Cisco’s advocacy neighborhood, Cisco Insider, brings our clients collectively and supplies a means for them to make highly effective connections, broaden their skilled and private networks, and be taught from prime consultants of their area. Certainly one of our objectives with our advocacy neighborhood is to deepen {our relationships} with our clients. Our Q&A sequence permits us to shine a highlight on a few of our most passionate advocates as we be taught extra about their tales and backgrounds.
We not too long ago sat down with Mateusz Frąk to study his journey in community engineering and his ardour for sharing data by means of his weblog.
Welcome, Mateusz! It’s so nice to talk with you at this time! Let’s kick issues off by studying somewhat bit about who you’re.
Thanks for having me right here! I’m Mateusz, and I work at DSV as a senior community automation engineer. DSV is a worldwide transport and logistics firm. My position includes implementing, managing, troubleshooting, and enhancing our community automation options. These options are important in a company that gives and manages supply-chain options for 1000’s of shoppers. I additionally concentrate on figuring out enterprise points, permitting us to develop options that assist community engineers keep away from repetitive duties. We offer numerous instruments that the operations staff makes use of to troubleshoot networks, leading to quicker isolation of widespread community points.
Are you able to inform us about your journey into community engineering? What received you began?
My journey started once I was 18 and attending technical faculty. I used to be uncovered to numerous specializations like programming, databases, and networks, and I selected networks as a result of I used to be fascinated by the subject and interested by what actually occurs behind the scenes if you load a webpage like Google.
Through the years, I progressed from a junior community administrator to a community engineer, and ultimately a community architect. As a community architect, I centered on modernizing an organization’s community by adopting software-defined networks (SDN) for each knowledge middle and campus environments, utilizing Cisco merchandise. Almost three years in the past, I made a decision to pivot into community automation, leveraging the abilities I had constructed through the years. This transition allowed me to mix my deep understanding of community engineering with automation, enabling the creation of extra environment friendly and efficient options.
It’s clear that you simply’ve had a formidable profession development. How did you get entangled with the Cisco Insider Advocates neighborhood, and what has your expertise been like up to now?
I used to be trying to change into extra related with a neighborhood of pros, so throughout Cisco Dwell 2024 in Amsterdam, I visited the Insider Advocates sales space. After talking with the neighborhood managers, I made a decision to hitch the neighborhood.
The best worth of the neighborhood, in my view, is the flexibility to ask questions on to subject material consultants (SMEs) throughout unique Q&A periods. The responses I’ve obtained from these periods have been extremely insightful, permitting me to enhance my expertise and sort out challenges in my job extra successfully. I’ve additionally related with quite a few SMEs, tapping into their experience and making use of it to the initiatives I’m concerned with at work. Moreover, it’s been a incredible option to meet new individuals from across the globe. I actually recognize the facility of neighborhood—it’s what helps me get pleasure from demanding processes like making ready for the DevNet Knowledgeable certification and dealing on difficult initiatives. The DevNet Knowledgeable certification demonstrates experience designing and creating community automation options by means of the complete community lifecycle, from idea, improvement, and deployment to operation and optimization.
Talking of your DevNet Knowledgeable journey, you’ve been documenting your experiences in your weblog at mateuszfrak.com. What motivated you to begin sharing your journey publicly?
I’ve at all times been impressed by professionals who generously share their experiences with others, similar to John Capobianco, who revealed Automate Your Community. In his GitHub repository the place the ebook is accessible, he acknowledged, “I imagine in open-source software program. I imagine individuals ought to have common entry to Linux. I imagine open-source instruments like Ansible ought to stay open supply.” This impressed me to go a step additional and say, “I imagine individuals ought to have common entry to data.”
I’ve additionally been impressed by Conor Murphy, a technical options architect at Cisco, who shares technical blogs. He tackles very difficult eventualities and explains them in a means that’s simple to know.
I dedicate hours every single day to finding out new subjects and applied sciences. As I profit from the free assets shared by Cisco, John, Conor, and plenty of different technical writers, I really feel a robust need to provide again by sharing the data and expertise I collect every day.
What retains you motivated to proceed writing and sharing your journey?
I hope that my weblog will function a worthwhile useful resource for somebody who’s beginning their DevNet Knowledgeable journey. My aim is to assist others really feel much less harassed throughout their preparation and the examination itself. I understand how difficult it may be to take care of composure in such high-pressure conditions. I additionally need to present that this certification is achievable by anybody who’s constant and devoted.
My weblog can be a means to enhance my technical writing expertise, improve my English, and most significantly, deepen my technical data. Writing content material for a weblog takes time and sometimes requires intensive analysis to create articles that not solely inform, but in addition encourage readers to consider issues from totally different angles. This, in flip, may cause them to options they hadn’t thought of earlier than.
I even have a dream of writing a technical ebook sometime. I imagine that the method of writing for my weblog will assist me develop the abilities I have to make that dream a actuality.
What can readers count on out of your upcoming weblog posts?
My DevNet Knowledgeable journey remains to be ongoing, and I’m planning to doc my examination makes an attempt quickly, together with ideas and methods for tackling a CCIE-level examination. My aim is to assist others really feel much less overwhelmed when making ready for such a demanding certification.
After I began my journey, there weren’t many assets obtainable that mentioned these points intimately. My first try was troublesome—not because of lack of know-how, however due to sudden elements that affected my efficiency. Being conscious of those small but important particulars can assist candidates handle their stress ranges higher, particularly in the event that they’ve learn in regards to the expertise of somebody who has been by means of it.
Sooner or later, I’ll additionally share insights from my each day work to provide a practical view of life in IT. Whereas there are various blogs that assist IT professionals get began with particular instruments, I need to take it a step additional, discussing the challenges professionals face and providing options that transcend the fundamentals.
Lastly, Mateusz, for these impressed by your journey, the place can they observe alongside and be taught extra out of your experiences?
When you’re occupied with diving deeper into my journey, significantly my ongoing DevNet Knowledgeable certification course of, you’ll be able to observe alongside on my weblog at mateuszfrak.com. I repeatedly share insights, ideas, and detailed posts in regards to the challenges and options I encounter. Whether or not you’re making ready for certification, or just trying to broaden your data in community automation, I hope my weblog generally is a worthwhile useful resource for you.
It’s been a pleasure to talk with you, Mateusz. Thanks once more for becoming a member of us and for being a part of our neighborhood!
Learn extra advocate interviews.
You may get pleasure from this interview with Rob Taylor.
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