CiscoLive 2009
by Terry Slattery
I really enjoyed CiscoLive 2009. The technical breakout sessions I attended were at the level I expected and I learned a lot from them. I particularly enjoyed John Cavanaugh's talk on High Availability network design, which was one of the last sessions of the week. Cisco has worked with a number of companies to design networks that have greater than five-nines uptime. The networks are not inexpensive. Think of them as having two cross-connected core networks. This design allows either of the cores to be taken down for hardware and software maintenance and upgrades. In one case, John described a network that had been up for ten years without a service-impacting outage!
The social events were excellent. As a long-time Networkers attendee and CCIE, I get invitations to the CCIE Netvet events, and of course to the CCIE party. A Networkers Netvet is someone who has attended three of the last five Networkers/CiscoLive conferences.
Every year for at least the past five, Cisco has put on a CCIE Netvet event at which John Chambers and a few senior VPs mix with the crowd, talk about where they are going, and solicit input about things that we see from the field. Think of it as a customer focus group composed of CCIEs who regularly attend Networkers. There are a lot of really good questions asked, such as whether to allow CCIEs to be exempt from recertification testing after some number of years as a CCIE (see http://www.ccieflyer.com/Oct2008-CCIE1026.php).
There has also been a good CCIE party during the week, where Cisco hosts all the CCIEs at a neat location where people can mix and talk with each other. I've met and talked with a number of great people at these events in the past few years.
These social events are why it is important for your employer to aid in your CCIE certification and to send you regularly to Networkers/CiscoLive. It can be valuable to your employer for you to be able to attend the event with John Chambers and ask a question that's key to your employer and business. Get your picture with John to demonstrate that you were there.
Don't forget to spend time talking with other CCIE Netvets. When you have a difficult problem, it is great to have a set of contacts that you can tap to ask a key question or brainstorm on troubleshooting ideas. I recently had a question about EIGRP operation, so I sent an email to some contacts I had at Cisco and quickly received an answer. That's the power of a network of personal contacts.
My parting comment is that CiscoLive/Networkers is a valuable event. You and your employer should be looking at how you can benefit from attending and work out what types of things you will do to justify the cost of attending. Work to get to the Netvet status and plan to use the benefits for your and your employer's benefit. That will help you justify the cost of attending.
-Terry
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