multi-purpose gadget that can be used as phone, music player, camera and GPS.
Or go back to analog life. Bring paper notebook and pen so you can write your experience or thoughts inside the train without any fear of running out the battery. The notebook is useful too to write down important address and phone number just in case you lose your phone. You can always ditch your digital camera and shoot film like me :)

10. Don't over plan the trip. Just go and let loose. Don't even use map or GPS at the destination if necessary. Blend with the locals.

Will I do it again? Yes, for sure!

Europe is the best place for backpacking since there are many interesting places to visit, with different culture offering unique experiences. And many countries are part of European union with Schengen visa now. So once you are inside, there is no passport control anymore between country borders.

Until next time.

Backpacking In Europe

2011-08-19T17:59:00.001+04:00

After one week having fun testing the ASR9K and one new kick ass platform for the customer in Hungary, it's already weekend again which means another opportunity to explore Europe. I have options to either stay in the nice hotel during the weekend, or take 7 hours train from Vienna to Venice on Friday night, spending time there until Sunday night, and go back to Vienna on Monday early morning.

Small backpack. Night train. Weekend in Venice. Leica M6 and blackberry in hand. No plan. Don't know what to expect.

It was not really difficult for me to decide.

When We Travel

2011-08-15T08:53:00.003+04:00

My friend once told me she doesn't like to travel. Any information about the other part of the world is available on the Internet anyway. She prefers to sit at home and watch National Geographic channel that can make her feel smarter without having to spend money for the trip.

I believe she's missing the point completely.

I've been traveling extensively since I joined Cisco 5 years ago. Initially I didn't ask for it. It came to me. I was always be part of the team that covers multiple countries, even multiple continents. Within 5 years I've been in 25 countries, in most of the continents except Africa (will be there soon).

And now I feel like getting addicted to it. Because of many reasons and the experience beyond images and sound offered by TV or youtube.

When we travel, we have opportunity to smell the air, to taste the food, to mingle with the locals.

When we travel, we learn about the local cultures and the different mindset directly from the person.

When we travel, we are not seeing the world just as an observer. But we can get involved and blended with the people and our surrounding at the new places.

Nothing can match the experience.

No photos or videos can show the details. No words can describe the feeling. Not even this post.

You have to get out there and try it yourself.

Project Avatar @ Indonesia17

2011-08-14T09:25:00.000+04:00

I really don't know how Project Avatar can end up as one candidate for Indonesia17, a poll made by Yahoo Indonesia to celebrate the country's Independence day.

But if you like what I did, perhaps you want to show it in the poll here. Thanks.

Engineer vs. Many

2011-08-12T17:31:00.002+04:00

"I find my manager is not useful. He is not aware about what's going on. In fact, he's not even a technical person. I'm running all the projects with the Project Manager, without my manager's interference. Why do we need manager then?"

"The project manager is useless. He's clueless, not technical, and inexperience in complex project like this. I'm making all the schedules, managing the resource, and building the plan for the project. It seems what we need just engineer and sales person"

"Our sales person doesn't sell. It's actually I as technical leader who does all the pre-sales work, convinces the customer about the solution, runs the demo and so on. It's practically a one man show, I can run the whole sales cycle from beginning until the closing by myself"

"The technical lead keeps everything for himself, he doesn't want to share his knowledge nor the information about the current setup. I have to struggle to finally understand the whole setup and the project. I'm wondering why he can be in the team."

Have you ever made any of the comments above? Don't be that guy.

You choose to be an engineer for a reason. A reason that you believe, or at least you used to believe. So be proud of being one.

And stop comparing. Because everyone has his own place.

Manager may not be technical but he has big responsibilities on his shoulder, including to manage the budget and expenses as well as to keep all the proud engineers in the team happy. Project Manager must manage the project and set the customer's expectation right from beginning, and she will be the first one who takes the heat when thing goes wrong (and something always goes wrong in every project) or when the schedule slips. Sales person carries a target number everywhere so she must know how to sell and to manage relationship with the customer, and be ready to get shouted when the engineers fail to deliver the setup. And the technical lead most likely is busy defending his design, leading the project, and coaching the younger engineers in the team at the same time, so he can't babysit someone for information that can be found easily within the project documentation.

And what I just mentioned is only a small portion of responsibilities and tasks from different roles above. Engineer may think he does the most work since he's in the field delivering the products or services to the customer. But there are lots more from the other parties that meet the eyes. Really.

But if you still think you could do better then those who are on the other side, why don't you try to switch place and prove it yourself? Try to be a manager, or a PM, or a sales person, or a tech lead and so on.

And let's see if you still can say the same comments as above.

This Time for Africa

2011-08-11T13:15:00.002+04:00

I'm currently in Dubai. For only few days before going back to Hungary.

I've just had my first Telepresence meeting with my new team. This is my 6th team since I joined Cisco Systems about 5 years ago. As part of the re-organization within Cisco now I'm with the Service Provider team that focuses on customers in Africa.

Last time I checked, I haven't put any pin in Africa countries yet. I did some project for Bostwana Telecom, but it was done remotely.

So it's time for Africa.

But I need to finish my current work in Europe first.

No Competition

2011-08-07T10:43:00.003+04:00

"There is no real friend. There is no real competition. It's only real interest."

I heard that quote more than 10 years ago. While so far I have proved that there is real friend indeed, I'm yet to see if the theory of no competition can be proved wrong too.

Well, I think Google is trying to do that now.

I have seen two companies, that are used to compete to each other, become partner. Or one eventually gets acquired by its competitor. Sometimes two companies are still competing in one area but partnering in some other area.

Few days ago I saw this news about several Juniper sales executives landed (back) to Cisco. Imagine those who are used to compete with them, now will have them on board in the team.

There is no real competition?

And what does it tell us, the individual working as professional?

I'd say we have to defend our product and to compete to win. I've never met anyone who wants to work in a company that doesn't want to win the competition. But always try to keep the competition healthy. Just prove why we are better and never be rude to the folk who works on the other side. Because you never know, someday he or she may switch to our team. Or you may have chance to switch, and you'd probably want to do that to see how does it feels to be on the other side.

Google should've known better.

Rise Above 1

2011-08-07T10:15:00.000+04:00

2.30 am Vienna time. Can't sleep. Too excited to fly back to Dubai this afternoon, I guess. Then found this cool song.

At the same time I'm testing posting video from youtube using the new blogger editor. Looks good.

Shopping in Europe

2011-08-06T18:06:00.000+04:00

One benefit of shopping in Europe is the tax refund for tourist. It means for the good with the same price in Dubai, will be cheaper due to the refund. In Austria I can get around 12% back from my purchase.

I usually don't do shopping when travel. But it seems like I have to buy some nice thing for my wife who's been left for more than 2 weeks to handle my kids alone.

I've been having fun in Hungary with EVC, pseudowire, xconnect, bridge domain, VFI, VPLS AD etc on ASR9K and ME3800-X with the new software release. And spending weekend in Vienna to make photos with my Leica M6 film camera and BlackBerry.

It's time to share the happiness with the family.

10 Facts I Learned About Hungary

2011-08-05T07:12:00.000+04:00

Below are the 10 facts I learned about Hungary after my 2 weeks stay, and I swear I didn't use google when wrote them down! These are just the result from talking and hanging out with the locals.

1. Summer in Hungary means mix between nice sunny day and cold rainy day, even storm sometimes.
2. The capital city Budapest is split by Danube river into two areas called Buda and Pest. Buda is the richer area and place for the royal castle, and Pest is... let's just say where all the fun is :)
3. Hungary moved away from communism system without any revolution in 1989. The ruling party decided to switch in a very smooth process and support the election a year later.
4. People in general are very polite and friendly. The hospitality shown by the customer is still the best I've seen so far, even when there was disagreement during discussion.
5. Even Hungary is part of Schengen, but they still use their local currency Forint.
6. Győr is the city that is near from three capital cities. About one hour drive from Budapest, Vienna (Austria) and Bratislava (Slovakia). It's better to fly to Vienna and drive to Győr directly.
7. English is not a common language here. Some adults learned Russian at school due to the past time when Soviet used to put large number of troops in the city. Some waiters speak German probably because there are many visitors from Austria during the weekend. Hungarian language is very different with the one in Czech or Slovakia, it's closer to Finnish.
8. All Audi engines are made in Győr. This is the largest engine production plant in Europe.
9. People seem to like ice cream here. Gelato is available in almost every corner in Győr.
10. Hungarian girls are, ehm, interesting ;)

(Un) Healthy Schedule

2011-08-04T00:51:00.000+04:00

3.30 am Fasting day starts
7.00 am Walk to customer's office
1.00 pm Continue working when customer have lunch
6.00 pm Walk back to the hotel
6.10 pm Continue working from the hotel
8.20 pm Walk to restaurant to break the fasting
8.30 pm Fasting day over, start the dinner
10.00 pm Finish dinner with nice Gelato
10.30 pm Back to hotel
11.00 pm Write blog, browse Internet, watch TV while drink lots of water
12.00 pm Go to bed

If You Could Only Have One Meal

2011-08-02T00:53:00.004+04:00

If you could only have one meal a day, what would it be?

Fasting in Europe means to have dinner at 9 pm, and that's it. I found it's difficult to have another meal around 2 or 3 am. So whatever I had tonight will last for the next 24 hours.

I don't know its name, because it's written in Hungarian and German in the menu, but I ordered one of the above to close my first dinner in this fasting month.

Fasting in Europe

2011-08-01T04:37:00.005+04:00

Spent whole day with a very nice Hungarian family. But it was tiring too at the same time. So I slept early and woke up to realize it's already pass midnight and I missed dinner.

And tomorrow is the first day of Ramadan, the fasting month.

Found this from the hotel's fridge. It's good enough for Suhoor (pre-dawn meal), I think.

It will be interesting to explain to the customer tomorrow why I can't join lunch as usual.

And in Hungary, fasting day is from 3.30 am until 8.30 pm.

Ramadan Kareem.

Traveling Light

2011-07-30T16:03:00.002+04:00

Three cities. Two countries. Fourteen days. No checked baggage.

This is how I travel to Europe with only one small bag.

First - understand the most important items require to travel are just passport, mobile phone and wallet with credit card and money. They are the first priority and should not be left behind. Flight ticket? E-ticket or booking confirmation SMS will do.

Second - don’t carry those that will be provided by the hotel. Towel and toiletries. Or kimono from hotel. Or probably items than can be bought at destination country. Like perfume in destination airport’s duty free.

Third - cut the clothes. One pair of multipurpose shoes is more than enough. One short to sleep and to go sight seeing during sunny day. Learn how to wash in the bathtub. I carry only 5 shirts (and a jeans) for 2 weeks. I will still only carry 5 shirts even for 3 weeks. Why? Because with 5 I can wear different shirt during each working day in a week. Then repeat the sequence on the second week. And when the customer I work with starts to realize the pattern on the third week, it would be the right time to go back home.

So in my small bag other than clothes I still can fit my Leica camera, my Dr. Dre’s headphone, two Macbook Air, Linksys AP (to share the hotel Internet connection), Ruby books, my notebook and all the chargers.

And yes, ditch the Macbook Pro and get the Macbook Air instead. My two MBAs are still weighted much less than one MBP.

Moving to... Not moving!

2011-07-18T00:42:00.006+04:00

Final update: I decided to stick with blogger! It was challenging to move all the posts and images "as is" so it's better for me to continue with blogger. It's free, now it comes with better design tool, and I can redirect my himawan.nu domain here anyway. Please let me know what you think about the new design of this blog.

Update: I'm a bit disappointed with Tumblr blackberry apps, so I'm thinking another provider. Will try Typepad during the weekend.

With my tight schedule between my work, maintaining Project Avatar, working on some e-books, and learning how to build the next generation web apps with Ruby and Rails, it has become difficult for me to maintain this blog using this platform. So I decided to switch to Tumblr to see how easy to update the content using my mobile.

It came with good theme, better archive, enable tagging and white background color :) And it came with fancy name too: himawan.nu

Please check my blog on Tumblr and let me know. Thanks

Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Be On Project Avatar

2011-06-23T02:31:00.001+04:00

1. You are a professional who is willing to share your knowledge and experience 'beyond blogging'

2. You are a professional who is trying to find information to become a better professional in one place

3. You are a student who wants to learn more about real world work environment and make connection with professionals

4. You like to create a group with those who share common interest and use the group features to discuss, share document, share photo, create event and to create polls

5. You want to be part of Project Avatar's Challenge, to collaborate with other professionals around the world using a real tool to build a real product

6. You are fed up spending your time on social network that doesn't provide you new knowledge

7. You want to read the jobs add that usually posted by 'insider'

8. You are interested to use our collaboration tool with virtual whiteboard and A/V chat

9. You are interested to use our web based chat engine

10. You are curious to find out why more than 1200 professionals signed up to P@ within the first 6 weeks that doesn't use any advertisement other than word of mouth

CCIE's Diary Day 28: Lab Day!

2011-06-20T13:39:00.004+04:00

(This post is taken from Project Avatar CCIE's Diary group discussion)

Today is the day!

After all the preparation, all the practice in the lab, all sacrifice of your time, finally today you are going to take the CCIE lab exam. At the end of the day you could walk away the lab with your number. Your future is in your hand!

Here are the last 10 tips you may want to read before you go to the lab. This will be the longest tip of the day in the whole Diary:

1. Have a breakfast if possible
Remember, it will be a long 8 hours (actually 9 hours with 1 hour mandatory lunch break) so you need to be ready physically. You had a good night sleep and in the morning before you go you should have a breakfast since the next chance to eat something is during the lunch break.

2. Arrive early
Don't add unnecessary pressure by showing late in the lab. You did a visit a day before, so you have calculated how long it takes to reach the lab. Leave early to reach there early. If the exam says you should be there by 8 try to come around 7.30. It's your chance to get used with the Cisco office and meet the other candidates

3. Don't think too much
Today can be really stressful. You arrive in the lab and you may see some other candidates are in panic mode. You meet the proctor for the first time and he may not look really helpful. Don't get intimidated with the situation, stay calm. I know the pressure on your shoulder is heavy, especially if you have to pay the lab yourself. You may have this thought in mind that if you fail you will lose many things. You position in the company is in the line. You have financial pressure. And the worst is if you have to repeat the process to study again, this means you have to sacrifice your life again for unpredicted timeline.

Stop it.

What you need to focus now is how to answer the questions in the next 8 hours. That's all. Remove all the other thoughts because not only it will not help you with the exam it will just add unnecessary pressure.

4. Re-draw the topology
This advice is for the configuration section. The first thing I advice you to do when you start the exam is to re-draw the topology even if the lab question has provided you one. It will not take long time to do so and that's the fastest way to understand the topology. Physical topology usually consists 7-8 routers connected to several switches. So you need to draw the logical. Which VLANs are used to connect the routers and switches. Then you can move up to the IGP drawing. Which routers will be configured with OSPF, which with EIGRP and so on. Later you can make the drawing of BGP topology, for each address family.

Once you have your own drawing when you start working on the question you can do the configuration faster since you are already familiar with the network you are going to build.

5. Don't get stuck
Don't get stuck. Put the configuration, check it, then move on. If somehow it doesn't work but it will not affect the other part of the network, skip the question. Try to answer the obvious questions first. Things like Netflow, SNMP or QoS config can be skipped since most of the time they can be considered as stand-alone and won't affect the other configuration.

If you have to configure PPP authentication on your serial link and somehow it doesn't work, and you can't skip it because there are some routing protocols running over the serial, configure the normal PPP without authentication on the serial just to bring the link up and you can continue doing the configuration for the next question.

There are some questions that rely on the previous questions. For example, you can't configure MPLS VPN if your IGP is not up yet. Let's say you are working on OSPF, it's already up and running, but you still can't answer the fast convergence question for OSPF, you can skip that part and come back to it later. At least you can move forward and make progress.

Don't get stuck especially during the early time of the exam. Because getting stuck in the beginning can make you get frustrated and lost your focus for the rest of the day.

And always make a target to achieve. For example, put target to finish at least more than half configuration questions before lunch. If there is troubleshooting part and you have to solve 10 issues, put target to complete at least 7 in the first hour. That means you should try to solve the easiest issues first.

Remember, you just need to get 80% score to pass. So it's fine to skip questions. Finish everything and come back later to try to answer the questions you left behind. Even if you don't have chance to come back but if you have answered all the other questions and reached 80% you still pass the exam.

6. Ask the proctor
The proctor is in the lab to monitor the exam, to keep it a fair game, and to help you if necessary. They will not give you the answer to the question. I repeat, they will not give you the answer. If you face any issue with the hardware, do your troubleshooting steps and approach the proctor to show the problem and what you have done to fix the issue. If there is wording you don't understand from the question (especially for non-native English speaker) you can ask him to provide the alternate wording. You need to ask the right question. You need to act and do the necessary before you tell the proctor you suspicion about the hardware issue. That's CCIE attitude that is expected from each candidate.

7. See the questions as a whole
When it seems too confusing, you may want to sit back and look at the questions as a whole. Use the helicopter view approach. Review the topology and read again all questions quickly. What are we trying to build here? How is the traffic flow from one AS to another? Is there any policy in the questions that will change the behavior of the traffic? And so on.

8. Re-check your work multiple times
You will make silly mistakes. Regardless how careful you are, you may forget to configure something or you answer it wrongly because you misinterpret the questions. Sometime the last question you answer may break the answer for the previous question. That's the reason why you have to check your work, and re-check, and re-check, and re-check.

You must try your best to answer all questions and still have a lot of time to check your work. Once you reach the last question, you need to go back from beginning and check it again. Then you can go back and this time make sure your answer is inline with what requested by the question. You may have a working solution but you violate the lab rule or after you read the question the second time you realize your solution is not what the exam author wants you to do.

9. Save your config often
It looks like a no brainer advice, but don't take chance and just save your config ofter. If it's necessary you can save all your config and reload all the devices. This will make sure your solution will remain work and behave the same even after the reload. Obviously you need to do this when you still have plenty of time.

10. There is no spoon
Remember when Neo in The Matrix was trying to bend the spoon. The small kid told him not to think about bending the spoon, instead just realize that "there is no spoon". It's all a mind trick.This was the mantra I used everytime I took my lab exam.

You have spent lots of time to read books. You have practiced in your lab extensively. You have followed the advice from other CCIEs. Now the last thing you need to do is to believe that you can pass. Don't think too much about the challenge you may face in the lab, the questions you are not familiar with, and many other factors that may make you fail. Just be in the moment, answer the questions one at a time, and believe you will walk away from the lab with your number.

So go enter the the lab now and claim your number.

Think the lab exam is just another workbook you need to practice. And you'll be fine.

You are making history today.

Have a great day!

10 Things Between Projects

2011-06-15T00:26:00.001+04:00

I've just completed one project for Cisco customer last week, and another project has been waiting somewhere around the corner. All technical consultants for Cisco Advanced Services live from one project to another. If we are lucky we do only one project at a time, but usually we do two or more (my record is 5 when I was in Asia).

Now I just want to share my list of 10 things I do between the projects to keep my motivation and stay sane. And writing this actually helps too.

1. Watch fun movies
Gotta love watching fun movies. Recently I watched Hangover II, Fast Five, Kungfu Panda 2, X Men First Class, and Pirates of Caribbean. Can't wait for Transformers 3!

2. Go to desert
I do it twice a month. Recently my wife told me (read: instructed me) to sell my land cruiser. Well, at least I'll be busy trying to sell the car, then later I guess I'll be busy trying to convince her to buy smaller car to go to the desert.

3. Read books (physical books)
I'm an analogue guy. I shoot film camera. And I read physical book. The last 3 books I read that really enlighten me: Delivery Happiness, Enchantment and Making Ideas Happen.

4. Give free consultation about CCIE and career
Many people ask me advice about CCIE and career from time to time. I've been sharing my thoughts and experience about those subjects through my personal blog (I started blogging 6 years ago), tweets and Facebook status update. It's what triggers point no. 5

5. Contribute to CCIE program
Few months ago I helped CCIE R&S Program Manager to build new questions. I also did the alpha testing for it. I was invited to become CCIE Techtorial speaker in Cisco Live, but I was late to reply so they can't give me speaker pass. That's a life, I guess. Despite that I continue to do what I do, just like in point no. 6.

6. Conduct CCIE WebEx session
On April I conducted "CCIE R&S Unofficial Update" over WebEx. More than 400 people around the world registered, and 170 dialed in. I received more than 50 positive feedbacks. Something that made me think that I should do more, I should do "beyond blogging". This leads and become the cause of point no. 7

7. Build Project Avatar
I wanted to share my knowledge and experience beyond blogging, and I can't find a good platform for it. Social network like Facebook is too social. Professional network like LinkedIn can only provide connection, but that's all. I wanted to build a platform where other professionals can share their knowledge and experience as well. So early May I founded Project Avatar.

Project Avatar is an open community for professionals and students with one goal: to help its members to learn, to get the experience, to connect to each other, and to pitch and market their profile to the world. Experienced professional can help by sharing his knowledge to younger professional. Professional can share his experience to the students so at least they get some clue how the working environment looks like. Every time someone shares his knowledge he gains more. Every time someone gives free gift to some people they will do the same to some other people. So then we build the culture of giving gift. Students someday will become professional too and they will continue this chain of knowledge-sharing culture.

That's the value that I believe we are doing with Project Avatar.

And that's also the reason why in the beginning I self-funded projectavatar.net. That's the same reason why I spent time at nights after my 40-hour a week for Cisco to keep the website alive.

Within the first 5 weeks there are more than 1150 members in the community from more than 100 countries. Members are discussing not only about CCIE or networking, but as well as about Linux, iOS, SAP, mobile, to non-technical such as ITIL, entrepreneurship, positive world, life after university and so on. Project Avatar now has features like groups, blogs, videos, chats, ask questions, sharing document, polls, news, jobs ads, lounge where members can use virtual whiteboard and do conference with audio/video, and an online project collaboration tool to run Project Avatar's Challenge (PAC) projects.

Since the objective is to spread the knowledge it's not required to register to browse the content. But by logging in the members can participate actively in the community. All activities are rewarded by the point system.

8. Create CCIE's Diary e-book with Project Avatar
I created Project Avatar's Challenge (PAC) where the community members can do collaboration work to make a product. So it's a simulated work environment, with real professional as project leader, real project members, using real online project collaboration tool, to create a real product. The first project is to build "CCIE's Diary" e-book based on the daily tips of how to become CCIE that I shared on the group discussion, and I'm personally leading this project.

9. Write Handbook for Cisco
Back to Cisco, I'm currently working with another senior consultant to create a handbook. I'd rather not to disclose what it is all about. What I can share is we are currently still formalizing the table of content and the scope of the document.

10. Spend more time with family
Last but not least, I try to spend my time more with my family. I work from home more. I like to work late night so I can delay my work in the morning, to give chance to have breakfast with my wife. And I always try to drop and pick my kids from school.

So there it is, my list of 10 Things to keep my sanity in between projects. It seems work so far.

How about you?

How to Manage Project with Basecamp

2011-06-12T00:54:00.003+04:00

I've been managing and leading many projects for more than 10 years. Most of the time my project involves people from different countries in different timezone. And I use collaboration tools, I use them a lot.

At Project Avatar we want you to get the same experience like mine. That's the reason we launched Project Avatar's Challenge (PAC) yesterday. It's an opportunity to lead and work in a team consists of people with different background from different countries, and to create a product as per the project's objective. And we will use a simple collaboration tool called Basecamp.

Project Management is all about communication. With Basecamp you can get all relevant information in the project such as to-do list, project communication messages, event and milestone in the calendar, writeboard to create and edit document together, and repository for all project documents.

Every project member can get involved in the discussion. Any suggestion and comments must be documented. In fact, Basecamp allow everyone to put comment on everything (in Message, To-do list, Calendar and Writeboard)

Good ideas must be converted into action items. To-do list is the best way to break down the tasks in the project and assign responsibility.

Writeboard is the place to create documentation in the project. Any project member can create new or edit the existing document and save it as new document.

When there is change into the document, Basecamp will track it and we can compare the current and previous versions.

In the project we have to document everything. Reference is good, but it must be relevant. Any references or files related to the project can be uploaded to Basecamp.

Follow up is the key of successful project. That's why Basecamp calendar can show the event and milestone the team member need to achieve. There is email notification as well as RSS feed for the project.

So what are you waiting for? Turn your idea into project today!

Join the PAC group http://projectavatar.net/group/45

First Project Avatar's Challenge

2011-06-11T17:02:00.002+04:00

For the first Project Avatar's Challenge (PAC) project that I'll be leading personally. I've been sharing daily tips on how to become CCIE on Project Avatar CCIE's Diary group discussion. For the first PAC project as pilot we will create CCIE's Diary ebook based on that discussion, within 30 days.

Following are the detailed information:

Project objective: to build electronic book of CCIE's Diary

Scope of work (main tasks):
- finalize the content
- design the cover and illustration in the book
- find url references and create side story
- create supporting items like ToC and index
- test the book

Estimated duration of the project: 30 days

Breakdown timeline:
- 20 days to finalize the content
- 10 days for design and illustration (parallel with content)
- 10 days to find url and side story (parallel with content)
- 5 days to create supporting items
- 2 days to test the book
- 3 days to clean up and finalize the book

Specific resources required:
- at least 1 CCIE, or 1 member who has taken a lab attempt
- at least 1 member who can design book cover
- at least 1 member with strong English writing skill
- any members can test the book or submit their side story, even they don't want to get involved directly

Additional information:
- anyone participate actively finalizing the content will be mentioned as the "Contributors" of the book
- any design and illustration in the book will have the creator's name
- any side story will have the name of the one who submits it

Anyone can join the project. Please join the PAC group now!

Project Avatar's Challenge!

2011-06-10T02:19:00.001+04:00

Project Avatar is proudly launching our new program that can offer you working experience at the same time make you able to pitch your profile to the world. While you can learn by reading blogs or following discussion, and you can connect to other professionals at Project Avatar, how can we give you experience and opportunity to pitch your profile?

Introducing Project Avatar's Challenge (PAC), a simulated work environment where the members will collaborate to work in a project to build a product. A member can nominate an idea to build certain product, and once approved the same member can become the project leader to lead the other members to execute it. We are using the real world project management tool and the output is a real product.

What kind of product? It's up to you as the idea maker! It can be a book, a web design, a mobile application, new open source kernel, the next generation router, or others. Sky is the limit!

Obviously once your nominated idea is approved as PAC project you need to promote it to get other members to join and help you. So actually the sky is not the limit, but probably the number of project members and their capabilities to build the product should be used to define or revise a realistic target in the project.

Once the project is completed and the product is ready, it will be advertised everywhere.

So what are the benefits of getting involved in PAC?
- as idea initiator, to make your idea happens
- as project leader, it's an opportunity to lead team with different background from different countries
- opportunity to contribute to make great product
- opportunity to learn from more experienced professional
- opportunity to work with people with different background from different countries
- to get the exposure since the product will be advertised all over the world
- and you can use the project as reference in your profile or resume
- anyone involved in the project will get Project Avatar points

And what are the drawbacks from getting involved?
None that I can think of. Probably this activity will make you more busy on Project Avatar and spend less time on Facebook or LinkedIn :)

So you may call it simulated project. But it's led by real professional, using real project management tool, with real project members, to create a real product.

Are you up to the challenge?

Beyond Blogging

2011-06-09T10:03:00.006+04:00

I always enjoy sharing my knowledge and experience with others. I've been blogging for 6 years now, and I felt like I should do more and something beyond blogging. So sometime last month I decided to build Project Avatar platform that has more powerful features from blog, and hopefully it can encourage other professionals to share their ideas and experiences as well in order to build the knowledge-sharing culture in our society.

So far the following features are available on Project Avatar:

Home - this is each member's home portal where he or she can see the latest news, the recent blogs, recent questions, recent polls and many other information

Blogs - where the member can share the ideas or opinions. It has to be the member's original writing, if a member find interesting link from the Internet she can post it under News

Groups - member can learn and share ideas without joining any group, but our group is very powerful where members can have discussion, upload document, create event, upload photo and make polling

Videos - where member can share either her own video or interesting video found on the Internet

Ask Question - our favorite Q&A tools where any member can ask question and any member can answer, and both will be rewarded with points by doing so

Lounge - this is our collaboration tool where members can have virtual whiteboard, chat, share desktop, audio and webcam etc. It can be used to conduct Web Conference event as well

Basecamp - this is project management tool that will be used for the new Project Avatar's Challenge program (coming soon!)

News - news around the world, any member can post as long as he includes the reference source

Jobs Ads - where member can post jobs ads

Chat - our chat engine is powerful and efficient, with chatroom and ability to send handwriting or file to the other member.

Other than this Project Avatar also has point system where any activities by the member get rewarded with the points.

With all the features above, I'm happy now I have one place to share my ideas and experience beyond blogging. And at the same time I'm making connections with many professionals with different background from all over the world.

Three Stories

2011-06-03T04:14:00.005+04:00

There was a student doing his final year in the university. In the previous few years all he cares about was to get through to the next year. But now it's different. Soon he would graduate and need to start looking for a job. He realized it takes more than good grade to get him that. He realized he didn't even know how it looks like to work in the real world.

A young professional had been dreaming to work overseas. He didn't know how to get there but that was his target in life. He did his best to make a good resume and kept sending it to many recruiting agencies around the world without many responses so far. He wished someone was willing to give him hints and share the experience so he can just follow it.

He's been working as professional in several different countries for many years. He remembered how it was not easy to get into his current position. He could still recall all the interviews he had to go through every time he switched job. How he learned to build connection and reputation at work. Now he feels like it's time to pay back. He's planning to share his experience to others.

Do you think the three stories above are real? Any of them?

I was a student and even after I graduated I didn't know how to find a job. I always wanted to work overseas, but I didn't know how to do it or whether I had the expertise to be able to compete in International market. Good thing I passed my CCIE lab. And it was still not easy because obviously certification is not enough. Even with expertise and experience I still spent many years trying to get a job in Cisco. I had to go through many projects, had to build connection and reputation, before finally Cisco gave me a chance for the interview.

So for me the stories are real. And they are the reasons why I founded Project Avatar.

I want to build a community for professionals and students so they can help each other to achieve their target to compete globally. Experienced professional can help by sharing his knowledge to younger professional. And by doing that at the same time he demonstrates his leadership and coaching skill to the world. Professional can share his experience to the students so at least they get some clue how the working environment looks like. And by doing that the professional will become a better professional. Every time you share your knowledge you gain more. Every time you give free gift to some people they will do the same to some other people. So then we build the culture of giving gift. Students someday will become professional too and they will continue this chain of knowledge-sharing culture.

That's the value that I believe we are doing with Project Avatar.

And that's also the reason why in the beginning I self-funded this project. That's the same reason why I spend time outside my 40-hour a week for Cisco to keep the website alive. And why during the weekend night I spent my time to write this blog :)

And I believe in that value. I believe in my reasons.

What do you believe?

Two Laws - Rewrite

2011-05-26T07:02:00.001+04:00

Several years ago I invented something that I called 2-Law of Desperate Workers:

Law 1: To get a better job, you need to have good experience and build good working experience profile
Law 2: In order to get good experience and build good working experience profile, you need to work in a better job

So you are not happy with your current workplace because it doesn't offer good experience. You want to move to a better company, but they are looking for someone with good experience. And to get that good experience, you need to work in a better company.

You can use professional certification like CCIE to remedy the 2 Law issue. Taking CCIE lab won’t give you large scale deployment experience, but at least it’s close enough to teach you about some design aspect, setup and troubleshoot complex technology in much smaller scale. And it can show your willingness to learn, your self-discipline during the study, and your ability to tackle such difficult challenge. Obviously once you are able to move to a better job with your CCIE, you need to start getting the real good experience.

The other way is by making connection and helping others in the community like Project Avatar. Not only it can give you more experience in leadership, coaching skill, and teaming up with others, it will also make people recognize you and it would be easier for them to give you reference (remember, it's 'who knows you' that matter).

It's not easy to write to share your knowledge. It takes effort to answer other questions or to conduct live presentation over web conference. But if you are willing to do so, you will build a stronger profile and get additional experience that you may not be able to get at your current workplace. And all the experience and reference you make now may help you in the future.

So help others to help yourself. Let's start it on Project Avatar.

CCIE's Diary

2011-05-20T08:56:00.003+04:00

Many requested me to write down step-by-step how to become CCIE. So today I made 'CCIE's Diary' group in Project Avatar. In this group, I'm sharing step-by-step how to become CCIE, by writing down what you should do each day during the journey in the group's discussion. Some of you may take longer to complete one task in a day, and for some others may take faster or can even skip the tips for few days depending on your current progress. I will start Day 1 with assumption you have just started the journey or you are currently still thinking about going for CCIE. I hope this is useful.

And when you are ready, you are more than welcome to share your own Diary in Project Avatar. Let's start.

Project Avatar FAQ

2011-05-18T20:12:00.007+04:00

What is Project Avatar?
Project Avatar is an open professional community with one goal: to help its members to learn, get the experience, connect to each other, and pitch and market their profile to the world. Project Avatar uses modified social networking platform to serve this purpose.

Why is it called 'Project Avatar'?
Avatar = a visible manifestation or embodiment of an abstract concept. Avatar is your profile as others perceive you. This community is about your project to build your avatar, in order for you to be successful as a professional in international market.

Who should join?
Anyone who wants to be a better professional can join Project Avatar. Students can join to learn about the real world working environment from the professionals. Lectures or executives can join too to share their thoughts and experiences.

Is it only for IT Professionals?
Even right now most of the members are professionals from IT and Telecommunication, the community is actually open for anyone. You can form a group with those who have the same profession like you using this platform.

Why can't we use the existing social network?
The other social network is either too personal, you can't mix the professional environment with virtual farming or poker game, or lack more features to allow professional to do more than only making connections.

How can it be different with other professional network site?
Other professional network can provide connections. But that's all. Project Avatar provides mentoring concept where anyone who wants to become a mentor can use the facilities not only to form group, upload video, write blog, and chat, but as well as to answer the questions, make poling, share document, and conduct web seminar or have discussion on virtual whiteboard. And mentor will get point by doing those.

How to sustain the mentoring model in this community?
Senior professionals can mentor younger professionals. Professionals can mentor the students. Students someday will become professionals and can mentor the other professionals or students.

What does it mean: Learn, Experience, Connect, Pitch?
Project Avatar is connecting the dots between the four aspects required to become successful in professional world: skill, experience, connection, and ability to sell and market thyself (pitch).

How can the member learn from this community?
Member can read other professionals' thoughts and experiences from blog, get answer from the forum or Q&A tool, form study group, attend the web conference and whiteboard conducted by other professionals.

What kind of experience do you offer?
Having connection to other professionals around the world can give experience in communication and ability to work as a team. We put Points System as well to simulate the reward from real world that you can get if you actively involve in discussion, share your thoughts, conduct conference and so on. And we are planning to release Project Avatar's Challenge in the near future.

How about connection?
In Project Avatar, not only you can make connections to other professionals around the world, you can also show your coaching skill and leadership by mentoring others. You can use the feature available like virtual whiteboard and desktop sharing to collaborate with other professionals and build stronger connections.

How can the member pitch the profile?
All your activities in this platform is one way to pitch your profile. Recruiter or anyone who wants to know your background can just look at your blog, your recorded web conference, what you have done to help others, how many points you have, have you been as feature member and so on. More experienced professionals can help you to be better during job's interview and to improve your CV in discussion group or forum. And we are planning to release more video tools to make you able to pitch your profile in a better way.

Do I have to pay to join?
No, it's free and it will always be free to join Project Avatar.

Will you use my information to spam me?
No, your information will not be used without your permission.

Can I still follow the community's activities without signing up?
Yes, you can. However you won't be able to participate actively in the community like provide comments, answer questions, discuss in forum, get points and so on.

Who Knows You?

2011-05-16T06:53:00.003+04:00

A friend of mine told me once: it's not what you know, it's who you know. I disagree. I think the right statement is: it's who knows you. The complete sentence is: it's who knows you, then what you know and what you have done count in later stage.

A strong connection may be able to give you a job directly (I have seen this, it's common practice in development country like in my home country). But a good connection may only land you to job interview. Hence what you know and what you have done in the past are required to pass the interview and get the job.

How to make people know you? One way is by sharing your knowledge. If you know something write it in the blog, answer people's questions, conduct presentation through web conference, and so on. Even if you think the knowledge has less value for others, because others may think otherwise! And by doing this, you make people know you.

Project Avatar provides the facilities for the community member to share the knowledge, ideas or lesson learned from past experience. Spread the knowledge even if you think it's not the greatest idea or the most complicated in the world. Something you know might be valuable information for others.

Convey, even it's only a single word.

How to Become CCIE - Rewrite

2011-05-07T12:47:00.004+04:00

How to become CCIE - rewrite.

The complete post is available only for Project Avatar community.

Project Avatar

2011-05-06T00:05:00.007+04:00

I had a dream. A dream to build community for professionals and students so they can be better and able to compete in International markets. After 6 months thinking about the concept and discussing it with some close friends, few days ago I launched Project Avatar.

Project Avatar is an open community with one purpose: to help its members to learn, get the experience, connect to each other, and pitch and market their profile to the world. Project Avatar is connecting the dots between four aspects required to become successful in professional world: skill, experience, connection, and ability to sell and market thyself. Anyone who wants to be a better professional can join Project Avatar.

The key behind Project Avatar is the social networking platform that allows the members to form study group, to upload video, write blog, ask and answer question, participate in the poll, share the document, attend virtual session just as my recent CCIE on WebEx. Hopefully the member can act not only as mentee in the community, but as well as the mentor to help the others.

Project Avatar is still considered Beta, but you can join now to start using the platform. I put Feedback feature so you can give direct comments about anything within the community, and I will treat each comment seriously.

The recording of my previous "CCIE R&S, The Unofficial Update" WebEx session has been split into several smaller sections and available for the members of Project Avatar.

Convey, even if it’s only a single word.

6 Days and 50+ Comments Later

2011-04-30T21:37:00.003+04:00

Can we change the world with 2-hour WebEx session?
I don't know.
But I'd love to try if I was given a chance.
Even the subject was "just" about CCIE.

With over 400 people registered and 170 attended last Sunday,
total over 700 registered and 350 attended,
within 2 consecutive sessions in a week time,
and more than 50 comments so far,
from email,
feedback in blog,
@mention on twitter,
and facebook comments (didn't count the "like"),
it looks like the output at least worth my effort.

The question is: what's next?
What would you like to hear next?

Please let me know.

CCIE R&S Unofficial Update - Recording!

2011-04-25T18:58:00.002+04:00

This is the link to the WebEx recording (English version):

https://cisco.webex.com/ciscosales/lsr.php?AT=pb&SP=MC&rID=51282027&rKey=fdb28637e25db938

CCIE R&S, The Unofficial Update (English)-20110424 0704-1
Sunday, April 24, 2011 11:04 am Abu Dhabi Time
1 Hour 53 Minutes

For my fellow Indonesians, if you are looking for the recording of the Bahasa version please go to my other blog.

CCIE R&S Unofficial Update - Light Table

2011-04-24T13:35:00.003+04:00

It's Sunday, Easter holiday for some, and still more than 400 people registered with 170 attended the session!

From the list of attendees I can see people joined from all over the world, from Australia, South East and Far East Asia, to Middle East, Africa, UK and Europe, US, Central and Latin America. It may not be the most convenient time to attend a WebEx session for some, so thank you very much for joining!

Enjoy the light table view of the slides. And thank you once again.

CCIE R&S WebEx Session (English) - FAQ

2011-04-19T23:40:00.007+04:00

When is the session?
Sunday, 24th April 2011 at 11 am Dubai time (UTC+4)

Do I have to pay to join?
No, it's an open session. Anyone who is interested with the subject can join.

How to join the session?
Please register by using the following link and fill all the required information. Once you are approved, you will receive WebEx invite with meeting information.
https://cisco.webex.com/ciscosales/j.php?ED=163585137&RG=1&UID=1531355972&RT=MiMzNg%3D%3D

How to get approval?
Just fill up all the required info properly. Attention: once get approved, the WebEx invite will be sent to the email you put during registration. So it's very important to use your actual email.

Do I need to send email to Himawan with "I have registered" or "please include me"?
No. If I feel that you put the right information (e.g. no funny name, and it looks like you put real job title, company name, city etc) I will approve it for sure.

After registration gets approved, then what?
WebEx invite will be sent over the email. Inside the invite there is a link to join the session on Sunday with the meeting information such as the meeting password and the WebEx number you can dial if you don't use the callback feature (please read the answer about the audio in the meeting).

Do I need to install any software to join the WebEx?
On Sunday when you click the link from WebEx invite and this is your first time attending WebEx meeting, there may be a plugin/client needs to be installed but usually it happens automagically you just need to follow the process and accept the installation when asked.

What kind of features are available during the session?
Using WebEx client you will be able to see the slides, listen to the audio (over the phone), watch the video of myself and other attendees if they turn on the camera, and you can chat with me and all others.

What is the minimum bandwidth required to use the client?
From documentation it needs about 90 - 130 kbps in order to see the slide and video with acceptable delay. But I heard in my last WebEx session one person joined with Internet dial up connection and was still able to see the slide even with some delay. Audio is using normal phone so it's not relevant with the bandwidth.

How to listen to the audio?
When the first time you join the meeting there will be a pop-up window asking to fill up your country code and phone number, then the system will call that number. You can also get the same pop-up window by selecting 'join conference' from the menu. The other way is by calling the WebEx number available in the WebEx invite and put the meeting number when asked.

Can I join with audio only, without WebEx client?
Yes, you can. To make the system call your number you need to join with the client and fill up your phone number as explained above. But if you want to join with audio only, please dial to the WebEx number available in the invite and put the meeting number when asked. The meeting number can be found from the same WebEx invite.

Why can't the audio use integrated Voip?
Because the VoiP quality depends on your Internet connection. Some of the attendees may not have fast Internet connection hence won't get a good audio. And in the WebEx that I use there is no option to use both normal phone and integrated Voip for audio, I have to select either one so I go with normal phone.

How to ask question during the session?
Everyone will be put in muted from the beginning of the meeting. If you want to ask question please use the chat window, and send your question to everyone not privately to me. I want to make the session as interactive as possible so you can ask anytime and I will try to answer right away. The questions related to the current slide are more preferable.

Why this kind of session always happen on Sunday?
Because that's the only time I can do it.

Will the session be recorded?
Yes, but the recording won't be available for download and I can't guarantee the quality of the audio in the recording. And obviously it won't be interactive so if you have questions in mind related to the subject you will have your opportunity to ask during the session.

CCIE R&S (English) - WebEx Registration Link

2011-04-19T06:45:00.006+04:00

The CCIE R&S WebEx session (in English) will be conducted on Sunday, 24th April 2011 at 11 am Dubai time (UTC+4). It's free and open for anyone who is interested with this subject. Please use the following link to register and fill all the required information. I will accept only those who fill up the information correctly (no funny name or false info please, the information is required to show to my management that I'm doing this for another human being).

https://cisco.webex.com/ciscosales/j.php?ED=163585137&RG=1&UID=1531355972&RT=MiMzNg%3D%3D

You are welcome to spread the news about this session.

CCIE R&S, The Unofficial Update

2011-04-18T06:14:00.004+04:00

I did free WebEx session of "CCIE R&S, The Unofficial Update" (in my native language Bahasa) yesterday for all fellow Indonesians. More than 300 networking professionals registered and close to 180 joined the 2-hour session. It's kind of my "independent review" of the current R&S lab exam based on my involvement in the lab content development and the alpha testing for CCIE R&S troubleshooting section that I did recently.

This Sunday 24th April I will repeat the session in English. The WebEx session is open for anyone who is interested with the subject.

Agenda:
- About
- What is CCIE?
- CCIE Routing & Switching
- Sample Questions
- How to Become CCIE?
- My Six Rules of Troubleshooting
- The Official Version

Link to WebEx registration soon.

Another CCIE Session @ WebEx

2011-04-12T01:43:00.004+04:00

I'm planning to conduct another CCIE sharing session on WebEx and this time is for Routing & Switching track. The session most probably will be called: CCIE R&S, the Unofficial Update. I've been involved in the R&S lab content development, and I did the alpha testing for CCIE R&S troubleshooting section recently, so you may consider this session as "independent review" of the current lab exam.

I believe CCIE R&S may gain another momentum with the refreshed content (it's still v4, it's still the same blueprint) especially after the SP track introduces IOS XR to the lab, to make the R&S as the only track that can be practiced using virtual machine or emulator.

And even if I really make the title as 'Unofficial', but I actually had a chat with the program manager few days ago, and he's giving me permission to show some sample topology of the lab including the troubleshooting section. Obviously it won't be the actual lab and I won't discuss any NDA material in the session.

The first session is in my native language and I'm thinking to conduct it next Sunday. It's just few days after the deadline to submit design document for my current project, and just a day before the ISO audit at work. I guess the pressure is what makes it more fun, isn't it?

The second session is in English, and most likely will happen on the following Sunday. Please wait for more information from me.

Istanbul, with an M6

2011-04-10T16:40:00.011+04:00

Istanbul, historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople, is the largest city in Turkey and located on the Bosphorus Strait and encompasses the natural harbour known as the Golden Horn. It extends both on the European (Thrace) and on the Asian (Anatolia) sides of the Bosphorus, and is thereby the only metropolis in the world that is situated on two continents.

All photos are made with Leica M6 and Kodak Ektar 100 film (except the last one), cropped and framed with iPad Photogene.

Past and Present

Path to the Blue Mosque

Istanbul tram by day

The empty chairs

Viewing Marmara sea

Gift shop by the tram

In between Asia and Europe

How to travel with young children and still able to make photos at least 1 roll a day? The solution is a baby carrier backpack :) Even though with Ayesha on the back I could only go as low as 1/30 with my M6, compare to 1/8 handheld in normal situation.

Ayesha curious what to shoot

Life After CCIE

2011-04-06T02:54:00.004+04:00

Almost a decade ago I passed my first CCIE exam. And even after being CCIE for about 10 years, there are still some people who like to have a debate with me about whether or not it matters to have certification. I usually try to avoid such discussion, and simply show from my own experience how CCIE has impacted my life.

Having knowledge about Cisco and networking in general gave me chance to work in world class companies such as Schlumberger, IBM and with Cisco Systems itself. I had opportunity to work with the best networking guys in the industry, including with some Ciscopress authors that I used to only know and read their names from the book cover. I have been in many interesting places from Cisco HQ in Silicon Valley to Bangkok, Singapore, Hanoi, Prague, Munich, Bratislava, London, Istanbul, Dubai, Mexico City and many others including soon to one unique place in Africa. I joined Cisco and have almost unlimited access to the detailed hardware and software architecture of the products ever since. I have been involved in several interesting projects with leading edge technologies. I have to deal with important Cisco customers, large scale networks, and I have been in the situation multiple times when I am expected to be the last resort to solve the challenge. I'm part of the team where the other team members are well known in Cisco community and even outside the organization. I have chance to deploy the latest Cisco products such as CRS-3 or ASR9K before many others. And recently I had opportunity to help developing the CCIE program by building new lab questions and taking the alpha exam.

Some people may be able to achieve the same or even more without CCIE, but in my case it was the CCIE certificate and the expertise gained during the preparation, that took me to the next level.

I didn't even plan for all the above when the first time I decided to learn about networking. I didn't know what the certification or CCIE would take me. What I knew at the time when I started, I enjoyed learning about networking and I used Cisco certification program to help and as guidance in my learning.

I did what I like, and the rest is just history.
Instead of arguing, you should probably do the same.

Getting Dumber

2011-03-03T00:47:00.000+04:00

I'm getting dumber day by day.

My blackberry crashed, then I realized that I don't remember any phone number anymore including my wife's because the phone keeps that for me.
My macbook refused to boot, then I realized I have taken the Internet for granted.
Without email and IM it means all official communication must be done verbally which is usually not required.
Without google, I know nothing. I've never bothered to memorize.
I always search when I need to know something.
So without Internet, I'm dumb.

The technology makes me dumber.
And only when it fails I start to realize this.

I guess the solution is either to ditch the technology, back to what it used to be, or to make it never fails.

If you prefer the latter, let's talk about High Availability.

What is CCIE?

2011-01-20T16:43:00.003+04:00

A friend of mine forwarded me an old link about “what is a CCIE”. It’s interesting, hilarious, but I never bothered to read it all in detail since I know for sure it’s just too far from the truth. There was a time when CCIEs are considered the gurus of computer networking. There was a time when not many study materials available and the candidates must rely solely on the experiences. There was a time when someone who has CCIE can close his eyes and pick any job he wants because there were just so many available.

Today many have passed and some of them could even pass within short time without having difficulties (you know what I mean). Some CCIEs can’t demonstrate the expected level of expertise when they have to work in the real world. Some CCIEs don’t even understand the basic knowledge. So people are looking for the new perception or definition of CCIE. To me, CCIE meaning has never been changed. But before I mention what CCIE definition is that I always have in mind, please allow me to share different experiences that I have during my journey to pass CCIE in three different tracks.

I passed CCIE in both 2-day exam and 1-day exam format.

I failed attempts to get CCIE, I also passed 1 CCIE in first attempt.

My first CCIE was paid by my previous employer. My second CCIE was self-funded. My third CCIE was after I joined Cisco.

I passed the first CCIE because I had to, else I would get kick out from the company. I passed the second CCIE because I wanted to join Cisco. And I passed the third just because I really liked the SP technology.

I didn’t take any official training to pass any CCIE lab.

I took a month off to prepare my first CCIE and used to study 16 hours a day. I had to study between 2 am till morning for 6 months to get my second CCIE. And there was just not enough time to study for the third so I had to rely on experience at customer networks, and did extensive practice in the lab only few weeks before the exam.

So what is CCIE, if you ask me?

It’s a certification program from Cisco Systems that is positioned with “expert” level of difficulty. It’s a technical certification that you can earn if you pass both the written and lab exam. The exam blueprint covers many aspect of networking technologies and one must understand the concept as well as implement it in the same lab topology. There are advanced technology, leading edge features and troubleshooting skills tested during the exam.

It’s not a design exam.
It’s not to implement best practice network.
It’s not a real world implementation.

It’s designed to ensure the candidate knows how the technology works, how to implement it, how to integrate it, and how to troubleshoot it in simulated network topology.

It can make you learn new technology. It can give you chance to test new things in the lab that you may not have chance to do so in your daily work.

Sometimes the tasks required to be done in the lab don’t make sense.
Sometimes the tasks required to be done in the lab won’t be implemented in the real world.

And due to the lab setup, features and technology asked during the exam, the complexity of the integration between many technologies, combined with the time constraint, travel required and so on make CCIE lab really challenging and difficult.

But no matter how difficult it is, it’s just an exam.

CCIE is NOT supposed to be the final target.
CCIE is just the beginning.

Once you pass the exam, it can open many new opportunities. It can give you more chance to get a better position or to get another job in better organization. It can give you opportunity to work in more complex project. It can give you chance to join Cisco directly, like me, and someday can contribute to develop the content and make the questions for the lab exam.

And last, I will make one statement that may cause many debates but I’m just saying this based on what I have seen in the field:
Every network engineer should have at least one CCIE.

It should be compulsory for any engineer who wants to implement or get involved in complex network deployment.

Get the experiences then get certified.
Or get certified then get the experiences.
Either one is fine, as long as at the end each CCIE has real world experiences not only lab or exam experiences.

And that’s what CCIE is to me.

Define Under Pressure

2011-01-15T09:42:00.003+04:00

During my life as engineer and consultant I have been dealing with many different types of customer in many different types of engagement and project, in many different countries. There are some good customers and challenging customers. Good customers are those who know their network very well, know many technology options available and the most important is they know what they want. So they are just looking for advices and best practices from a networking vendor like Cisco. Once the customers get those, most of the times they even implement the solution themselves. Tough and challenging customers usually are those who don’t know their network, who don’t have proper documentation of their setup, and most of the time they don’t know what they want. It’s not a bad thing for someone who works in professional services organization like me, as part of my responsibility is to become technical advisor to provide guidance and direction for such customers.

Some other customers just don’t make sense, in term of considering the timeframe to do the tasks or projects. They want the project to be done overnight. Some don’t want to listen to technical explanation of why some tasks can’t be done in short time. Others don’t understand how to put priority to the tasks in the project so they just put unnecessary pressure to complete some non-important task and don’t bother with critical task. Some put very high expectation and demand the vendor to deliver everything, within short time, despite the scope of work agreement has mentioned and limit the deliverables during the project.

For some other customers, they are just acting the way they think they should be. Several years ago one government and powerful customer told me they couldn’t accept any failure in the project and they would cancel my working permit and kick me out from the country if I make any mistake during the migration. And they showed they mean it by asking me to bring my passport during one critical migration night. One high rank officer from different government customer said he would put me in prison if someone was able to break the WPA mechanism that I enabled to secure his wireless network. Other customer (yes I know, I got lucky I had chance to deal with many different government customers ☺) mentioned he would send police officer to pick me up from home if I don’t show up for the meeting.

So after dealing with many good, tough, challenging and weird customers above I thought I have seen it all. I thought I knew the meaning of work under pressure. Until one day I had a chance to interview one guy from Iraq, later became my colleague and friend, for a network engineer position in my previous company. The time was around a couple of years after the US Army invasion of Iraq and they were probably still looking for the Weapon of Mass Destruction just like in Green Zone movie.

After asking series of technical questions, I came to a normal question that I always ask to every candidate I interview: can you work under pressure? He threw funny look to me and started laughing. I didn’t quite understand. Then he said: Himawan, define under pressure. I just came to Dubai from Iraq 2 weeks ago. For many years I worked there, everyday on my way to work I heard the explosions. I have seen shooting actions. And just week before I came here I was driving to go back home and didn’t realize there was a US Army checkpoint so I was a bit too fast when approaching them. Everybody was pointing his machine gun and yelling me to stop and they might have started shooting if I didn’t push the break as hard as I could. I may not know the technology as much as other network engineer does, but I can tell you that Dubai is like Heaven compare to where I came from. In Iraq, every morning to wake up and find yourself still alive is a privilege.

I was surprised to hear his answer. Next thing I know I put my highest recommendation to hire him immediately. He was a mere CCNP at that time so from technical skills he lacks several things required for the job but it doesn’t matter. Lack of technical skill can be improved. But the attitude and the ability to handle the situation, especially if you have to deal with funny customers (please read the third paragraph again), is what matters. I know someone like him would be successful some day. And after working with him for few years he proved that I was right.

So next time you feel like you are working under pressure, there are just too many loads to handle, you think you are in the worst project ever, you have to deal with a very bad customer and the world is completely unfair to you, please remember this:
define under pressure.

CCIE Experiences on the News

2010-12-22T23:30:00.001+04:00

6 Days without Internet

2010-11-24T06:34:00.004+04:00

Due to the Eid holiday in Dubai last week I had a chance to be completely off from the Internet for 6 days. So yes people, it's possible to live for a week without Facebook, email, IM and so on. I only sent a tweet per day from my Blackberry to record what I did, and here they are:

Day 1: snowboarding with the kids. Then went shopping for Eid
Day 2: eat, pray, sleep. Eid celebration and BBQ at a friend's house
Day 3: spent the whole day at the park
Day 4: in the middle of zillion teenagers, watching Jonas Brothers concert at Yas Island. Thing you must do when you have 12 years old girl!
Day 5: splashing and sun bathing at waterpark, then dining at chinese restaurant
Day 6: desert driving, flying in vertical wind tunnel and now watching Harry Potter 7. That's the end of 6 days without facebook, email, IM!

It was 6 days full of activities from snowboarding, desert driving, indoor sky diving, splashing at waterpark, to shopping, hanging out with friends and BBQ, and watching movie and the concert. Who said life without Internet would be a mistake?

I should do the same exercise with longer period someday.

How was life before GNS3?

2010-11-05T23:03:00.003+04:00

I'm sick of people keep complaining about the new IOS XR in CCIE SP track. Listen, IOS XR in CCIE lab is good. It's closer to the decent real SP network. Do you want to pass CCIE SP lab, and call yourself the 'expert' for SP technologies, with an exam that has only 7200 as the top model for P and PE routers?

People asked me, how can I practice because GNS3 doesn't support IOS XR? First, GNS3 is just the front end graphical interface for the actual emulator dynamips. I hope this is not the first time you heard about this statement :) Many time I said, yes GNS3 or dynamips is good because we don't need the real router to practice. But remember, it's emulator not the real router and just like any software the emulator may have bugs as well. So when you face issue with your simulated network, you need to be able to identify if the problem comes from your config, from the IOS or from the emulator. If you can't accept this fact, stop using it. Stop your CCIE study and do something else. As CCIE candidates having a right attitude is required, including trying to find information like this.

Then you should know that you can't take this emulator for granted. Cisco never endorses the usage of emulator (and illegal IOS) to study. Chris made dynamips as his personal project, and if you can't contribute to it please stop complaining about why it doesn't support IOS XR (those who understand IOS XR architecture probably understand the challenges to emulate the box).

Let me ask you question: how was life before GNS3?

Some of CCIE candidates today know only how to download the GNS3 package, that has already included the dynamips, and install it in their PC. They practice hard like hell with it and pass CCIE lab without ever see the real router. Sometime they don't even have experience. If you need CCIE engineer for your company, would you hire the one that has never seen the real router nor the experience?

I passed two CCIEs without using GNS3 or emulator. If you want to know how, please listen to my story in WebEx recording.

If you can pass CCIE by relying only on emulator, good for you. But please don't take it for granted. Once you pass try to get real experience. If you want to take CCIE SP 3.0, study IOS XR from beginning starting with CCNA SP and CCNP SP (coming soon). Join a company that gives you experience with either CRS or GSR XR or ASR9K. Try to rent an XR rack. Form a study group then collect the money from all the members to buy one GSR XR. Ask your company to buy XR box with special rate for training purpose. Take loan from the bank to get the smallest ASR. I don't care. My point here is there is always a way and that's why CCIE is special. It distinguishes the real CCIE candidates and those who just want to pass to have the certificate so they can start getting more money. Money will come eventually, but please do it right so when you really pass CCIE SP 3.0 lab someday you can say 'yes, I'm a real CCIE'.

Again, many CCIEs before you didn't use emulator at all.
Think about it.

CCIE Experiences - WebEx Recording

2010-10-25T16:17:00.003+04:00

CCIE Experiences @ WebEx (in English)-20101024 0710-1
Sunday, October 24, 2010 11:10 am Abu Dhabi
Time 2 Hours 21 Minutes

https://cisco.webex.com/ciscosales/lsr.php?AT=pb&SP=MC&rID=47100422&rKey=c1b4048ffacf77f6

CCIE Experiences @ WebEx (in English)-20101024 0931-2
Sunday, October 24, 2010 1:31 pm Abu Dhabi
Time 10 Minutes

https://cisco.webex.com/ciscosales/lsr.php?AT=pb&SP=MC&rID=47100432&rKey=9714d3072306d5db

CCIE Experiences Session is NOW

2010-10-24T10:36:00.001+04:00

Topic: CCIE Experiences @ WebEx (in English)
Date: Sunday, October 24, 2010
Time: 11:00 am, Arabian Time (Abu Dhabi, Muscat, GMT+04:00)
Meeting Number: 201 345 278
Meeting Password: ccie

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To join this online meeting (Now from the Apple iPhone (R) and other smartphones!)
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1. Go to https://ciscosales.webex.com/ciscosales/j.php?ED=150031357&UID=1411018462&PW=NMjYwZjhiYTBh&RT=MiMzNg%3D%3D
2. Enter your name and email address.
3. Enter the meeting password: ccie
4. Click "Join Now".
5. Follow the instructions that appear on your screen.

CCIE Experiences Tomorrow

2010-10-23T11:24:00.012+04:00

In less than 24 hours I will be conducting a free webex session of CCIE Experiences: a complete story of how to prepare, pass, work and live as CCIE (in English). More than 400 people around the world have registered, about 20% are Cisco employees, and the rest comes from Cisco customers, partners, universities even our competitors.

There is a chance some of the attendees are first time webex users, so I will start the meeting earlier even the presentation will still start at 11 am Dubai time (GMT+4) tomorrow Sunday, 24 October 2010. You may want to join around 10.30 am Dubai time to test your browser, audio, chat, video and other webex meeting client features.

Below are some FAQs:

How to join the meeting?
If you have registered, you should get confirmation email with the instruction how to join. Click the link in the email and if this is the first time you attend webex client, the browser may ask to download the client. Just follow the step until you can see the meeting client and my first slide.

How to hear the audio?
There is no integrated audio, so you must use your normal phone or mobile. When the first time the meeting client pops up it will ask you to put your country code and the phone number. Do so and webex will call you. The other option is to dial the webex global number listed here, when requested put the meeting number as written in the email and follow the step until you successfully join the meeting.

What will you discuss during the session?
A complete story of my CCIE journey from the very beginning (CCNA) until 3xCCIE. Plus some advice about career in computer networking. Check the agenda on my previous post.

Will you discuss the CCIE real questions?
In the meeting with 20% of attendees are Cisco employees? Are you nuts? :) No, and I won't do it in any other session either.

Which CCIE track will you be focusing on?
CCIE SP, since this is the last track I passed and currently I work with SP technologies. I will share my view about CCIE SP 3.0 too.

How to ask questions during the meeting?
Use the chat, I will try to answer the questions on the fly if it's related with the section I'm currently talking about.

Will you repeat the session sometime in the future?
Most likely not. I don't mind to give another free webex session but probably not about CCIE experiences anymore.

Will you record the session?
Yes, but it means it won't be interactive since you can't ask question and based on my previous experience the quality of the recording may not be optimum. And the recording won't be available to download, you can only play it directly from the Internet.

CCIE SP 3.0 Blueprint Expansion

2010-10-21T08:24:00.003+04:00

After looking at the CCIE SP Lab 3.0 Checklist aka expansion to the lab blueprint, I would say I'm quite impressed with the topics covered in the exam. It looks like it has covered all the technologies in carrier-grade Service Provider. Now we are talking!

1. Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Core IP Technologies

1.1. Packet over SONET

1.1.1. Cisco HDLC encapsulation
1.1.2. PPP encapsulation
1.1.3. Frame Relay encapsulation
1.1.4. Maximum transmission unit (MTU)
1.1.5. Cyclic redundancy check (CRC)
1.1.6. Keepalive timer
1.1.7. Frame Relay DLCI on point to point sub-interface
1.1.8. SONET Controller
1.1.9. POS channel

1.2. GE/10GE in the Core

1.2.1. MAC accounting
1.2.2. Speed
1.2.3. Duplex mode
1.2.4. Carrier Delay
1.2.5. MTU
1.2.6. Flow control
1.2.7. 802.1Q VLAN sub-interface

1.3. IGP routing

1.3.1. IS-IS Multi topology
1.3.2. IS-IS Multi instance
1.3.2. IS-IS System Type
1.3.3. IS-IS Metric Type
1.3.4. IS-IS Area
1.3.5. IS-IS Designated Intermediate Systems
1.3.6. IS-IS Interface Circuit Type
1.3.7. IS-IS Interface Metric
1.3.8. IS-IS Retransmission Throttle Interval
1.3.9. IS-IS LSP Interval and Lifetime
1.3.10. IS-IS Point-to-point Adjacency over Broadcast Media
1.3.11. IS-IS route leaking
1.3.12. OSPF multi instance
1.3.13. OSPF Multi Areas
1.3.14. OSPF router ID
1.3.15. OSPF over different physical network
1.3.16. OSPF neighbor
1.3.17. OSPF interface cost
1.3.18. OPSF designated router
1.3.19. OSPFv3 support for IPv6
1.3.20. EIGRP multi instance
1.3.21. EIGRP Autonomous System Configuration
1.3.22. EIGRP Cost Metrics
1.3.23. EIGRP Equal and Unequal Cost Load Balancing
1.3.24. EIGRP support for IPv6
1.3.25. RIP v2
1.3.26. RIP support for IPv6
1.3.27. Redistribution between OSPF,IS-IS and EIGRP
1.3.28. Redistribution of Directly connected routes
1.3.29. Redistribution of Static routes
1.3.30. Route summary
1.3.31. IOS-XR routing policy language (RPL)
1.3.32. Routing policy using route-map

1.4. MPLS and LDP

1.4.1. IP CEF
1.4.2. LDP router ID
1.4.3. LDP interface
1.4.4. LDP neighbor auto discovery
1.4.5. MPLS MTU
1.4.6. MPLS LDP Static label
1.4.7. MPLS LDP—Local Label Allocation Filtering
1.4.8. MPLS LDP-IGP synchronization
1.4.9. MPLS LDP Inbound/outbound Label Binding Filtering

1.5. MPLS Traffic Engineering

1.5.1. IS-IS support for MPLS TE
1.5.2. OSPF support for MPLS TE
1.5.3. RSVP for MPLS TE
1.5.4. MPLS TE tunnel setup
1.5.5. MPLS TE Tunnel bandwidth
1.5.6. MPLS TE Automatic Bandwidth
1.5.7. MPLS TE Static route
1.5.8. MPLS TE Auto route
1.5.9. MPLS TE Policy route
1.5.10. MPLS TE Forwarding adjacency
1.5.11. MPLS TE Metric
1.5.12. MPLS TE LSP attributes
1.5.13. MPLS TE Class-based Tunnel selection
1.5.14. MPLS TE Policy-based Tunnel selection
1.5.15. MPLS Pseudowire Tunnel Selection
1.5.16. Point to multi point ( P2MP) MPLS TE
1.5.17. Inter-Domain MPLS TE
1.5.18. Inter-Area MPLS TE

1.6. BGP

1.6.1. IBGP IPv4/IPv6 Peering
1.6.2. EBGP IPv4/IPv6 Peering
1.6.3. EBGP IPv4/IPv6 multi hop peering
1.6.4. BGP IPv4/IPv6 routes advertising
1.6.5. EBGP IPv4/IPv6 peering using local-AS
1.6.6. EBGP IPv4/IPv6 peering using AS-override
1.6.7. BGP IPv4/IPv6 using private AS number
1.6.8. Dual AS configuration for Network AS migration
1.6.9. BGP Next-Hop
1.6.10. BGP Weight
1.6.11. BGP Local Preference
1.6.12. BGP MED
1.6.13. BGP Origin
1.6.14. BGP Communites
1.6.15. BGP Confederation
1.6.16. BGP Router reflector
1.6.17. BGP Cluster list
1.6.18. BGP Peer Groups
1.6.19. BGP Synchronization
1.6.20. BGP Aggregation
1.6.21. BGP Conditional Advertising
1.6.22. BGP Routing policy
1.6.23. Redistributing IGP, static and connected route into BGP
1.6.24. BGP Multi-path Load Sharing
1.6.25. BGP Link Bandwidth

1.7. Multicast

1.7.1. IPv4/IPv6 Multicast addressing
1.7.2. IPv4/IPv6 Multicast routing
1.7.3. PIM Sparse Mode for IPv4/IPv6
1.7.4. IGMP V2/V3
1.7.5. IPV6 Multicast Listener Discover (MLD)
1.7.6. PIM Source Specific Multicast (SSM) for IPv4/IPv6
1.7.7. Multicast Rate-limiting
1.7.8. PIM Bidirectional (BiDir)
1.7.9. PIM Static RP
1.7.10. PIM Bootstrap Router (BSR)
1.7.11. PIM Auto RP
1.7.12. PIM Anycast RP
1.7.13. Multicast Administrative Boundaries
1.7.14. MSDP
1.7.15. MP-BGP peer for Multicast
1.7.16. MP-BGP Multicast route advertising

1.8. High Availability

1.8.1. NSF/SSO for IGP routing
1.8.2. NSF/SSO for BGP routing
1.8.3. NSF/SSO for LDP, TE, Multicast
1.8.4. HSRP, VRRP, GLBP
1.8.5. Graceful Restart
1.8.6. Control Plane Policing (CPP)
1.8.7. Bidirectional forwarding detection (BFD)
1.8.8. IP event dampening
1.8.9. IGP Fast Re-route
1.8.10. MPLS TE Fast Re-route (FRR)
1.8.11. Link Protection using MPLS-TE
1.8.12. Node Production using MPLS-TE
1.8.13. Embedded event management (EEM)

1.9. Convergence

1.9.1. IS-IS fast convergence
1.9.2. IS-IS to utilize the Overload Bit
1.9.3. OSPF fast convergence
1.9.4. BGP fast convergence
1.9.5. BGP Route Dampening
1.9.6. BGP Fast Peering Session Deactivation
1.9.7. BGP Prefix Independent Convergence (PIC)
1.9.8. BGP next hop tracking
1.9.9. BGP address tracking filter
1.9.10. BGP path MTU discovery
1.9.11. IP fast reroute (IPFRR)
1.9.12. Multicast-only Fast Re-Route (MoFRR)
1.9.13. MPLS LDP convergence

1.10. SP QoS

1.10.1. Marking using DSCP, IP precedence and CoS
1.10.2. Priority Queuing
1.10.3. Custom Queuing
1.10.4. Weighted Fair Queuing
1.10.5. WRED
1.10.6. Policing
1.10.7. Class-based Weighted Faire Queuing (CB-WFQ)
1.10.8. Low-Latency Queuing (LLQ)
1.10.9. Random-Detect using MQC
1.10.10. NBAR for QoS
1.10.11. MPLS EXP
1.10.12. Differentiated Services Traffic Engineering (DS-TE)
1.10.13. Maximum Allocation Model (MAM)
1.10.14. Russian Dolls Model (RDM)
1.10.15. Class-Based Tunnel Selection: CBTS
1.10.16. Policy-based Tunnel Selection: PBTS

1.11. Security in core

1.11.1. Standard Access-lists
1.11.2. Extended Access-lists
1.11.3. Routing Protocol Authentication for RIP V2
1.11.4. Routing Protocol Authentication for EIGRP
1.11.5. Routing Protocol Authentication for OSPF
1.11.6. Routing Protocol Authentication for IS-IS
1.11.7. Routing Protocol Authentication for BGP
1.11.8. BGP TTL Security Check
1.11.9. Infrastructure ACL
1.11.10. Anti Fragment Attacks
1.11.11. Filtering RFC 1918 Routes
1.11.12. uRPF for Anti-Spoofinng
1.11.13. Selective packet discard (SPD)
1.11.14. LDP authentication
1.11.15. Remote triggered black hole (RTBH)
1.11.16. NTP
1.11.17. Attack mitigation
1.11.18. SNMP Management
1.11.19. IP packet Accounting
1.11.20. Syslog

2. Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Edge/Access Technologies
2.1. FE/GE and Ethernet Trunk

2.1.1. Ethernet channel
2.1.2. Virtual Trunking Protocol (VTP)
2.1.3. Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)
2.1.4. 802.1Q VLAN
2.1.5. 802.1QinQ
2.1.6. 802.1ad Provider Bridges (PB)
2.1.7. 802.1ah Provider Backbone Bridge (PBB)
2.1.8. Connectivity Fault Management (CFM)

2.2. Frame-Relay connection

2.2.1. Frame-Relay DLCI
2.2.2. Frame-Relay map
2.2.3. Frame-Relay switching
2.2.4. Frame-Relay multilink
2.2.5. Frame-Relay LMI-Type
2.2.6. PPP over Frame-Relay

2.3. PPP connections

2.3.1. PPP encapsulation
2.3.2. PPP multilink
2.3.3. PPP Multi chassis multilink
2.3.4. PPPoE client
2.3.5. PPPoE server
2.3.6. PPP authentication

3. Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Layer 3 VPN

3.1. Intra AS L3 MPLS VPN

3.1.1. MP-IBGP VPNv4/VPNv6 peering
3.1.2. MP-IBGP peering using loopback interface
3.1.3. VPNv4/VPNv6 Route Reflector
3.1.4. VRF definition
3.1.5. Route Distinguisher
3.1.6. Route Target
3.1.7. Route Target import/export
3.1.8. Intra AS MPLS VPNV4/VPNV6 load balancing
3.1.9. SOO Community
3.1.10. PE-CE – RIP V2
3.1.11. PE-CE – IS-IS
3.1.12. PE-CE – OSPF
3.1.13. PE-CE – EBGP
3.1.14. PE-CE – Static Routes
3.1.15. Redistributing dynamic PE-CE routes into VPNv4/VPNv6
3.1.16. Redistributing static PE-CE routes into VPNv4/VPNv6
3.1.17. Redistributing VPN4/VPNv6 routes into PE-CE routing table
3.1.18. Intra-AS MPLS VPN multipath
3.1.19. Intra-AS MPLS VPN path selection

3.2. Inter AS L3 MPLS VPN

3.2.1. MP-EBGP VPNv4/VPNv6 peering using direct interface
3.2.2. MP-EBGP VPNv4/VPNv6 peer using multi-hop interface
3.2.3. MP-EBGP VPNv4/VPNv6 peer between RRs
3.2.4. VPNV4/VPNv6 next-hop unchanged
3.2.5. VPNV4/VPNv6 next-hop self
3.2.6. Multi VRF between ASPEs
3.2.7. Inter-AS MPLS VPNV4/VPNv6 multipath
3.2.8. Route target rewrite
3.2.9. Inter-AS MPLS VPN path selection

3.3. Carrier supporting carrier

3.3.1. MPLS LDP in customer carrier site
3.3.2. EBGPv4 + label between CSC-PE and CSC-CE
3.3.3. IGP + LDP between CSC-PE and CSC-CE
3.3.4. MPLS VPNv4 between customer carrier sites PEs
3.3.5. CSC VPN load balancing
3.3.6. VRF definition in customer carrier site
3.3.7. Customer carrier site PE-CE routing

3.4. VPN Extranet and internet access

3.4.1. MP-BGP VPNv4/VPNv6 Extra-Net
3.4.2. MP-BGP VPNv4/VPNv6 internet access

3.5. VRF service

3.5.1. Multiple VRF
3.5.2. Multiple VRF routing
3.5.3. VRF Selection based on Source IP Address

3.6. Multicast VPN

3.6.1. Default MDT
3.6.2. Data MDT
3.6.3. MP-BGP mdt peering
3.6.4. Multicast routing in VPN site
3.6.5. PM-SM in VPN site
3.6.6. RP in VPN site
3.6.7. Multicast VPN extranet

3.7. GRE L3 VPN

3.7.1. MPLS VPN—L3VPN over GRE

4. Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Layer 2 VPN

4.1. AToM

4.1.1. Psuedowire class
4.1.2. Ethernet over MPLS (EoMPLS)
4.1.3. Ethernet VLAN over MPLS
4.1.4. Frame Relay over MPLS (FRoMPLS)
4.1.5. HDLC over MPLS (HDLCoMPLS)
4.1.6. PPP over MPLS (PPPoMPLS)
4.1.7. PWE3 control using LDP
4.1.8. Psuedowire redundancy
4.1.9. AToM interworking
4.1.10. AToM local switching
4.1.11. AToM intra-as support
4.1.12. AToM inter-as support
4.1.13. Traffic Engineering with AToM

4.2. VPLS and Carrier Ethernet

4.2.1. VPLS
4.2.2. H-VPLS
4.2.3. VFI definition
4.2.4. VPLS BGP auto discovery
4.2.5. VLAN attached circuit
4.2.6. QinQ attached circuit
4.2.7. 802.1ad attached circuit
4.2.8. 802.1ah attached circuit
4.2.9. VPLS/H-VPLS redundancy

4.3. L2TPV3 for L2VPN

4.3.1. L2TPv3
4.3.2. L2TPv3 VPN local switching
4.3.3. L2TPv3 VPN interworking

4.4. GRE L2VPN

4.4.1. L2VPN over GRE

5. Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Managed Services Traversing the Core

5.1. Managed Voice/Video services traversing the core

5.1.1. Traverse Voice/video packet
5.1.2. Traverse call signal packet

5.2. Managed Security services traversing the core

5.2.1. Traverse IKE packet
5.2.2. Traverse ESP, AH packet
5.2.3. Traverse SSL packet

5.3. Service Level Agreements for managed services

5.3.1. IP SLA sender
5.3.2. IP SLA responder
5.3.3. IP SLA for MPLS VPN
5.3.4. Netflow
5.3.5. Netflow for MPLS
5.3.6. Netflow for Multicast

CCIE SP 3.0 Lab Equipments

2010-10-21T06:21:00.003+04:00

Please stop saying IOS XR will make it too expensive and difficult to pass the new CCIE SP 3.0. The real CCIE candidates should be grateful because now anyone who can pass the lab proves at least he knows XR and latest features on 12.2.33SR IOS. In fact, Cisco should modify the name of the track to CCIE SP NGN or something, to distinguish SP 3.0 with SP 2.0. And instead of whining about how to find a lab to practice XR, you should start asking the following questions: will the XR be used as P or PE? 7600 simulator to run 12.2.33SR means no real hardware, what could be tested without the hardware? What technology can be asked from ME series? And so on

Lab Equipment
• Cisco XR12000 Series Routers
• Cisco 7200/7600 Series equivalent Routers (Using Simulator)
• Cisco ME3400E Series Switches

Software Versions
• XR12000 routers running IOS-XR Software Version 3.9.1
• 7200/7600 routers running IOS Software Version 12.2-33 SR
• ME3400E switches running IOS Software Version 12.2-54 SE

CCIE SP Lab Gets Updated!

2010-10-20T19:56:00.005+04:00

I'm so excited to hear that the CCIE SP track lab exam has been updated to v3.0 starting from April 18, 2011. The lab exam blueprint looks very interesting. And with newer equipments in the lab and IOS XR it's getting closer to the real SP environment!

CCIE SP Lab Exam Topics v3.0

1.0 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Core IP Technologies
1.1 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Packet over SONET
1.2 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot GE/10GE in the core
1.3 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot IGP routing
1.4 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot MPLS and LDP
1.5 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot MPLS Traffic Engineering
1.6 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot BGP
1.7 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Muliticast
1.8 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot High availability
1.9 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Convergence
1.10 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot SP QoS
1.11 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Security in the core

2.0 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Access/Edge Connection Technologies
2.1 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot FE/GE and Ethernet Trunk connections
2.2 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Frame-relay connections
2.3 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot PPP connections

3.0 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot L3VPN Technologies
3.1 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Intra-AS L3VPN
3.2 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Inter-AS L3VPN
3.3 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Carrier Supporting Carrier (CSC)
3.4 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot VPN extranet , Internet access
3.5 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot VRF Service
3.6 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Multicast VPN
3.7 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot GRE L3VPN

4.0 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot L2VPN Technologies
4.1 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot AToM
4.2 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot VPLS and Carrier Ethernet
4.3 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot L2TPv3 for L2 VPN
4.4 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot GRE L2VPN

5.0 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Managed Services Traversing the Core
5.1 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Managed Voice/Video services traversing the core
5.2 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Managed Security services traversing the core
5.3 Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Service Level Agreements for managed services traversing the core

CCIE Experiences - WebEx Trial

2010-10-18T22:40:00.004+04:00

More than 360 people around the world have registered for the free WebEx session "CCIE Experiences" (in English) this Sunday. And only 15% are Cisco employees. It means there is a chance some of the attendees are first-time user of Cisco WebEx. So I'm going to conduct a WebEx trial on Friday between 9 am to 12 pm Dubai time (GMT+4). You can find the meeting information below. During the trial please make sure you can use the WebEx client to join the meeting, see the slide, use chat, see the video, and use audio (just talk to others).

Himawan Nugroho invites you to attend this online meeting.

Topic: CCIE Experiences - Trial
Date: Friday, October 22, 2010
Time: 9:00 am, Arabian Time (Abu Dhabi, Muscat, GMT+04:00)
Meeting Number: 201 997 808
Meeting Password: ccie

-------------------------------------------------------
To join the online meeting (Now from the Apple iPhone (R) and other smartphones!)
-------------------------------------------------------
1. Go to https://cisco.webex.com/ciscosales/j.php?ED=151148167&UID=0&PW=NZmZlNDcxOTFl&RT=MiMzNg%3D%3D
2. Enter your name and email address.
3. Enter the meeting password: ccie
4. Click "Join Now".

CCIE Common Things

2010-10-15T06:58:00.004+04:00

If you either one of the following:

- graduated from non-computer science nor IT
- have no clue on how to start pursuing the certification
- do not get any CCIE training from the company
- are living separate from the family just to study
- got pressure to pass CCIE
- must pay the lab exam yourself
- are not a Cisco employee
- are an ordinary guy, not an expert nor a geek

and you still want to become CCIE, then we may have things in common! Well, at least you share the common things with me at some point of time in my life.

I graduated from mechanical engineering. I didn't learn anything related to computer networking in campus except how to use IRC to chat and how to master the networked game like Warcraft, neither did I know about the certification program. I got into CCNA and the job as network engineer by chance, but then I took one certification at a time even I didn't get any Cisco training at all until CCIE. I used to live separate from my family just to study. I got the pressure from the company to pass my first CCIE on two attempts, or 'else'. For my second CCIE I must saved money to pay the two attempts. I had already two CCIEs before I joined Cisco. And until now I don't consider my self an expert nor a geek :)

You see, all the above didn't stop me to pass 3 CCIEs and get a job in a respected team with Cisco Systems.

If you are interested to hear more, you can join the free webex session of "CCIE Experiences: a complete story of how to prepare, pass, work and live as CCIE" in English on Sunday, 24 October 2010 from 11 am to 1 pm Dubai time (UTC+4). It really is a complete story of my CCIE journey, starting from the very beginning (CCNA) until I passed CCIE in 3 tracks. I will discuss about how I prepared, how I built the home lab to practice, from where I get funded, my experience during lab day, my life after I have become CCIE and so on, with some advices about the career in computer networking.

The session is open for everyone, as long as you are willing to register here. Once your registration is approved, you will receive a confirmation email with instructions for joining the meeting.

Until today there are already more than 300 people around the world have registered. They come from different background and companies, such as from our customers, partners, universities, Cisco employees and even from competitors.

It will be an exciting Sunday.

CCIE Experiences in English

2010-10-04T12:30:00.016+04:00

Over 400 Indonesian networking professionals registered, with more than 150 simultaneous sessions attended the "CCIE Experiences: a complete story of how to prepare, pass, work and live as CCIE" @ WebEx (in Bahasa) on last Sunday. So now I'm planning to do the same presentation in English on Sunday, 24 October 2010 from 11 am to 1 pm Dubai time (UTC+4). If you are interested, please register here and put your details. Once your registration is approved, you will receive a confirmation email with instructions for joining the meeting. The WebEx session is open for anyone who understands English out there, as long as your timezone doesn't make it difficult for you to attend.

If you look at the agenda below you can see that the session may be beneficial not only for those who are currently preparing for CCIE, but as well as for those who have just started following the certification program, for those who want to advance their career, or for those who are still thinking to switch career to networking field.

The agenda:
- About the Speaker
- How I Did It, the Summary of My Journey
- Story of Others
- Career @ Global Market, Career @ Cisco Systems
- How to Become Engineer ++
- How to Start FAQ
- Insert: Cisco Networking Academy Program
- How to Become a CCIE
- Cisco Certification overview
- CCIE program overview
- CCIE Service Provider overview
- CCIE written and lab exam
- Lab exam grading
- How to pass, tips from someone who has done it 3 times
- Sharing my CCIE experiences
- CCIE: the Missing Points
- Questions and Answers
- Building Avatar

CCIE Experiences

2010-09-28T09:50:00.009+04:00

Two years ago I gave a 45-minutes session of "How to Become CCIE" on Cisco Networkers Solution Forum in my country, Indonesia. The response was quite positive, the big hall where I presented was full and I got the highest feedback among all the speakers in that event. Few months later I presented similar topic in front of the students of my former university. But I added more slides about the story of my life while preparing for the lab exam, my experience during lab day, with some advices about the career as network engineer.

This Sunday I have scheduled a WebEx meeting for the session that I call "CCIE Experiences: a complete story of how to prepare, pass, work and live as CCIE". I will use the same material that I presented in my university, with some update to the exam information. It's open for any Indonesian networkers only, since I will conduct the session in my native language Bahasa. If you look at the agenda below you can see that the session may be beneficial not only for those who are currently preparing for CCIE, but as well as for those who have just started following the certification program, or for those who are still thinking to move to networking field:

- About the Speaker
- How I Did It, the Summary of My Journey
- Story of Others
- Career @ Global Market, Career @ Cisco Systems
- How to Become Engineer ++ “Menjadi Network Engineer ++”
- How to Start “Bagaimana Untuk Memulai” FAQ
- Insert: Cisco Networking Academy Program
- How to Become a CCIE
- Cisco Certification overview
- CCIE program overview
- CCIE Service Provider overview
- CCIE written and lab exam
- Lab exam grading
- How to pass, tips from someone who has done it 3 times
- Sharing my CCIE experiences
- Questions and Answers
- Building Avatar

Don't expect to get real CCIE lab questions there.
No NDA material will be disclosed.

As I mentioned above, the session is more like a complete story of my CCIE journey, where you can hear how someone did it (three times), how did he prepare, his experience during lab day, and how he works and lives as CCIE after he passed, with some additional advices about the career in networking field. The best of all, the session is free and open to anyone as long as you are willing to register.

Any Indonesian, or anyone who understands Bahasa, wherever you are, are welcomed to join this session. I will provide the list of WebEx numbers in many countries that you can dial.

Based on some comments I have received so far, I'm considering to repeat the WebEx session of this CCIE Experiences in English. The time is most probably on Sunday afternoon Dubai time, sometime next month. It will be on Sunday because I don't want to disturb everyone's normal working time.

Let me know if you are interested with this English session.

Building Avatar

2010-09-01T13:39:00.002+04:00

Many people really care about what others think about them. Sometime they even try to influence what others see in them. They build a profile or a self image that they want others perceive about them. The profile that people want others to see is something that I call Avatar.

I personally believe it's fine to build your avatar. In professional world it is not who you really are that matters, but it's what people believe you are capable of. For example, the best public speaker can be a shy person in his daily life. He can give the best speech in public because he practices hard and make people believe in what he says. One famous blogger can write about her opinions to various subjects that happen around the world, and she's probably a paranoid who never leaves home. Her ideas can go beyond her place and read across the globe.

The real you doesn't really matter. If you can make others believe you are good in something, than you are good in that thing!

How if someone is so desperate to be recognized and faking his avatar? For example, one can write bunch of stuff in his resume in order to get hired by a good company. Well, a good company usually doesn't just buy resume but will have several phases of interview and verification process. Even if the fake avatar can get the job, once he needs to interact with others they can figure it out. At the end, we all must live our own lifes. I don't think anyone can live someone's life and survive. At least not for long.

Having perfect avatar in mind can be a target to chase too. We can define what we want to be, then start making plan to achieve it.

My ideal avatar would be something like this:
- someone who can accept project assignment anywhere in the world
- has extensive experiences dealing with leading edge technologies from IP NGN, video, security, wireless and data center
- can blend easily with customers from different culture and countries from Asia to Africa, from Middle East to Europe, to central and latin America
- a result oriented person, loves the freedom with working hour and able to work from anywhere. What matters is to deliver the outcome within the target date
- likes to play strategic role in any network deployment and infrastructure migration projects
- he has been involved with network design from different types of customer industries from service provider, government, enterprise, banking, carrier, mobile operator, oil and gas, university to small medium business around the world
- a person with hands on experience in the field doing different roles; technical consultant, project manager, solution architect, lead engineer, pre-sales consultant, to deployment and migration lead
- possesses professional certifications from different vendors, including the toughest like CCIE in multiple tracks
- enjoys to be part of the team, thrilled even more every time he is rewarded to lead the team
- a pioneer, can follow the current template and process but able to re-invent everything from the scratch if necessary
- has been employed by world class companies like Schlumberger, IBM and Cisco Systems in multiple countries
- always shares his knowledge and inspires others
- likes to travel and loves to capture the world from close distance with his Leica film camera
- a family man who always tries to keep the life - work balance from time to time and still able to entertain himself in between

Hey, you know what? The list doesn't look unfamiliar. That's probably because I've been doing all the things above in my real life. Unlike Jake Sully, I don't need to use a machine to connect to my avatar. The avatar is inside me. I don't need to change people perception about me. All the things in the list are real. Those are the ones that I have gained from my experience working more than 10 years in the computer networking industry in many countries. I don't need to build my avatar anymore. I'm living my avatar.

I'm my own avatar.

...

And I can help you to build one like mine.
Wait for my next announcement.

Why iPad

2010-08-30T09:37:00.003+04:00

Sure it doesn't support multitasking. It's considered expensive for what it's capable of, too. But I still love my iPad. Simply because it fits my requirements. And that's what buying gadget is all about, isn't it? If the gadget is suitable for your needs, then get it. Use it to serve whatever purpose you have in mind. Use your gadget for what it's designed for.

I personally believe the dumbest person on earth is the one who keeps buying gadget just to catch up with the trend. I must have it, one may say, without knowing why and for what. The same reason some people used to buy Blackberry or any other expensive smart phones when the most things they do with it are just making calls and SMS (hey I got my blackberry for free! And the moment I find any other phone that can check my office emails natively, I will throw away that ugly looking device).

Below are the arguments of why and how I use my iPad. I made this list not to avoid being called as dumbest, neither to justify the reason I got my iPad, not to you all, not to my wife. I got mine when I was in London anyway, so there's nothing she could do when she found out ;) But this list may be useful for those who are still thinking to buy one. Steve Jobs should thank me for advertising the iPad for free.

I carry my iPad anywhere
Just as my Leica M6, I carry my iPad anywhere. For me the size is just perfect, it fits into my camera bag. So I can leave my bulky laptop at home if I want to write, to edit my photos or to attend a webex meting

I can write anytime
Now I have my iPad I feel like to write more. Anytime, anywhere, even when I'm in the bathroom, just like the time I wrote this note. In the beginning it was difficult to use the virtual keyboard but now I'm used to it. So be ready to get more often posts in my blog

I can read, if I want to
I don't really like to read, but sometime I have to for my work or personal needs. The iPad allows me to left home paperless and read anywhere, in any position that makes me feel much more comfortable compare to if I have to read from computer screen

Different experience during meeting
I have used Webex for virtual meeting for many years now. Webex for iPad gives a different and unique experience during the meeting. The ability to see who is talking, view other's desktop, chat and any other Webex tools that become more special because all can be done in any seating position. I just can't explain it, you've got to try to feel the experience

Edit photos without mouse
I don't really like post processing my photos. Most of the things I do are to crop, to slightly adjust the exposure, and to add frame. Simple photo editing tool like iPhoto on mac is enough for me. iPad apps like PhotoGene brings even more pleasant experience because I can do all those without using mouse but touch screen instead

Addicted to the game
I was a computer game addict when I was in the university. I was young and reckless, and the games almost cost me my degree at that time. Even iPad can't run serious games like StarCraft, WarCraft or Command and Conquer, there are many games that can make me spend hours. Good enough if I have to wait for my wife doing her shopping

The only multitasking I need is iPod
Life without music would be a mistake. I saw that in one music store in Singapore. Indeed music gives more color to life. It can entertain and inspire at the same time. I love to listen to the music from the iPod apps while writing, reading, or playing some light games. I can live without multitasking, as long as I can hear the song in the background when doing something on my iPad

So many apps, for free!
Don't blame me to mention jailbreak here, the US Government was the one that made it legal! And I have to admit there are so many apps on iPad that can be used to increase work productivity, to manage personal life and needs, or simply to entertain myself everytime I get bored. My sympathy to those who have worked hard to make good apps and keep the price low in iTunes store, but now the apps are available for free thanks to the inventors of jailbreak

Yeah, if you notice I didn't write 'to be connected to the Internet anywhere, anytime'. I don't need iPad for that. In fact the one I have is the wifi model, not 3G, so I must go to any hotspot to get connected. Most of the time I use the iPad to write or to edit my photos when I'm offline. This is true just like the time I wrote this note. Being connected can distract me because I will do many things but finishing my writing.

Here comes the list of apps I've used extensively with iPad. And don't bother to ask, I won't tell which one I got from iTunes store and which one for free :)

Work: Things for iPad, Webex, Keynote (it can run Power Point animations), GoodReader, iMeeting Pad, Mail, Calendar, Dropbox, iSSH, TeamViewer (best remote desktop)

Personal: Notably, PhotoGene, IM+, iPod, iDleFrame, Wordbook Dictionary, Bills, Pages, Penultimate, MyQur'an

Games: Angry Bird, Flick Football, Flight Control, Fruit Ninja, GT Racing, Mirror's Edge, ParaPanic, Pentago, Plant vs Zombie, Tower Defense

And many other games and education apps to amuse my kids.

Now I'm thinking that I'm the one who should really thanks Steve for the brilliant idea making the iPad. Thank you, Steve.

(Written using Notably on iPad)

Why We Are Certified

2010-08-17T23:40:00.004+04:00

About 10 years ago I started my journey with professional certification from different IT vendors. Going to the testing center to take the exam was a regular activity that I did from time to time. I remember some folks used to tell me that I was wasting my time and money. They said getting certification is useless and will not help to advance my career.

Interestingly enough, I found the fact is quite the opposite of what people told me. At least in computer networking area where I have involved for more than ten years, professional certification takes an important role in my life. I even dare to say that I would not be at where I am now without having them. And I'm going to write it down here, of all the reasons why I decided to take professional certification, and how they affected my career from the very beginning until now.

So if you are looking for the answer of the question if it's still worth to get certified, here are my answers based on my own experience.

1. Easier path for career switch
I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering, so the certification program from Cisco Systems and other vendors really helped me out when I decided to switch career to computer networking field. The certifications made it easier for me to show my interest in the area, to build a profile as network engineer and to help shorten the learning curve

2. Requirement from the employer
There was a time where system integrator companies are encouraged to have certified staff in order to enhance the relationship with the vendors of the product or solution. That means the companies must either train the staff to pass the certification exam, or hire someone who has already certified. I didn't have much experience in networking after the career switch, so I guess I got hired by my first big employer only because I had CCNA

3. To get better paid
So there I was, working in shift as network engineer for the company NOC. It did not take long for me to realize at that time some of my colleagues were in better position in the company, had more exposures and better chance to grow, and had better salary because they had higher certification than me. They had CCIE, in particular. So I was motivated to pass the CCIE lab with a very simple reason: to move to a better position and get a better paid eventually

4. To move to another company
It's true these days we don't get hired because of our certification anymore. Now we can get a job more because of our real expertise, past experience and our contacts (Triple W rules: who we know, what we know, what we have done). But professional certification is a benchmark of our knowledge, and from time to time has been used by the recruiters as one criteria to filter the candidates. Imagine you receive thousands of CVs and must bring the number of the candidates down to less than 50 for the interview process. One can just put some search keywords such as 'CCIE', '10 years experience', 'CRS' and so on to narrow down the potential candidates. We can only get a job if we can pass the interview and the subsequent processes. But at least the certification can provide some advantage and better chance to pass the early screening process

5. Love the challenges
Having passed the CCIE R&S lab in 2001 really opened many doors of opportunity for me. It gave me chance to work in a big company like IBM and it even made me received many offers to work abroad. So finally after I moved to middle east in 2002, what should I do next? I decided to challenge myself and put target certifications that I should achieve over period of time. It helped me to stay away from boredom and laziness. And to be honest, when the first time I started working in middle east the work situation was not really 'convenient'. But I made my decision to work in the region so I had to live with it. Putting new certifications as target and chasing them was my way to forget all the bad stuff that happened at work

6. Enjoy the experience
This may sound silly, but I just love the whole process and experience during my time chasing one new certification. As I mentioned above, the journey to take certification can make me forget about many inconvenient things that happen at work. It makes me focus to one thing. Sometime I even reached a level where all my activities are centered around my target certification. In the past I changed my sleeping time while chasing CCIE. I spent lots of time on eBay to purchase my home lab equipments. I modified my daily schedule so I still can work, be with family, and practice CCIE lab. The whole process of buying lab equpiment, managing schedule, practicing in the lab for countless hours, having discussion with study group over the Inetrnet, and the feeling when I finally pass the exam I believe is a complete experience that even more important than the certification itself

7. To prove thyself
Despite the thrill, the feeling after passing the exam, and experience during the time chasing the certification, there was a time when I took a new certification just to prove that I'm worth it. It was year 2005 when finally I had a chance to get interviewed by Cisco in the region, and I got rejected because I was not 'qualified'. To join Cisco had been my dream, so I really took the comment personally and decided to abandon my plan to pursue master degree and take CCIE Security lab instead. I didn't really like the track but I passed the exam anyway on January 2006 and became one of the few Dual CCIE holders in middle east. Strangely enough, 10 months later Cisco finally hired me but to cover the Asia Pacific region

8. Speed up in acquiring new skills
I joined Cisco with extensive experience dealing with Enterprise customers and network infrastructure. In Advanced Services most of the customers are top notch Service Providers, so in order to catch up quickly I decided to pursue CCIE SP lab. In every certification there is a clear study path to follow, there is a list of books to read, topics to be covered and practiced in the lab, and there is the exam to test and verify our understanding. This means we don't have to reinvent the study plan to learn new skills

9. Instant reward
My current employer provides instant reward to employee who can pass tough certification like CCIE or CCDE. In the place where I am now, this might be the only reason why people still take certification. And I don't think it's a bad reason. The companies still give reward probably to encourage their employees, to ensure the employees' skills are updated, or just because they need to justify giving instant bonuses to the employee

10. Be one of the few
Certifications give me a target to acquire. They help to improve my technical profile. The skills I learn from new certification make me stay competitive in the market. And be one of the first to pass new certifications make me feel good about myself. To be one of the few that hold several tough certifications obviously is very important for someone in my field. And I think every one of us should always try to be the best in anything we do, to be part of the group that can be entered only by hard work, and be proud of it

I don't know the reason why other people are still taking professional certification these days. But if you are planning to do it, my advice is for you to find the right reason for it. I know my reasons, and I really believe in them, and that's probably what make me who I am today.

June 2000 - passed CCNA, my first certification ever
August 2001 - first attempt of CCIE R&S lab in Brussels
Sept 2001 - passed CCIE R&S lab in Tokyo
May 2002 - joined one Cisco Gold Partner company in Dubai
2002 - 2005 - passed bunch of certifications from Cisco and other vendors
Jan 2006 - passed CCIE Security lab on 2nd attempt
Nov 2006 - joined Cisco Advanced Services Asia Pacific team
August 2007 - passed CCIE SP lab on 1st attempt in Brussels
Sept 2008 - moved to Cisco WWSP NGN practices team to cover Emerging markets
2008 - 2010 - passed several Cisco AS internal certifications on Carrier Ethernet, CRS/IOS XR and Video

(The post was made painfully using the virtual keyboard on iPad)

Retirement Plan

2010-07-31T23:22:00.003+04:00

I've been thinking about retirement lately.

"Aren't you too young to retire?" my close friend asked. Don't get me wrong, but I have my own definition of getting retired that may be different with the common perception.

First of all, when I'm retired it means I will do the things that I really like. I will do something that I'm really passionate about. So I will never do something because I have to, in order to make money, for example.

Second, even when I'm retired I will still work. I believe most of us have to work, because it is important for every one of us to have the feeling to accomplish something. But the work that I will do may be the same as what I'm currently doing now, or it may be completely different. I may work for a company or run my own business. And again, I will work not because I have to, but because I like to do it.

That means I can choose the type of work I want to do, and I decide when and where to do the work. Some people like to use a jargon such as financial freedom. For me I will make it simple; I need to get into a state where I can get stable income regularly regardless if I make money or not from my work. Then whatever work I will put myself into, after I decide when and where to do it, it will be because I really love doing it. If the work provides me with more money, I will just consider it as something extra.

Last but not least, I will not retire NOW. But I think it's good to start thinking about it, because it makes me at least to start building my retirement plan. I have set a timeframe, something that I can't share here. Now I need a solid plan so I can achieve my target date.

You may laugh after reading all the stuff above. But those thoughts have been hitting me for the past few days. And eventually everyone will be retired. So I challenge you to make your own definition about retirement. And start making a plan and set the target to get there.

Let's see who get there first ;)

Mondays

2010-07-05T05:47:00.001+04:00

Mondays. Hate by many, love by few. It doesn't matter because it's my 2nd week of vacation. Hate the heavy traffic due to Monday rush though, especially in Jakarta, the capital city of my country.

Contrary with what some of my friends believe, during my vacation I'm really disconnected from work. I'm completely unplugged. All my time is only for traveling with family, making photos with my M6, watching World Cup games, and enjoying my country food I've been missing because I've been far from home for too long.

I thought I could study for my next exam on July 19. But the new Himawan now thinks study is part of work. And as mentioned above, no work at all during vacation.

Let's just see what will happen then.

Immortalized CCIE

2010-06-22T23:17:00.003+04:00

For those who have been as CCIE for 10 years and don't like to take recertification exam every 2 years, Emeritus is the answer to your prayer! :)

Emeritus Benefits:

Permission to use Emeritus logo — subject to Cisco requirements
In situations where logo is not applicable the word Emeritus will follow CCIE number
CCIE number is maintained but now classified as Emeritus status
Candidate is recognized for technical proficiency and long term status within the program
Continue to participate in discussion forums, blogs, groups, etc... as an Emeritus
Opportunity to re-enter active CCIE status for up to ten years by taking any current written CCIE exam

CCIE Emeritus is a non-active status. As such the following rules apply:

DOES NOT provide TAC support privileges or preference
DOES NOT count towards Channel / Partner requirements
DOES NOT apply towards maintaining status levels for Channel Partners
DOES REQUIRE candidates to continue to report violations to the program when encountered

Teotihuacan - The City of Gods

2010-06-05T14:23:00.008+04:00

Don't ask me to provide more explanation about the place. I wanted to have lunch in the city. But the cost for hotel taxi from Santa Fe to the city center and go back is more expensive than a city tour. So I just signed up for the tour.

Temple @ the City of Gods

Formation to climb

Moon Pyramid from the Sun Pyramid

Come on it's not that high

True romance at the top of Pyramid

All photos are taken with Leica M6, 35 f2 Summicron ASPH lens, Kodak Portra 160NC and Kodak ProImage 100 films (bought in Mexican shop for 50 pesos). I wish I had more Kodak Ektar 100 films

Charles De Gaulle

2010-06-04T12:13:00.015+04:00

Eight hours transit in Paris, on my way to Mexico.

I love morning in Charles De Gaulle

Gotta catch the flight

Morning curve

Walk with me to the gate

Don't leave anything behind

I'm leaving on a jet plane

All photos are taken with Leica M6, 35 f2 Summicron ASPH lens, Ilford XP2 Super 400BW film, developed and scanned at one hour service lab in Santa Fe, Mexico city!

The Best Camera

2010-06-03T20:35:00.019+04:00

The best camera in the world is obviously the one that we always carry everywhere. According to the folks from National Geographic, the secret of making great photos is "f8 and be there". It's true to make some kind of photos we may need specific equipment. But the most important thing is to be there and capture the moment when something happens.

But if you asked me how to decide which camera, lens or brand to buy, I would tell you to do the following:

1. Ask yourself, why do you photograph. The reason of why you make photos may define which camera to buy

2. Define your style: do you like to take wedding photos, macro, landscape, B&W arts, street photo and so on. Different style may requires different equipment

3. Once you know the reason you photograph, and the style you want to follow, it's time to define the format and lens. Landscape photographer may want to go with medium size format that can provide a higher quality than normal 35 mm camera, and wide lens. If you like macro you will need to invest in special macro lens and may be close-up flash to lit the subject. Wedding photographer may like to have the famous 85 f1.4 lens, and so on

4. Define brand. You know which equipment you need, just need to decide which brand to go. So many websites offer the comparison between the camera from one brand to another, but sometime it's too technical and the info is not useful. To see the result of one camera you may want to check in Flickr and search using the tag. Try to find some photos that have only minimum post-processing. Sometime the decision to go to one brand is because you live near the community and many use that brand. It's not uncommon to borrow lens from your friend who has the same brand

5. Whatever brand you choose, invest in lens not the body. Especially in digital era, the price of the camera body can sink really fast. Six megapixels camera may worth really high few years ago but today it costs nothing to get one. The lens on the other hand can stay and be used for generations since it's just optical inside

Just to give an example, recently I sold my Canon EOS 5D complete with all the lens because I felt that the camera doesn't suit my need and photography style. I'm very certain of what I want to do in photography, I have my answer for all the five questions above, and finally I decided to buy: Leica M6 range finder film camera with 35 Summicron ASPH lens!

Leica M6 won't cover my face

Why I decided to go back to film? Well, the argument between Digital vs. Analog has been around for many years I will not discuss it here. My only reason is because I want Leica M range finder, but I can't afford to buy the new digital M9, so I decided to use all the money I got from selling the 5D to buy a brand new 35 f2 Summicron ASPH lens. A single lens that can suit 90% of photos I want to make. For the body I just bought a 20-years old M6 camera. It's full manual, the battery is required only to use the light meter, good looking and very tough, and it gives me full control as the photographer.

What is going on?

I like range finder because the size is quite small compare to SLR. It won't cover my face so I'm not hiding behind the camera. The prime lens with f2 like Summicron is very small compare to the lens for the SLR. The view finder in range finder allow me to see the 35 frame, and outside the frame, so when I look inside the view finder I know what is going on outside the frame and this makes me able to fix the composition or waiting for a better moment before I press the shutter. And with range finder camera there is no mirror flap like in SLR, it means everytime I press the shutter I know exactly the moment that I capture because I won't experience any black out just like in SLR.

Ayesha curious

Obviously once I got my Leica M6 from ebay and my brand new Summicron lens from Adorama, the first roll I spent to make photos of my family, my cat, things that happen in my home and so on. I have tried and fallen in love with the new Kodak Ektar 100 due to the color it can produce. For BW I use Ilford XP2 Super 400, a C41 film. To get a very natural skin tone and portrait, it looks like Kodak Portra 160NC is the best option.

I want to play outside

Film camera is not dead, indeed. I still can buy films easily, even to get professional films I have to order from B&H or Adorama. And the cost to process and scan the C41 film here in Dubai is around 5 USD per roll. I would be really happy if I can find a real BW lab so I can use the real BW film such as Ilford Delta or Kodak Tri-X, but for time being I'm fine with the options that I have. I carry my Leica M6 everywhere and I'm a happier photographer.

She likes to take nap

I like to capture life around me as it happens. Using natural light. Handheld. Full manual that can give me all the control. And a prime lens. As simple as life itself.

Why daddy always follow me with that black thingy?

All the pictures here are taken with Leica M6, 35 f2 Summicron ASPH lens, Ilford XP2 Super 400 film, Kodak Ektar 100 film, Kodak Portra 160NC film, developed and scanned at one-hour service lab, no digital post processing, no cropping.

That's how I remember what photography is all about.

The Day We Migrated The Mobile Network

2010-05-29T10:42:00.006+04:00

The moment the engineer from one mobile provider in the UAE pressed the 'Enter' key to send the IOS config that would move the mobile traffic in all UAE cities to new CRS Core on Thursday's early morning, my life during the past several months flashed before my eyes. I remember having heavy discussion with the team from Cisco and customer long ago on how to breakdown the project into multiple tasks (it turned into more than 16 different tasks in total!). I remember spending quite some time with the Project Manager just to count the number of resources required to execute all the tasks. When we started 9 months ago, it was difficult to imagine the day we would really migrate the mobile traffic to CRS. The two networks, Fixed and Mobile, required to be fully optimized before we can even connect the physical link between them. The two networks used to communicate through two routers designated as the Point Of Interconnect that we had to analyze deeply before we can move them to communicate directly over the CRS. And not to ignore the interoperability issues with mobile equipments from other vendors.

The only way to achieve success is by completing one task then another. We planned for one day, executed, then made the plan for next day. We handled the challenge one at a time. And after 9 months working together with the customer, countless hours of discussion and extensive lab testing, around 120 change request windows at night, the mobile traffic has finally been migrated.

We made history yesterday. And now it's time to move on.

So here I am, 48 hours later after the migration, sitting at Charles De Gaulle Aiport in Paris waiting for my flight to Mexico to do another project. I have been working back-to-back, from one project to another without any spare time, since the first time I ever worked for project. Some people I met like to complaint about that kind of work condition. For me I would consider myself lucky if I have a chance to work in only one big project at a time. I used to handle several medium size projects at the same time. The most challenging situation is when there is overlapped, the time when I have to work in another new big project while still handling the previous one with the same size or complexity.

Mexico, here I come.

Against Blackberry, no more

2010-05-17T16:02:00.002+04:00

It's been 3 months since I started to use BlackBerry. What? Aren't you the same guy who wrote 'Against BlackBerry' about a year ago? Yes, it's true. Shame on me. But please allow me to explain:
The local mobile operator in Dubai offered my office the BlackBerry handset for free if we were willing to switch from another operator. Since my office always pay for the premium services for everyone anyway, so it was a good deal because everyone can get the handset for free. So I got mine 3 months ago. With free unlimited data usage. It's free as in F R E E. And free good stuff can't be evil, can it?

But no, I'm not becoming addicted nor attached to it. The only reason why I like it because I can read my company email anywhere. The handset design is ugly. The screen is too small to browse the Internet even with the unlimited data usage I have. I use the messaging only occasionally since I never announce my PIN to anyone except my closest friends. So office mail is the only reason why I stick with BlackBerry.

And actually I don't like to keep reading email but here is my situation: while I like to work during night time from my own bedroom unfortunately some of my colleagues and my customers like to work in mortal office hours, 9 to 5. So when they send email during that time they expect me to read it and reply when it's required. They may not know that during the winter in Dubai morning time is perfect to enjoy the beach. Or during noon it's better to practice desert driving instead of wasting time for meeting. We can always catch up the work at night, right? With BlackBerry I can reply to those emails and people may even think I really work during the day (obviously I don't use the signature saying 'sent from BlackBerry blah blah). And once I believe I have worked for 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week, regardless the time of work either normal time or at night, then I won't bother to check my email anymore.

Anyway, with this post I'm declaring that I'm against BlackBerry no more. Unless someone is kind enough to somehow make my favorite Motorola V8 can read my office mail.

OEQ

2010-05-13T06:14:00.004+04:00

CCIE Core Knowledge Questions aka Open Ended Questions (OEQ) is removed from CCIE R&S and Voice lab exam. Soon Cisco may remove it from the other CCIE tracks too. So now the main question is: what will be Cisco strategy to prevent those dumpers who just memorize the answer to pass CCIE lab?

The answer is obvious: bring back the 2-days format with interview!

Leadership

2010-05-07T14:49:00.002+04:00

"First rule of leadership: everything is your fault."
Hopper to Princess Atta, A Bug's Life.

It's really tough to lead.

You can't do it alone, so you have to delegate.
And when the resource is not skillful so you have to do most of the work, it's your fault.

You have to finish the work even the timeframe is unrealistic.
And when there is not enough resource to deliver, it's your fault.

You have to satisfy all the parties, meet the target and make everyone happy.
And when you have to screw yourself days and nights, it's your fault.

You have to maintain the reputation of the organization.
And when everything starts falling apart, it's your fault.

It's really tough to lead indeed.
But I'd prefer to do it again and again.
Because it's worth it.

Targets: Quick Update

2010-04-25T01:41:00.010+04:00

Let's start with the first subject: cars.

My friend once said car is a mean of transportation to move from point A to point B. I agree. But in Dubai, point A to point B can be through construction sites, high way where some people really put the maximum speed limit in their cars to test, diverted road because of the constructions, desert and sand dune, gravel road due to constructions going on (man, there are just too many constructions here!), and not to forget due to the lack of parking space the cars must pass, and park, on the sand. So that's the reason why I believe SUV and 4WD cars are the most suitable vehicle for this city.

The thing is, I must had watched the last few James Bond movies too many times so when I moved back to Dubai at the end of 2008 I made a wrong decision by buying a Range Rover. This British SUV is a very good car indeed, but not the best 4WD to be used. It comes with big wheels and fancy low-profile tires, which means I can't deflate the tires to get more traction to drive on the sand. The awesome Terrain Response System becomes useless because I was too afraid to damage the expensive wheels or tires during offroading so finally I decided to sell it and get Toyota Land Cruiser, with 8-seat as family car, and FJ Cruiser for me to drifting around in the desert. I sold my Range Rover to get two Toyota cars, and still got small change from the deal :)

The FJ really gave me a chance to learn about the desert driving skills as you can see on my last few posts. This is inline with my first target in life. And since my current project in Dubai makes me go to the customer office that is only 10 minutes away from the desert, I was able to practice the skill almost every week. I call my activity as "Dune Every Week", I can do the desert offroading either during the weekend or right after the meeting at customer office.

My next target is snowboarding. Since I got the Gout Attack! on my left foot it has become difficult for me to wear the tight snowboarding shoes so I haven't had any chance to practice this skill (this is not the case with desert offroading, remember to drive my FJ I don't need to use my left foot since it has the automatic transmission). So now my kid is more skillful than me since she practices in the indoor snow park at least twice a month. She's much faster and can do the turn really quick, so I must try to catch up once I can wear the snowboarding shoes again.

For photography, I sold my Canon EOS 5D along with all the lens. I found that DLSR is not suitable with the style that I like. I like a camera that I can have full control and can use the manual mode just like the SLR indeed. But it has to be small so I can carry it anywhere. It must have "full frame" just like the 35 mm film. And I'm not into sport photography so I rarely used telephoto lens. Once I find my ideal camera I will post it here.

My kid has started taking the guitar lesson. So I guess one day she can be the lead guitarist for my band. Meanwhile I was thinking to get the "Guitar Hero" or "Rock Band" on Wii so at least I can simulate the jam session together with her because practicing the drum alone is not that fun I can tell you.

It's been a while since I travel due to my current project in Dubai. It's a blessing in disguise because it makes me able to learn the other skills like the desert driving above. And I'm already planning to travel this summer so let's see.

Now let's talk about the boring part: work related.

I've been busy with my current project to converge the core network of one mobile provider here in Dubai. The project makes me spend many nights working onsite at customer site. In fact, I'm writing this post in the middle of my night activity! I don't want to complain, but working at night means I have to sleep during the day and won't be able to do my targets. As I mentioned yes it's true the project meeting in the day at customer site allow me to go to the desert right after. But I still hope the project will end soon and my vampire life will end too. I'm planning to write down my experience btw, even I may or may not be able to share it here.

Regarding the certification, yes I failed my CCDE attempt on December. Again it took about 3 months to get the result, and the result report doesn't help at all to prepare for the next attempt. And again I have already known why I fail: during the exam I still think too detail. The CCDE is a very high level design exam so thinking in detail just as what I do for my daily work won't make me pass the exam. The good news is, I've got approval to attend a CCDE bootcamp by ProNet Expert here in Dubai. This bootcamp is claimed as the only CCDE bootcamp available today, due to the very less number of CCDEs to become the instructor, and will happen on 2nd week of May. At least the instructor who has passed the CCDE exam can tell me the way of thinking to answer the questions. So I may take another CCDE attempt on July in London (and this is a good reason to support my traveling target too!)

That's all for now.

Yet Another Dune Bashing

2010-04-04T13:31:00.002+04:00

"Gentlemen, please gather around."

"Welcome to Area 53. This is a short briefing before we start."

"Always maintain the momentum to keep the car moving."

"Follow the track from the car in front of you."

"When climbing the dune, slower is better."

"We can always try again if we don't reach the top."

"Keep the safe distance between cars."

"In the side slope power is the only friend."

"Use low-range gear to descent the dune if needed."

"Be responsible for the car behind you."

"Steep dune. Bowl. Slip face. Let's do some dune bashing!"

(Pictures courtesy of Indra Wirawan)

Cisco CRS-3 for Next-Generation Internet

2010-03-09T21:52:00.001+04:00

When I'm Unplugged

2010-03-08T11:35:00.004+04:00

Air FJ!

2010-03-06T00:07:00.006+04:00

Welcome aboard Air FJ to the UAE desert
Please fasten your seat belt during the flight
Put the transmission to high range gear
Turn off the side curtain airbag
Disable the vehicle stability control
And make sure the traction control is off
In the event of bumpy ride
Or airborne on top of the sand dune
Please continue to act normal and look cool
Since we have photographers taking the pictures
We hope you enjoy the flight

(Pictures courtesy of Tomi Satryatomo)

Say goodbye to Mr. Bull

2010-02-18T12:57:00.005+04:00

Last night I spent 3 hours in Emergency Room. It started with some paint in my left foot while walking in front of Atlantis hotel to enjoy the sunset 2 days ago. Then I was driving yesterday when suddenly I had a very painful experience ever from the same feet, it became red and swollen, and felt like burning. It's so painful I needed someone to drove me to the E.R. After the painkiller injection, blood test, sitting on the wheelchair waiting for couple of hours for the lab result, the doctor said it was the Gout attack caused by high uric acid level.

So say hello to Mr. Uric Acid. Say goodbye to Mr. Red Bull, Mr. Lamb Chop, Ms. Seafood, Mr. Mandi Rice, and I will miss Ms. Junk Food too.

My biggest lost is if I have to stop drinking Red Bull. Mr. Bull has been the closest friend of mine, and the source of my energy for all the night work that I have to do. It's like the sun for Superman. Or the byte of the spider for Spiderman. (Batman is not counted since he can be one because he's rich!) Without Red Bull it will be difficult for me to stay awake for the whole night.

This morning, even I still can't wear my shoes and can barely walk, I have to stand before my customer to present the migration plan that we will be executing in the next few weeks. The execution means long and consecutive sleepless nights await.

I have to find a new source of energy, I guess.

CCIE SP Ops

2010-01-26T02:47:00.003+04:00

What? An expert level certification for dedicated professionals who can manage, maintain and troubleshoot complex service provider IP NGN core network infrastructures? A CCIE track to develop capabilities to operate large, complex SP networks? To demonstrate skills required of a expert-level, Tier III or Tier IV support? And there will be IOS XR?

I'm not sure if this is necessary. I still believe the current CCIE SP track must be upgraded with the new equipments so we can have more scenarios that replicate the real-world network design and issues. Then the current SP track should be enough to build a strong troubleshooting skills and to validate the knowledge required to maintain a complex NGN network. If possible throw the traffic generator in the lab so the candidate will be tested with forwarding plane as well instead of only control plane function.
But that's just my personal opinion.

And since I'm more interested with network design, it looks like this new track is not in my best interest.

Btw, even Cisco really upgrades the equipment of SP track someday, since I have passed it I won't be allowed to re-take the exam. So once I'm free from the current night shifts that I'm doing, I may go ahead with something else. Go figure.

Wrangler Unlimited vs. FJ Cruiser

2010-01-14T02:29:00.006+04:00

I've been doing lots of onsite work during night time lately. In fact, I'm writing this while leading the implementation of the design within the maintenance window at the customer site. Just in case you are wondering how does it like, please watch the Night at the Museum movie. I'm doing something similar like Larry did, minus the animals… tiny cowboy… Attila the Hun… T.rex skeleton… and the cool night watchman outfit.

I used to think that while doing night work like this, onsite at customer site, I should be able to utilize my time to write something useful. A white paper. Or even a book. But in reality, with all the pressure during maintenance window, number of lab testing must be done prior to the implementation, and all communication emails back and forth with the customer, the only writing I can do is something that quite light. It may become a light reading for some or rubbish for the others. I have no extra energy to think about that, so here is the output:

As I have put my Range Rover Sport on the advertisement for sale, I need to get ready to buy its replacement once it's really sold. I'm looking for a car that I can use for extreme offloading, with at least 5 seats, enough space to carry my stuff, and with the price around USD 30k. After weeks of browsing many data sheets, lots of discussion with the owners, watching offroad videos on youtube, and reading the online forum finally I came up with two finalists: Jeep Wrangler Unlimited vs. Toyota FJ Cruiser. I still can't make up my mind until now, so I made the comparison below between the two. Mind you I did the comparison for the points that only matter to me.

1. Look
Advantage to: Jeep
Indeed the FJ cruiser has the retro look with "in your face" attitude. But wrangler unlimited has a classic and iconic look and it is more fun to drive since we can remove the top (and the doors, and the windshield) while the FJ doesn't even have sunroof

2. On road performance
Advantage to: FJ
FJ is a bit better on the road and less noisy. The most complaint from Jeep owners is it's not fun to drive the car on the highway. And I live in Dubai, which means I have to passthrough SZR and Emirates road in daily basis

3. Off road performance
Advantage to: Jeep
The power and torque look smaller, but Jeep has the reputation as rock crawler with the low gear ratio and superb suspension. Wrangler Rubicon is considered the best 4x4 that can be used in any terrain even when it's still stock

4. Re-sale value
Advantage to: FJ
No doubt for re-sale value for Toyota, especially when it's compared to American cars

5. Practicality
Advantage to: Jeep
Surprisingly I gave point to Jeep that is well-known as the most impractical vehicle. But I was comparing the comfort for the passenger (I still need the rear seat for family and friends) between FJ and 4-door wrangler unlimited, and with FJ's funky rear door access to the rear seat is a bit tight

6. Maintenance
Advantage to: FJ
Obviously Toyota is easier, and cheaper, to be maintained. Some complaints from Jeep owners are the radiator and the AC, made me wondering if the americans are capable to build the vehicle for this region (with its extreme heat)

7. Community in UAE
Advantage to: draw
FJ-UAE and Jeep community, I think they both have their own way to have fun!

8. 4x4 Accessories
Advantage to: draw
Based on my research so far there are so many 4x4 accessories available for both Jeep and FJ, with affordable price (compare to the accessories for the Range Rover Sport!)

9. Price
Advantage to: Jeep
Currently Jeep has a promotion (for Unlimited Sahara model) so the price is way below my budget. Being a Toyota, FJ won't give any discount nor even they are interested to negotiate the price

10. Supported by
Advantage to: FJ
The idea to buy Jeep Unlimited is supported by my close friend. But my wife is against the idea to get a Jeep and she thought FJ looks much cooler, even if it's more expensive

So final score is 4-4 with 2 draws.

If it was up to me, point no.1 is the most important so I would go and buy Jeep. But I'm afraid in reality the last point is the most important and will become the tie breaker ;) But again, the decision is only necessary after my car has been sold.

Now it's time to go back to the console.

My Love, For Sale

2010-01-13T11:45:00.002+04:00

Update: SOLD!
She's gone now. She's with another man.
What left are only good pictures. And memories...

Happy New Year

2010-01-01T08:07:00.000+04:00

My previous boss said there is no real competitor nor real friend, there is only real interest.

I'm glad to prove him wrong.

Real friends do exist, and I've passed through many happy and tough years with them.

Happy new year 2010 to all my friends and family.

Slowing Down

2009-12-29T23:29:00.005+04:00

As the end of the year is approaching, few days ago I started my personal review process by looking at the things that I have done in the past. I finally joined Cisco Systems Advanced Services 3 years ago, as per my previous target in life, and it’s been more than a year since I moved to a WWSP practice team that focuses on the NGN Infrastructure and Solutions to cover Emerging Markets. This is the team that I always dreamed to join. This is the place that I wanted to be, at least for now, and I may stick around for a bit longer.

From time to time I like to put a personal target, and I like to visualize it. For example, long before I passed my first CCIE, I already had the picture in my mind about what I would do the day I really got my number. Before I joined Cisco, I used to visualize myself as Advanced Services team member who must provide the best solution to the customers even during a challenging situation. It may sound silly but sometime it can really help in maintaining my motivation to achieve the target.

So while waiting for the year to change in the next few days, I dare myself to put my target-in-visual and share it here, which I may add the version number 2.0 to it to differentiate with the previous one I made in the past.

Wait. No more certifications like CCDE, Cisco Certified Architect etc just as in my previous target? Yup. All those certifications (except the one from another vendor, you know what I mean) are written as my target from the company I currently work for. This means I have to do it anyway and for sure I will get it someday.

No newer product line like the Cisco ASR9K?
I don’t think it’s necessary. My team is dealing with the NGN solutions, so once any customer under the team’s coverage countries starts buying the ASR, the project will come to us eventually. So even without setting up a target, there will be a point in time where I have to deal with it and master the product.

No place as the new destination to live?
I believe home is where the heart is. And my heart belongs to any place where I can be together with my family. So it doesn’t matter if it’s in Dubai, my hometown, San Jose, or even Johannesburg (exclude District 9). Having said that, I don’t think I should mark any place as a new target to live.

My new visualized targets contain all the skills I want to learn, or things that I’ve been doing so far but now I want to put more focus on them. From snowboarding, ability to drive in multiple terrains, photography, playing drum (and forming a rock band?), travelling and a black box that I designate for the target that I can’t share in here because it’s too personal. None of them shows any items that I currently own or I want to have in possession. The pictures illustrate what kind of skills I want to excel, so all the items in there are just the tools to achieve the target.

And the best thing from all my new targets, I can do most of them together with my first kid. No more selfish target.

How about the target I want/have to achieve at work? I still have them, but I don’t consider as my personal targets since they are written anyway and always get reviewed during my company’s annual review process.

I’m slowing down in term of work. It doesn’t mean I will start deteriorating the quality of my work and delivering only rubbish. But it means I will allocate only 40 hours of my time per week to work. Just as what I was asked to do. If I do more in some week, because sometime I have to comply with the project schedule, I will compensate myself on some other week. This makes me able to allocate at least 40 hours per week too to spend with my family. And I can use the rest of the time to achieve my personal targets.

With this mindset, I’m ready for 2010.

Yet Another CCDE Attempt

2009-12-08T22:20:00.011+04:00

I've just done my second attempt of CCDE practical exam. It's still a very long, painful 8 hours and frustrating exam. But even I spent only few hours last night to prepare for it I was much happier this time. Probably because I know what to expect.

As part of the NDA that I signed, obviously I can't share much information about the exam content here. But there are several notes I want to highlight from this attempt:

- There are more candidates taking the test in London, 26 compare to only 16 in August, and the administrator told me the testing center is actually capable to hold up to 39 candidates. Is this a sign that CCDE becoming more popular? I don't know.

- At the same time I heard the exam in Hong Kong was canceled due to the lack of demand. It was canceled over there as well on August with the same reason. So the exam is not that popular in the region where english is not the native language? Probably. Probably because this exam requires a lot of reading and number of questions (all in english) that we need to analyze in 8 hours.

- I feel like there were some modification in the questions. No more unnecessary jokes in the email conversation. And the questions are more straight forward. There are still some confusing questions that made me want to bang my head to the computer screen, but the number is much less compared to the previous attempt. Confusing because I can't agree with the options provided in the questions to improve the design. But hey, it was not a real world challenge. It was just an exam, and any exam is meant to be confusing.

- During this attempt I've just realized that this is the most 'vendor neutral' exam from Cisco. The only sign that showing it's an Cisco exam is only the router icon and lots of EIGRP questions! But the focus of the exam is the analytical thinking to provide the high level network design and to solve the problems caused by design flaw. No product limitation discussion. No specific hardware related to Cisco. No Cisco IOS configuration. I believe the skill to pass the exam can be useful and applicable even for another vendors as well.

-What make it difficult for a design engineer to pass this Design Expert exam is: because when we see the scenario in the questions we tend to relate it with the real world design challenge and start getting into detail. I believe that's not what it is expected by the exam maker. The technical scope in the exam is a broad and high level. The most important, I believe, is the ability to analyze the questions and select the answer from the options available.

- Lunch provided by the testing center in London is better than the previous attempt. At least now they have the tuna and vegetarian sandwich instead of ham only. For this attempt I was more prepared: I slept for 7 hours. I had a good breakfast in the morning. I didn't eat much during lunch because it would make me sleepy during the second half of the exam. Remember, we need to stay focus and maintain our sanity for 8 hours.

- Security in the testing center was really tight. Not only I had to show 2 government-issued documents to prove my identity, I needed to sign, got my picture taken, and both of my palm were scanned multiple times! And I thought a simple fingerprint scan was adequate, or perhaps because there are already so many movies showing how we can beat the fingerprint scan easily?

- Last but not least, there were 2 female among the candidates. Good. Another proof that the computer networking world is not solely dominated by men!

Well, the long and painful 8 hours is done.
Now comes the hardest part.
Waiting 8-12 weeks for the result.

Project London II

2009-12-04T06:18:00.004+04:00

I got the CCDE result yesterday and it's negative. There are several things that I hate around the result other than the fact that I failed:

- It took about 3 months to get the result
- The result was delivered using a hardcopy letter (what happens to online result? Now I can see the status: Fail in Vue website but no email notification like in CCIE)
- The result only shows the percentage for few generic design tasks: gather and clarify requirement, develop network design etc.
So it does not list in detail the result per technology or per scenario that I believe will make it difficult for a candidate to know his weakness. Getting 50% in develop network design section, for example, I believe it's not a clear feedback in order to be more prepared for the next attempt
- And as per today I can't find any official statement that saying the minimum percentage to pass the CCDE exam. Is it 80% like in CCIE?

Indeed I have booked for another attempt on next Tuesday in London. But at the end of next week I have to submit lots of documents for the project I'm currently working on. And this weekend I have already planned to go camping with the kids.

I don't think I can give up either one for CCDE. So I will just walk in to the testing center and try to stay awake for 8 hours, and rely solely on my common sense.

Let's see.

Career Path

2009-10-31T15:35:00.004+04:00

There is no such thing as career path.

I’m talking about a career path for an engineer, or those who want to focus and stay technical in computer networking field, for example, for the rest of his work life.

In some organization this can be seen as crystal clear. There isn’t any path at all for technical person. It just doesn’t exist, especially in an organization where IT is considered as secondary team, formed just to support the mainstream of the company’s business. Once an engineer becomes senior and wants to go to higher level he needs to switch to a managerial level, let’s say by becoming a technical manager. And this means he needs to start dealing with other stuff outside the engineering scope: manage people, budget, P&L per head in his team and so on. In this type of organization if one is keen to stay with the current scope as engineer, then he’s going nowhere. It may be even worst since some organization prefers to “refresh” the engineering division aka removing the old timers and put the younger workforces in order to lowering the monthly pay slip.

How about the technology solution company? It has been said many times that the engineering division is the core key of such company. Technical solution by engineer leads to sales that brought the income to the company hence it must be a haven for engineers to work for such organization? Not necessarily. The key here is still the ‘sales that brought the income’. We need to understand that it’s difficult to quantify an engineering work and get promoted. For example, as sales person in the company one can be given a number of annual targets of sales and if he can achieve or even over achieve the number within several years in the row, the promotion certainly awaits. How can we measure how successful an engineer is using a similar measurement? By looking at the number of US patents he produces or IETF RFC’s he has been involved each year? I’m talking about the engineers who work in the field in general to support computer network systems, as many of us are not that lucky and able to sit in the lab to invent the new technology.

So is there a way for an engineer to have career path?

Yes, there is. Some technology innovation company perceives the importance of keeping good engineers to support the business by making higher technical position is always available. This is the company where an engineer can stay technical and yes he can always climb a higher level until he is called “Distinguished” engineer or even “Fellow”. But still in order to achieve such level in engineering one needs to take control and build his own path, and even may need to compromise.
And as far as I know, a good engineer never compromises :)

First of all, the engineer needs to compromise to accept the fact that the technical team is less likely to be involved in any business decision, like an organization changes. Suddenly the company decided to change the model of the way they do business, including restructuring the engineering team, and let’s just inform the engineers at a very late state. One may comeback from a nice weekend just to find out he now needs to work for another team or to report to another manager. And if it’s not enough with the difficulty of an engineer for being recognized for the works he has done, how about moving him to the new team or asking him to suddenly report to new manager, where he has to start over?

Second, the engineer may needs to compromise by manipulating a technical fact in order to support the business. A solution that may not fit the requirement is proposed due to some other reasons including the political and other non-technical stuff, and now it’s time for the technical person to make it works somehow. A young and fresh engineer may just say NO because he still likes to work with the plain truth, just as what being engineer is all about. But if one wants to climb the ladder in the organization, from an engineer moves to senior level, then to become architect, then to a position called as technical lead, or distinguished or whatever, the organization is certainly expecting him to support the business.
From the way I look at it, it’s just another compromise.

The third and the worst compromise of all, because it’s difficult to quantify and distinguish an engineer from the others, the engineer may choose the short cut by doing anything possible to stay on the spotlight. Some said, to climb the company’s ladder it’s all about making the big noise. But how if the engineer is busy making noise but not the real work? The competition among the engineers may become ugly and no real intellectual property really produced, only the noise or the efforts to be the first to announce a half-done work.

I hope the three above are just my imagination, and as the result of too much smoking Shisha while chatting with old friends last night. But unfortunately, some of them are too real.

So if I knew this all along, why bother even to write it down and discuss it? Life is a matter of preference, isn’t it?

It’s true.

The reason why I brought this up is so all of those like me who think and plan to spend the rest of our time focusing on technical, can set our expectation right. Once we choose to go down this path then we should know the consequences. That it won’t be easy and it will be full with obstacles even to move one grade higher. We have to be ready to see those who choose to be in other department, for example in sales, may climb the company ladder faster than we do.

And I also have a secret to share here. I noticed that to get the promotion as technical person, we don’t have to do great job in every task. But we have to do an extra ordinary job in only a single task. Superb work even in only a single project, in the right time and seen by the right people, can bring us much better result. Just like one great rock show can change the world, as Dewey Finn aka Jack Black said in the School of Rock. And obviously we don’t have to be on the spotlight by claiming someone’s work even if we really desperate to get the promotion.

Will it really work?

How the heck I know? I’m a kind of guy who keeps changing the organization everytime I want more. In the past, to get more salary I moved to another organization. To get a better job profile I moved to a different team. I built my own career path by keep moving from one organization to the others. I’ve never been in the same place long enough to see if my ‘secret career advice’ can really work.

So I will tell you all the result once I really get my promotion.

Disclaimer: the writing expresses my own opinion and it has no relation what so ever with the organization I currently work for. It’s based on my own experience moving from one IT organization to the others, as well as my short experience working as contractor.
And I’m not smoking anything while writing this.

How the Lab Exam Should Be

2009-10-21T12:40:00.003+04:00

I have just done one lab exam to complete the internal certification from my organization. I can’t disclose more information about it, but what I can share here is my thought of how the lab exam should be done based on my experience taking that exam.

I said it once that certification means nothing without experience. Passing even a very tough lab exam such as CCIE doesn’t turn us to become real expert directly. Certification can only offers the baseline set of skills, and we should build our expertise on top of these skills, not in lieu of them.

But have you ever wondered how far is the skills tested in the lab exam compare to the ones needed in real life? For example, once you pass the CCIE SP lab, do you think you can just jump into a large SP environment or there is still a huge gap to fill in first?

Let me share my thought of how the lab exam should be done. As usual, this is just my personal opinion. And you know what they say; opinions are like arseholes, everybody’s got one.

1. Lab exam should use the real gear

If you look at the equipments in CCIE SP lab, you will notice that they are not the real Service Provider gears. Cisco 7200 is good, but not as P router! As well as the 2800 and 2600 that are still being used in some lab.

SP lab exam should use high end routers such as CRS, ASR and 7600. As P node, if multiple CRS is considered too expensive, a single CRS with physical partition using Secure Domain Routing can do the job as well. And we all know most of the SP core networks use IOS XR, so at least GSR with IOS XR must be available if getting CRS is not an option. For PE node, if the latest ASR9K is still out of reach at least use 7600 with RSP and ES+ card!
Sound too ambitious? Perhaps. But those are the real equipments being used in most Service Provider networks nowadays.

It’s the same case with CCIE Routing & Switching lab. If this track is supposed to simulate a large Enterprise network, at least Cisco 6500 should be available in the lab.

2. Lab exam should simulate the real scenarios

Okay, you are done with the configuration of the device, and then what? Run a ping test? Verify the config? Run the show commands? It’s not enough!

The lab exam should use traffic generator to simulate the traffic. Once we have the traffic in the network we can verify, for example, if the Quality of Services features really work. The lab should ask the candidate to verify the failover scenario. How we can be sure if the fast convergence feature is already configured properly? By checking the BFD neighbors from show commands? By looking at the NSF and GR config only? Yeah, right.

Why can’t we just run the traffic generator and see the impact of the configuration, or failover scenarios, to the traffic? Even the skill to understand and set the traffic generator is necessary to do the job in real world later on.

3. Lab exam should test the knowledge in proper way

It’s not enough to ask the candidate to configure or troubleshoot something in the lab. Some guys can just get the lab questions from somewhere and memorize the configuration to answer them.

The best way to test the in-depth knowledge of the candidates is by asking them to do the verification and explain the output. For example, during fast convergence test, let’s ask the candidate to provide the convergence time for link failure and ask them to explain why the time can be different between link down and link up (restoration) state. Can they explain why the convergence time can be different if the PE router crashes compare to if the failure happens in P router?

Tricky questions like in current CCIE lab are still important. Troubleshooting skills are still required to be tested in the lab too. But the candidate is expected to be able to explain more ‘WHY’. Not only why it’s configured this way or that way, but as well as why the traffic behaves in certain way when some features are configured or when the failure occurs

I know most of the time it’s unfair to do the comparison between my “ideal” lab exam with the known certification like CCIE.

Take the lab equipments, for example. The real gears aren’t cheap. So a vendor may have only 1 or 2 complete labs that can replicate the real world’s equipment to serve all candidates around the globe. My view on this: that’s fine. Because nowadays we don’t have to fly to sit in the lab physically, we can just do the exam remotely. And the lab exam I described above is to test the skills in specific area. I mean, Cisco may create “Advanced CCIE lab” for specific technical focus with CCIE as the prerequisite, and there are so many tracks available (CCIE SP-NGN, CCIE SP-IPTV, CCIE SP-Wimax and so on). With many options of advanced track available, a candidate can choose which one is suitable to support his daily work so the number of candidates will be distributed to all the tracks.

If time permits, all the explanation should be done with short interview, not only in written. How if English is not the native language of the candidates? That’s fine. With remote lab, more locations can conduct the exam and the candidate can have the proctor who can speak the same language. And the lab exam can take 2-days format just like back there in 2001. Day 1 can be allocated to build the network, Day 2 morning can be used to run the traffic generator and verify the setup. Day 2 afternoon is for troubleshooting section. At the end of each section the candidate is expected to explain what have been done, and the behavior of the traffic in several different scenarios.

Obviously with this new and advanced CCIE track the main objective is to prepare the candidates to able to do the job the next day after they pass the lab, and not to chase the quantity of people to pass it.

Is it possible to have that kind of lab or can it be done only in our dream? Heck, who knows? One day a vendor like Cisco may really create a new certification track beyond CCIE, and they may take all the points above into their consideration.

Ode To The Contractors

2009-09-30T22:31:00.005+04:00

"Himawan Nugroho spent his time between jobs last year as a contractor…and discovered it offered a level of control and empowerment that he’d never had before..."

The quote above is taken from an article in this site. It refers to my previous writing about Contractor Wannabe. Well, it's good to know that someone is actually reading that kind of stuff that I wrote :)

I was a contractor, even for only few months. It was during the time when I had resigned from my previous company and before I joined Cisco. Yes, indeed, the article describes exactly how I felt at that time. And I'm discussing again this topic because during the past few projects I've worked with many contractors, and some of them are really helpful.

In this part of the world it's not easy to hire a permanent employee. It takes time and lots of paper work at least for the visa process. And once the project is rewarded we have to start the work immediately, while the process to get someone on board won't be able to catch up. The solution? Hire contractors. They are skillful and available, almost, anytime. How about the working visa? They usually will be involved for short term so business visa should be fine. How about the skill? We can look at their previous experience and even call for quick interview. And once the work has started how if the guy has issue or we are not happy with him? Get the replacement. Easy and no headache. As long as we hire the guy with the right skill and we can allocate the proper work to him, the decision to use the contractors can be really rewarding.

Once I met a guy. He may be the right description of my answer if you'd ask: what do you want to be when you grow old? Single fighter, working for short term, keep moving from one place to another. Living from one hotel to another. His car is always from rental company. He carries his gadgets and magic luggage contains all the stuff he needs to live away from home for months. He got my respect because of the expertise. Got reputation and years of experience. Jason Bourne kind of guy. My kind of guy.

So will I go back to that kind of life style? Not now, at least. Currently I work in a place that I wanted to be. Working in the right team, surrounded by the most talented people. And I have something from my current work that I can't exchange even with a freestyler contractor life: deep level access to the product and technology.

Anyway, I was just trying to build a list of what it takes to become a successful contractor (in network engineering area or technical consulting). With my limited experience as contractor, here it is:

1. Build the reputation. The most important, I believe, are the integrity and responsibility
2. Result oriented. The work must be done successfully no matter what, within the agreed timeline
3. Adaptable, flexible, able to handle the pressure and sudden changes in the project
4. Possess extensive experience in different types of project with multiple roles
5. Able to work independently, but at the same time able to work as part of the team
6. Good communication skill and can easily blend with customers from any types, anywhere, in any circumstances
7. Specialize and focus in one technology area but know other stuff to certain level. For example, expert in Core IP/MPLS network but understand as well the access layer, security, physical layer, data center and so on
8. Able to work as multiple roles: engineer, consultant, architect, project manager etc
9. Always update the skills, fast and continuous learner. Willing to invest on skill update, lab, and any tools that can assist in delivering the work
10. Know how to market yourself: social networking, keep the contacts with previous customers, always update the CV, etc

When I look at the list above, I started to think that the list is a must not only to become a contractor, but as well as to stay competitive in the market even as permanent employee! It may be the one that keep our job during the financial crisis like today. I wouldn't know for sure, but it seems like I will bookmark this post to remind me that even a Triple CCIE can be replaced anytime. And the only ones that can save my job are those 10 points.

To all contractors, this post is for you.

3 Types of Network Designer

2009-08-30T05:57:00.009+04:00

The following writing is still related with the CCDE Practical exam that I took recently. IMHO, there are three types of designer for network infrastructure solution:

Designer for Solution: the one normally focuses on the high level solution, by considering customer business model, future growth and other non-technical stuff. The coverage of the design is usually broad, but not too deep, and the solution is for a complete infrastructure with all the supporting components, including the operational process and the operation management. Solution designer should be able to provide the high level topology network infrastructure with the technology to be used and the features need to be enabled, but neither is required to provide the details nor the exact hardware to be used. Characteristic and the features required from the hardware can be mentioned though, to make it easier for the hardware selection by later designer.

Designer for Pre-sales: similar with solution designer, but the coverage normally is less broad and more detail to support the sales activity. As example, while the solution designer may covers the whole infrastructure including the operational process, the pre-sales designer may cover only the data center but can provide the detailed topology for it. The pre-sales designer is the one who involves in the hardware selection, and she must ensure the hardware chosen can run the technology or features required in the solution. If there is capacity and future growth requirement in the design, it has to be considered as well during the hardware selection. The output expected from a pre-sales designer is high level design with the list of hardware required called Bill of Material.

Designer for Implementation: the one who focuses on the in-depth and bit level details of the design. Implementation designer must provide the low level design and make sure the solution can really be implemented using the hardware available. The list of hardware may have been decided by previous designer, so now it's time to make the solution really works. The coverage of the implementation designer can start from the physical topology and connection, module allocation in the hardware, IP addressing scheme, software to be used, up to the detailed configuration of each hardware. The technology and the features chosen may need to be adjusted accordingly based on the limitation from the hardware or the software architecture. And the configuration or the way to implement the technology or features is usually based on the best practices, lab testing or the previous experience in another networks.

One example when to use the different types of network designer is as follow: a solution designer is the one who builds the Request For Proposal (RFP) document for a complete solution including the operational support. So he stands on the customer side. A group of pre-sales designers, stand on the vendor side, can work to answer this RFP and each designer must provide the list of hardware for specific area that complies with the requirement. It is required for the pre-sales designer to submit the proposal explaining the high level design and how the proposed hardware can deliver the solution. And once the proposal is agreed, the hardware need to be ordered, and now it is time for the implementation designer to really make the solution works.

Which one of the designers is better? It depends.

As in the above example I mentioned, we can be the ones who set the direction of the new network infrastructure solution and technology to be used without having to know too much detail but instead must cover broader technology, we can be the ones who select the hardware and provide high level design to support the sales, or we can be the ones who work in low level design to implement the solution and configure the devices.

Sometimes a person must work as solution designer and pre-sales designer at the same time. And sometimes a person must even work as those three types!

Before I joined Cisco, I used to work as the solution designer, pre-sales and implementation designer role and my role may changed from one project to the other. Obviously at that time, as solution designer I gain benefit being outside Cisco because I was able to work even with the hardware from multiple vendors. But as implementation designer, I was not able to go deeper because I didn't have access to the detailed hardware and software architecture.

Since I joined Cisco Advanced Services about 3 years ago most of the time my focus has been in the implementation or after the list of hardware has been confirmed by the pre-sales designer. I must deal with the design limitation due to the hardware or software architecture. Most of my customers are Internet Service Provider or from Telecommunication industry. And in my last several projects I had to focus on the migration from the existing infrastructure to the new one, which means I have to deal more with the right methodology and the detailed procedures to transform the network without impacting the daily business of the customer.

The CCDE exam that I took few days ago covers the knowledge owned by the solution designer, and part of the pre-sales designer. It deals with the high level solution design. It is not required to know the limitation from the hardware, nor it is required to choose the hardware like what the pre-sales designer does. CCDE contents cover the different type of customer networks from different industry, from ISP to Retail, Financial, Media and so on. We don't need to know the in-depth and bit level details of the technology but we must know the reason why a particular technology is chosen in the solution.

So looking at the above facts, please allow me to make this statement even I haven't passed the exam to prove it: it is actually possible to just walk in to CCDE practical lab, without preparation, and pass it. As long as we have extensive experience with high level design for different type of networks. Plus we need the problem solving minded, the ability to capture only the related and important information, and a good stamina to stay focus with lots and lost of reading within 8 hours.

For me, if I really failed this attempt and need to take the exam again, at least now I know what to do. I need to get out from my current mindset that follows my current work where it is expected for me to focus in a very low level and detailed design, with a narrow technology area. I need to return back to my previous experience before I joined Cisco, when I used to support the pre-sales activities, and when I used to work with high level solution of multiple customer networks from different types of industry. Since my current work deals only with Service Provider networks, I may need to find some best practices documents, but not the in-depth implementation practices, but more like the high level design solution for different type of customer networks.

All of those will be necessary once I get the report 6-8 weeks from now, stating that I really fail. So let's just wait and see.

CCDE Practical, What (I Think) We Need To Pass It

2009-08-26T23:47:00.003+04:00

I've just taken the CCDE Practical exam. The result will come only after 6-8 weeks, and frankly I don't know if I will pass or not due to the way the questions are presented. Mind you there are many questions require to drag-and-drop, fill in the table/matrix, re-ordering, and adding device/link into the existing network diagram, and in CCDE exam partial credit is possible.

For me, the content and coverage of the exam were a bit unexpected. So I wrote the following based on my own experience taking the exam today.

We Need a Very Good Stamina
- Surprisingly for the CCDE I found the time is not the main issue, 8 hours should be enough because we can't go back to the previous questions or re-check our work anyway. We just need to make sure to do each scenario within the average time allocated (if there are 10 scenarios, just divide 8 hours with 10 to get the average time we have per scenario)
- But what we really need is good stamina to be able to stay focus and concentrate after reading multiple different scenarios and hundreds of questions!
- Nice sleep and good dinner/breakfast is compulsory (in my case, lunch provided at testing center was horrible! And I was unlucky, I didn't have breakfast in the morning)

We Need to Have Broad "Design Experience"
- I believe there won't be any book or training to face this exam, the best practices design document or case studies may help
- We really need to have design experience and analytical skills, not as low level designer but more like as 'high level' solution designer
- Our experience and knowledge should cover the design for different type of customer network and industry, from ISP to Enterprise like Retail, Financial, Media etc in order to understand not only the challenges with the design of certain network type, but as well as type of the applications run and the network requirements of those applications that may affect the design decision

We Need to Understand What They Want
- Even we have extensive and broad design experience, our logic must sync with what the exam authors wanted
- Sometime there is more than one right way to solve the requirement, but we need to know which one is the expected answer based on the information provided
- Similarly, for re-ordering question, we need to make the order based on related information and which is the most correct (and for me it's still difficult to figure out the "right" order since I believe there is more than one possibility of the orders as the answer)
- CCDE Practical Exam Demo can show a brief example, the Networkers 2009 slides from Russ White can even provide closer view of the real practical exam

We Need to be Able to Relate Only the Important Information
- There are lots and lots of information provided, sometime half of the information is not important (but we still need to read and screen it at least during the first reading)
- But sometime the information can be very minimum, for example, for some application it's assumed that we know how it works
- This is the point where we need the good stamina so we can still focus especially in the last few hours, we also need the ability to capture only the important and the keywords from the overwhelmed information provided, and possess a broad and high level design experience in different type of network and industry to make us familiar with the challenges

We Need to Do "High Level" Troubleshooting Too
- It seems like the exam maker thought it was not enough with only the number of design decisions we must do, we also need to do some "high level" troubleshooting
- We may be asked to figure out what's wrong with the network or design flaw causing network issues, and instead of doing debug we must analyze it from series of information provided (sometime we need to choose which questions and further information to ask to the customer)
- Again, I believe for this part we have to rely on the experience with high level design, the logic and ability to capture only the necessary information, and possess the knowledge of technology overview instead of in depth/bit level details since we can't do any debug

And In the End, When We Fail
- Unfortunately even if we fail we may not able to be more prepared in the next attempt
- At least in CCIE lab if we can't ping definitely there is something wrong with our setup, and after we fail in CCIE we are presented with the break-down score for each technology section so we know which part is our weakness
- The CCDE exam contains multiple scenarios and bunch of questions for each scenario. From one scenario the questions may cover the routing, security, tunneling, management and Quality of Services technology areas and personally I'm not sure how I can figure out on which part is my weakness if I really fail (unless the score report can break it down per technology area for each scenario)

In summary, I fully support the statement of CCDE practical exam is as difficult as CCIE lab, even their coverage is not in the same context. And it may be more difficult if we consider the fact that we won't know for sure if we make mistakes. Even I feel like the design knowledge required to pass is more on the high level, but the most important things to have are the designer logic, broad knowledge of technology areas and the ability to capture only the necessary information before making any design decision.

So I think we need the above points I mentioned to pass this exam. But I can be sure only after I got my CCDE number, either in this attempt or the next.

Here is a link to CCDE practical tips from another test taker.

Confession From London

2009-08-25T23:31:00.001+04:00

I'm not ready.
I hate to admit but that's the fact.

I don't like to make excuse but let me try it once at least for this: after I got back from the previous project to Dubai last week I had only 6 days before the exam. And I used the first two days, obviously, to sleep and watch several HD movies, to compensate what I have missed during that hectic project.

So I had roughly only three days to review and read some books, and I was still managing the project remotely at the same time (it means lots of emails, webex meetings, phone calls, remote SSH session etc). Then this morning I took 8 hours flight to London.

As I said before, yes I'm really lack in my preparation but I'm not lack of confidence at all. But I guess I have to rely solely on my project experiences in the past and the knowledge I've gathered from the previous certifications.

Let's see how it goes.

Project Riyadh

2009-08-18T23:57:00.005+04:00

- Vēnī, vīdī, vīcī. I came, I saw, I conquered.

This is my sixth week in Project Riyadh and hopefully the last. When I was told to be involved in the project the scope was: to lead the team to fix some design issues by migrating 15000 VPN customers in 3 weeks. My mind at that time was so focused to that number, and with a simple math considering the team can work continuously without a break it means we have to do 700 customers per night.

Once I arrived in Riyadh on the second week of July I realized the main challenge of the project is not to migrate the customers, no matter how many per night. There was lack of information and no documentation provided of the existing network and services. Network migration project relies on the information. Information of the existing network. Information of what the new network is going to be. Then we need to build a bridge between the existing and the new network. We need to build the methodology and procedure to ensure we can have a smooth transition period. The correct approach to make the migration process will not impact the daily business.

Without proper information, it's really difficult to come up with the right procedure. Without the right information, the methodology and the process can be misleading. No information, no bridge.

Fortunately I was and I am still surrounded by the best and talented engineers in the team. I remember Harry Stamper once said "I'm only the best because I work with the best". Like the Joe's, when all else fails, we don't. When any other team may refuse to continue working with a very less resource, lack of information and a very tight schedule, my team and I decided to continue the best we could.

We made mistakes in the first week but by making mistakes we learn more and more about the existing network. The customer environment is very unique so there is no way to finalize the migration process in the lab environment. We have to execute the migration and build the procedure at the same time. We are learning about how to migrate the network by doing it. Most of the team members worked more than 16 hours a day. And after few weeks, I was able to finalize the process, methodology and procedures, and I have all of those documented properly. Having a proper document of the migration process means anyone can continue my work even if I'm already out of the country.

This project may not make the top in my preferred projects list but I'm still happy because my team and I are able to accomplish something that was considered impossible. Yes I was not able to complete it in 3 weeks. Most probably it will be completed only by next week. But I communicated this frankly with the customer that due to the lack of information we have to share the risk. And one of the risks is we need more time to complete the project, especially I found there are many other services need to be migrated not only the VPN customers. I'm a kind of guy who doesn't like to make excuses. So to me what's important is to be clear and communicate all the challenges with the customer. And by working together as one team, anything is possible.

Yesterday was the independence day of my country. I hope my independence day from this project is coming soon too.

Those who have been following my blog should know that I have another important thing to do next week. Due to the high pressure from Project Riyadh, I didn't have time to prepare for it. But I will just try the best as usual.

Lack of preparation, yes. Lack of confidence, no no.

Project London, here I come.

CCIE, The Missing Points

2009-07-31T09:38:00.008+04:00

In the next couple of weeks I will be celebrating the 8th anniversary of my first CCIE lab attempt. I took the first CCIE lab for Routing & Switching track in Brussels on August 13, 8 years ago. I failed at that time even I was able to reach the troubleshooting section on Day 2. Exactly one month after that day, I took the second attempt in Tokyo on September 13, and I passed. So I guess the number 13 can be associated as both bad luck and good luck for me.

I have worked, and lived, as CCIE for about 8 years now. Early 2005 I decided to go public by writing my first post in this blog, to share my life, my thoughts and my experience living as CCIE to everyone. Sometimes I wrote about my experience doing project with the customers. I shared how I passed the two other CCIEs in Security and Service Provider track. Once I wrote a post about how being CCIE is not that easy. I even wrote about my journey to join Cisco AS, all the way until I reached my current state in the WWSP team now. I shared my view about how I was so desperate to move to Cisco but I didn't have a chance at all. I was one of the hopeless crowd.

I wrote those things because sometimes I like to go back and read about it. It reminds me of those good old days, and I always laugh from time to time reading it.

But even with my continuous effort to transparently share about CCIE and the life of CCIE (at least mine), I feel like there is still some missing information. I still read and receive many comments regarding CCIE, and I believe those who made ones are missing the points. So here it is, I'm writing some of the points that I believe missing from people perspective about CCIE.

# CCIE is not worth anymore due to the high number

I saw the CCIE number of some guy who passed recently is already beyond 25000. CCIE number is started from 1025, so we can say at that time I'm writing this there are more than 24000 CCIEs out there. That's the reason why some people told me it's not worth to pursue CCIE anymore.

Man, you are missing the point. What is your purpose to take CCIE? Who cares about the number if we want to take CCIE to learn the technology covered in the lab in a structured way? If someone wants to take CCIE because he wants to ensure he has a solid foundation of the networking knowledge that he needs to work in the real life, why bother with the number? And you will see in my later point, it's not the number that matters. It's the experience, it's what you have done, it's the reputation, that matter.

And it's very rare you see CCIE with low number working in the field anymore. It means, even CCIEs are moving on. Some of the old CCIE have moved out from technical field. Some have become manager or even VP in the company. Some have invented their own company. Some may have retired and play in the rock band. Who knows? The point here is we always need regeneration process to get the new network consultant or new architect or new engineer. There is always a room for the new CCIE.

# Comparing school degree with CCIE

It's actually a ridiculous way to compare, since they are completely different! Professional certification like CCIE is good for practical knowledge. Do we need the regular school degree to do networking job? It depends. Someone who works in networking area as solution design consultant or implementation project architect won't need the degree. What they need is the experience and the technical knowledge. That's the spot where the professional certification can fill in, to help building a solid knowledge. But most of knowledge we learn from professional certification is a practical knowledge.

Based on my own experience, I never use my bachelor degree (and the knowledge I learned in the university, remember, I graduated as Mechanical Engineer) except when it comes to apply for work permit.

My point here: those two can't be compared apple to apple. Ones can go to school until they reach PhD level, only to find they can't design the solution for the customer in the project. This is obvious, because those knowledge are not the ones they learned at school. The PhDs are fit to do some other stuff, for example in depth research of new networking technology or protocol.

So ask yourself, what you want to be? If you want to work in practical implementation like myself, it's obvious you need the knowledge that can be learned by taking CCIE. Even if someday my kid decides to ditch the school because he wants to focus on practical computer or networking knowledge aka geeking out all the time, I can fully understand his decision. I hope.

# If you really need the !@#$%^&* comparison

I know, the answer above may not satisfy some of you, as until now I still receive the email asking for the comparison between school degree and professional/Cisco certifications. I will provide the answer here, and please be informed this is just my personal view.

CCIE is becoming the basic standard of networking engineer. And personally I do agree to become a solid networking specialist (level III in my previous post) one needs to have the knowledge covered in CCIE. So in Networking Engineering, I believe CCIE is the first level or Bachelor degree.

Having said the above, focusing in design mindset by taking CCDE, or by taking multiple CCIEs should be the Master degree. I really want to say that the next level should be CCIE with extensive experience. But if someone can pass CCIE and CCDE, or CCIE from multiple tracks, even without experience, he deserves the Master degree. Well, at least from me.

So you may guess the PhD level in my School of Networking Engineering: Cisco Certified Architect. While the PhD in real school must be achieved by extensive research, the Architect can be obtained only by extensive experience (10 years at least based on the Cisco Certified Architect requirement).

# The argument about CCIE vs. experience

By now you should know that there should not be any argument at all! CCIE is worth nothing without experience. Period. Do you think in real life the customer will be impressed if you pass CCIE lab with 100% score, but in the project you fail to deliver because you have no experience?

Whether you like it or not, CCIE won't be able to replicate the challenges in real world. It is a hands on exam originally designed for Cisco TAC engineer, to ensure they all have the same quality to help troubleshooting the network. It's not a design exam, even there are some design aspects you can learn from it. So obviously it won't be able to give you the simulation of real world where you have to deal with real customers, real projects, and real problems. The real world is just way too complicated to be simulated in 1 day exam (even until now Cisco is still trying by announcing the CCDE and the new Cisco Certified Architect level)

But think like this: when you are stuck with the same boring job, and you are so desperate to move but you face my 2 Law of Desperate Workers (you can't get the job because you don't have the experience, and you can't get the experience because your current job is too sucky) you may think about getting the certification as CCIE. Yes, you have to admit that you still won't have the experience. But at least by taking CCIE you can show that you have the solid foundation of the knowledge, and your willingness to learn new stuff.

# It's getting easier to cheat in CCIE

Some people said, if you want to pass CCIE just go to China! Some other said, all CCIE questions are flying around on the Internet. Some may said, many CCIEs and CCIE candidates don't respect the NDA anymore as they exchange the lab questions freely.

Please remember the previous point: CCIE is worth nothing without experience. If you don't have the experience yet, at least you can build a solid foundation of the knowledge by taking CCIE. So what's the point to become CCIE, if you don't have experience and you still need to cheat to pass?

I personally have met few CCIEs, some of them even have two CCIEs, and in five minutes I can figure out they don't have what they should have as CCIE. I'm not saying they must have passed the lab by cheating. I'm just saying even with their CCIE they don't have what it takes to do the work in real world. And if someone like me can figure that out easily, don't you think the company who wants to hire can't get the same impression during the interview process? They may be able to join the company eventually if they know how to trick the interview process, but the truth will show clearly the moment they really have to deliver the work.

So don't bother to cheat. No one can tell or accuse if you really cheat. But once you have the number, you should be ready to bear the consequences. You should be ready to show that you really have what it takes to be a CCIE.

# After CCIE we must live happily ever after

One guy called me as a Triple CCIE who never writes about CCIE anymore. He meant, I never write about the technical discussion around CCIE. My reply, what should I? If you are looking for CCIE technical discussion, you can join the groupstudy mailing list. Or you can read the Internetwork Expert blog. Unless I work for CCIE training institute, so I deal with the development of CCIE scenarios, after passing the lab I won't bother to focus with CCIE anymore as I have to work and deal with challenges in the real world project.

And if you follow my blog, you know I don't write the technical stuff for CCIE because the are many other websites, especially from the CCIE training institute, have done it very well. Instead I write about how to set our mindset to pass the CCIE. I share my journey to pass CCIE so those willing to do it can know how to live within the time of preparation. The CCIE wannabe can understand what kind of things we have to lose during CCIE preparation: social life, our hobby, relationship etc. I believe it's easy to find the technical information about CCIE, but only a few willing to tell you how does the life during preparation, and how it feel like to live and be a CCIE.

I write about how to live as CCIE.
I write about the challenges for CCIE.

And for me, if anyone bother to ask: am I happy with my current situation? My answer would be: I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. At least for now. I work for the organization that taught me the very first knowledge of networking technology. Now I just need to pursue the targets in my life.

Currently I'm trying to get the best of both worlds: to work my dream job with the dream profile I have always wanted to have, while still have a happy family life and do other stuff like snowboarding, desert offroading, racing the bike and playing with my drum at home.

And it was all started from CCIE.