00:00
This is the Art of Network Engineering podcast.

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In this podcast, we'll explore tools, technologies, and talented people.  We aim to bring you information that will expand your skill sets and toolbox and share the stories of fellow Network Engineers.

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Sit back,  relax,  and take a deep breath. Listen to the sounds of my voice.  When I count to three, you'll fall into a deep, deep trance.  Ready?  One,  deeper and deeper. Two,  deeper still.  And three,  all the way down.  Feel the overwhelming sensation of successful downtimes wash over your body. Your mind has become a sponge. Each page of the OCG magically implants itself.

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permanently into your mind's eye.  Every diagram becomes etched into your mind like the face of a loved one.  As you take a deep breath, you can smell the gentle aroma  of purified data center air filling your nose.  It reminds you of a chilly fall afternoon.  The sounds of the fans  swirling around  you bring you a sense of calm that you've only dreamed of.  From now on, all your downtime nerves  will be removed from your mind.

01:23
Your fears of studying will transform into excitement and joy. And when I snap my fingers, you'll awake, refreshed, relaxed, and ready for another episode of the art of network engineering. Yes. Oh my. I could just feel the cold air wash over me. I wasn't in the hot aisle. Thankfully, I try to stay out of this.

01:53
Thank you, Tim. He is Timbertino  at Timbertino.  I am AJ Murray at No Blinky Blinky. Tim, how are you? I am excellent, AJ. Thank you to Jordan for writing that gem. I had a blast prepping and reading that. was fun. Thank you. I'm good, AJ. How are you? I'm doing real well, real well. I am excited to announce that I going to be on my way to come hang out with you  here in a few weeks. Yes.  Very pumped for that.

02:23
It can't come soon enough. Every day I wake up, I'm like, it the 19th yet? Is it the 20th? When's Tim going to be here?  I think you're going to meet your biggest fan. And I wish I could say that that was me, but it's probably my wife. She is  absolutely your biggest fan. She says that you make the show now, that my contributions are nigh, and Tim's intros are all that she really listens to.  And then she'll listen to your intro, and then she'll just move on to the next.

02:52
uh Next episode or next podcast. She's well that they're they're Jordans now  But you don't have to tell her that  no no no, we'll keep the secret. No, that's good. That's great Dan sir. How are you at? Howdy packet? I'm doing good. I'm doing good AJ. What's new in dance world? ah I've got more weddings Yeah, I've got two in the hopper right now that I'm

03:21
trying to knock out. Wow. Wow. That new rig should help you  get through that. It's been helping a lot, actually. It  speeds up my process.  Yeah. When we were talking over the weekend, and you told us it only took 22 minutes to process an episode, one of our episodes, the last time I did that on my MacBook, I thought that thing was going to take off or melt. I wasn't sure what.  Nice.

03:49
But I also think that I was trying to do it in 4K rather than 1080. I got you. And that, yeah, that hurt the that hurt it. Because it'll do a 1080 note, no problem. But the 4K. Right. Crippled. Hurt it. But the hurting on it. It sure did. It really did. Oh, well, time for an upgrade. No, no, not time. I can't afford that. You can get one of those the Mac Pros. The cheese grater. Yeah, the like thirty thousand dollar.

04:17
No, I can't.  legit.  He said, no.  I sure can't. Crazy. What's new with you, AJ?  Oh, too much.  Too much. No, things are going well.  Having a lot of fun.  Looking forward to,  you know, so it's October right now when we're recording this. But when it befalls your ears, I'm not sure when.  Yeah, I should probably stop talking about time based things.  Not very good at this.

04:46
Right, yeah,  I didn't think about that either. yeah,  so we're just creating some additional content. We want to be able to take a break. uh Most of our episodes are released just in time. We record every Thursday night. We release the following Wednesday morning. ah We are  recording two times a week for the month of October and part of November and maybe even part of December ah in an effort to create a cache of episodes that we can just schedule and release.

05:12
throughout the holiday and New Year season so that way we don't have to be behind the mic as much and we can spend some time with our families and a little R &R. So  this episode will be released at some point in the future and hopefully you enjoy it just as much then as we do or will recording it right now.

05:32
And that sound means it's time to announce the wins for this week. Winning in our community this week is Rich. They passed the score exam and completed their CCNP security. Congratulations, Rich. That's a big one. River pulled off some incredibly challenging work projects this past week and is now taking a very much deserved vacation. Congratulations, River.

05:55
Big news, I'm really excited to announce this one. Davey87, David Alicia has recently accepted a new position as a systems architect at Cisco. That is just huge. Congratulations, David. Tech Dev Jorge accepted an offer as an infrastructure engineer and got a huge bump in pay. Congratulations. Robin C has finished his first term at  WGU and practically graduated.

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ah Has a few more credits left to go after but wow did he get a lot done in that first term? Congratulations, Robin Kingpin Smitty got married and passed the AWS certified cloud practitioner exam Congratulations, Kingpin Smitty Eric passed the JNC is service provider exam. That is a tough exam.  I know that  I took it last year I got the scars to prove it

06:51
But that's a tough one, so congratulations, Eric, well deserved. And Arthamon passed the Wilderness First Aid uh exam and is now Wilderness First Aid certified. So uh first aid works a little bit different if you're out in the woods.  So there's a certified uh training for that and they completed it, so congratulations.  No new Patreons have joined us in the last week, but if you're interested, you can go to patreon.com forward slash art of net eng.

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and sign up there. Now back to the show.

07:26
All right, gentlemen and ladies, anyone listening? Tonight we are kicking it off with Cisco  Live. Cisco Live is the kind of premier networking conference event for our industry. If you're not familiar with Cisco Live or you haven't been,  buckle up because Tim and I have,  and it is probably the most fun you'll have at a work-related event in your career. I don't know, Tim,  you say that about sums it up?

07:53
Yeah, it would. first, I want to say that I've been once. And it turns out that I believe you were there as well. So I probably walked past you once or twice in that week and had no idea, of course. But that was 2017, I think, I'd rather not know, because if we do confirm that we were somehow in the same room together at some point, that would just make me real sad. Even though I had no idea who you were.

08:23
you know, even work together at some point, right?

08:28
be right back. This episode of the Art of Network Engineering is sponsored by METER.  METER delivers network infrastructure for the enterprise because every organization deserves seamless connectivity.  Whether you have a large team of network engineers or an IT team of one,  METER makes it simple to get online and stay online.  METER provides a full stack integrated platform that combines hardware, software, deployment and support.

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So enterprises can ensure their networks have the performance, security, and reliability they need  without the inefficiencies of juggling multiple vendors.  It's enterprise networking re-imagined, giving IT teams the ability to spend less time managing complexity  and more time driving business strategy.  Go to meter.com forward slash uh A1 to book a demo now. That's M-E-T-E-R dot com forward slash A-O-N-E.  Now back to the show.

09:24
So  let's talk through it here. So at a high level, it's  Cisco's, like you said, Cisco's premier conference. And I'll go as far to say trade show as well, because  it's by no means just Cisco. mean, pretty much any technology vendor you can think of  is  there with a booth in their big hall that they call the world of solutions.  So it's much more than just Cisco. But on the Cisco side, there's in-depth

09:54
technology chats, breakout sessions, you can schedule time with engineers in different business units.  that kind of brings me to my next point in that uh when I went, I was not prepared to go. I found out that I could go  like somewhat close to  when it actually was.  So I kind  of had a hard time.

10:18
finding things to schedule. Like I really wanted to talk to an engineer from a business unit  about certain things, but all the time slots were filled by that time. So  there are tons of advice uh and information out on CiscoLive.com.  When it gets closer,  if you're going to register, uh lots of people have advice on  how to prepare and how to go through it. Definitely wear comfortable shoes is what I will say.

10:47
But yeah,  it was a really cool experience and I can't wait to go back because I will take the time  to prepare because it was just, I think overwhelming is probably the right word. I mean, it was a blast. It was cool, but  I definitely wasn't ready and it was overwhelming and  I will be better prepared next time. Yeah, yeah. So  I have been to three Cisco lives. My first one was 2017  and then I went every year after that, 2018, 2019.

11:16
2019 was the last in-person one, of course. I did attend the virtual 2020 Cisco Live. I did not attend the 2021 virtual Cisco Live because I was, I think, deployed the week that in my line of work at a customer site, the week of I was not deployed in the military, I'm not in the military. I would never take down honor away from somebody else or try to pretend that I was. So let me just get that clear. And so I didn't attend the virtual Cisco Live this year.

11:45
I love Cisco Live because  the event is so well done. mean, they've been doing it for close to 30 years. um Before it was known as Cisco Live, it was Cisco Networkers.  And it was like the  premier networking event where you could come together and talk to other people in the industry. And I think that's the biggest takeaway for anybody that goes. Like you can show up and talk to other people.

12:11
in your field, if you work in healthcare, you can meet other people that work in healthcare, if you work for an ISP, you can meet other people that work at ISPs, and you can learn from them, bounce stuff off of them, like, hey, I have this problem, I think you have this problem too, oh yeah, I totally have that problem, and here's how I dealt with it, and that is so big to learn from those, because you really have an opportunity to do that in other ways. So, as Tim said, there's tons of sessions on

12:39
any given technology like in  what I like about Cisco live is that they don't just focus on the new stuff that's coming out like you can still go to Cisco live and attend a deep dive session on EIG RP or SPF or  troubleshooting OSPF or something like that right like they don't just focus on the new hotness whatever is coming out that year they have sessions across the board on all sorts of stuff now of course they do have sessions on the new hotness so if you want to get an intro to DNA Center or talk about SD when or

13:08
ah I really do like a lot of the sessions they have on deployment. They'll actually show you how to set up a lab if you want to learn how to do stuff. They'll walk you through the process.  All these sessions are recorded and they are made available ah for your consumption online afterwards. In fact, you can go to CiscoLive.com and  look at all of their past sessions on demand for free. ah All you need is a Cisco CCO account and you can log in and take a look at those. They're absolutely fantastic.

13:38
Yeah, I've watched quite a few of those  when I was trying to learn about different things.  think  that just having that resource is really awesome because those  are like deep dives, right? It's not just here's SD-WAN.  It's like how did each piece work kind of thing. I will say  some of the best, best practice documentation  I have found has been from Cisco Live Sessions. uh

14:05
great about it is when they record them,  you get the session that you can view and they also have the complete slide deck. So you can save it if you want to reference it later. It's all there. uh From the community, Tim Mack, he has presented multiple Cisco lives.  He's got an excellent one that he did  in Barcelona at the beginning of 2020 on multicast and it's incredible. So hopefully if we are  in person in 2022,

14:35
I would love, assuming he does a chat, would love to sit in on one of his. That would be so awesome. Do they allow you to bring like your camera and stuff? I think so. mean, I have to take your pictures off my iPhone the whole week. Yeah. That's a good question. Your production crew, Dan, you'll just blend right in. You just got to walk in like you own the place, So I guess let's go through the course of the week at Cisco Live.

15:04
If  there are certain sessions that you can pay additional monies to attend, they usually have like top notch speakers on very specific topics. But  if they apply to you, you can buy the sessions and those usually happen the weekend prior to the conference starting. The conference typically starts on a Monday and that's when  the first big keynotes are. That's when the biggest announcements for the week come out because there's typically sessions like if they're announcing a new

15:31
product or a new version of a product with a lot of new features, then the subsequent sessions to follow will add additional details and stuff about that. So the biggest keynotes always happen on that Monday. uh The  full conference pass also comes with a free  opportunity to take an exam, any Cisco exam you want.

15:54
ah I don't think that there are any limitations to that. There might be. Obviously, the only thing you can't do at Cisco Live is the CCIE lab.  And you have to do it there, right?  Right. OK. Yeah. So  you can go register for an exam through Pearson that week for free. But if you don't have a conference pass and you can't get into the conference site, then you're not going to be able to go take your free exam.

16:20
Oh, so you schedule it through Pearson? don't actually just... schedule it through Pearson just like you would any other  Cisco exam. And they have a Pearson  test center on site. um Depending on where you are, which venue. So Cisco rotates to three locations. They go to Vegas, Orlando,  and San Diego. And then they just keep rotating through those three locations  over and over again, at least for the US Cisco Live. They have Cisco Lives in other parts of the world.  And they have those at specific venues as well.

16:50
The next Cisco Live is scheduled right now to be June 12th through the 16th in Las Vegas. obviously the big caveat to that is are we still going to be looking at an in-person event next year? You know, it was canceled in 2020. We were really hoping to be back in person this year in 2021. Obviously that didn't happen. so fingers crossed we're back in person next year, 2022.

17:18
There's a Cisco live event in January. If that happens, then there's a pretty good chance we can expect to see the June event happen and actually be in person in Las Vegas. So the rent out much. What's that? I said, I am hoping so. I know, right? I want to go so bad. I've never been so. And I think my first experience being with you guys would just be like absolutely awesome.

17:46
That'd a train come to your thing. So Las Vegas, Tim, it was Las Vegas in 17, right? Yes. OK. All right. So thought so. Las Vegas is a large campus, right? Because they rent out blocks of Las Vegas like they have the MGM Grand rented out. They have some other parts of the strip were rented out as well. I remember the Pearson test center was in the MGM. And so you to walk like if you were

18:16
I believe the main uh event center and where like the world of solutions was, I believe that was at Mandalay Bay. Yes.  And then it also was  at  MGM, which where you said that the test center was,  and I thought there was one more. Maybe it was just those two, but yeah. And that's another reason to be prepared too, because  I was not, I had a session scheduled for like Monday or Tuesday morning and I was in  one part and had to get over to MGM and

18:45
Yeah, it's either walking or getting an Uber or something. So  it's, it's, it's massive. It's not just like one,  one small hotel venue. This is, this is a big deal. Right. Right.  I'm getting overwhelmed just listening to  it. And again, I'll, I'll echo, they have tons of resources  and like community pages that you can jump on. have, they do their own app.  It's usually it's own standalone Cisco live app. I don't know if they're.

19:14
Looking to integrate it into WebEx or anything like that. But  you can ask people questions.  Hey, what do you think of this? When should I register for this or try to get into this? That kind of thing.  people will help you out. So yeah, there's  tons of avenues to get advice. Absolutely. um So we got keynotes.  The big keynote the first day. uh More keynotes. And usually they get technology specific depending on what the announcements are.

19:41
I believe they've done like a collab keynote, they've done like an enterprise networking keynote,  and like a security keynote or whatever. So it really depends on what the technology announcements are that week and  the follow up from that.  Wednesday is the  customer appreciation event. ah And I would say that any major conference you go to in the industry, whether it's Cisco Live or VMware or Dell technology, whatever.

20:09
There's always a customer appreciation event at some point during the event, usually midweek.  And uh in the past, I've been to  Las Vegas Motor Speedway for VMworld  where they  actually let us get in a car and ride around the Speedway. And then later on that night, they had a big concert. That was really cool. uh I know they've rented out the T-Mobile Arena for Cisco Live. And I'm trying to remember  who played that year in 2017.

20:37
Bruno Mars Bruno Mars. That's right. That's right. And that was at that center, right? Yep. Yep. Yeah Actually, so Taylor and I were there that year  Really?  That's  And and then uh Thursday I think is kind of like the last day of the conference They usually have a wrap-up keynote and they always have like a special guest or somebody come in

21:02
And they've had some really cool guests come into the event. then Friday, I think, is considered like a down day or travel day. And they don't typically do like- the A1 party day, right? A1 move out day. And also keep an eye out  if you go there for all  the different communities that are there. If you listen to our earlier episode with Tom Hollingsworth, there will be a Tom's Corner somewhere.  As it's gotten more popular, I think there's-

21:28
probably some more even sponsored signage, so you'll be able to find them.  And if you ever just need a break in between sessions and need to relax, there's always tons of stuff they have in the world of solutions. They have  refreshments and that kind of thing. And there's always  somewhere to go if you just need to get away because again, there's so much going on. It's such a cool time. So what's in world of solutions?

21:52
Like what is it vendors booths and stuff like that or what? Yeah. Great question, Dan. It's that's exactly what it is. So it's, it's all, it's just a huge room. I think depending on how many they get, there's  actually multiple rooms or they have rooms that  go around corners and that kind of thing. And yeah, it's all,  all vendors, they have their, their booths set up and some of these,  some of these companies go all out with the,  with the people they bring in. And I think there was

22:20
I think it was Infoblox in 2017 that had a magician at their  booth.  Yeah, it's nuts. It's such a fun time. Now you see the packets. you see the  Yeah, I mean like any other large conference, right? Like you couldn't do it without sponsors. And so the world of solutions is the sponsors that help pay to make Cisco Live possible.  And they have...

22:46
hundreds of sponsors come in there and depending on the level of sponsor you are will determine how big of an area you get on the floor, right? So they have some sponsors that have these massive areas. have, you know,  they want to pull you in. So they're going to do stuff like magicians or  a one year. One of them had like a basketball court and you could like shoot ball with a basketball star. like when, the guy was there, like everybody was like crowded around this thing, like

23:11
you know, trying to watch stuff. It's pretty crazy what they bring in. And then like there'll be opportunities to win things. There's like tons and tons of swag. Like my wife hates it when I come home from these things because I have like backpacks full of extra shit. and some of it, most of it I give to my kids. Some of it I bring to the office and then the rest of it goes in the trash. But.

23:29
I think my wife's going to divorce me if I bring home another coffee mug. Yeah, yeah. If I bring home another Yeti, that's it. That's the end of it. Every time I bring home one now, she says that I have to throw another one out to make room in the cupboard for it. It's like the Purge. And here in the chat here, Traffic Network's asking, do you bring an extra swag suitcase? And I have known people that do just that. Yes, yes. Nice. They will pack. They'll bring a large suitcase that has their clothes and

23:58
like a carry-on inside the suitcase and then you can take out the carry-on, put your clothes in there and then put all your swag in the checked bag. Chip at home. And I think in the world of solutions too, they had like a lab area of just a whole bunch of computers and you could basically just schedule lab time and there were a bunch of different scenarios you could go through. So that was cool. I also remember in 2017, that's when

24:26
Probably not exactly, but that's kind of around the time that Cisco DevNet was kind of starting to debut. So that was starting to get big. So I think that's going to be an even bigger part of it this time around. For sure. For sure. Yeah. DevNet, I think, in like 2014, 15, or 16. And so it was just starting to get really hot then. And they have like a whole section that's dedicated to DevNet. And they have different workshops. So like, if you want to learn the Meraki API, can participate in the workshop if you want to learn.

24:55
The DNA Center API or Python automation or something like that. They have all these different workshops depending on what you're trying to learn or do.  And then what else? Oh, I remember to  open the world of solutions, it was like bars at every intersection. Really? Yeah. This place is a magical world. They're constantly all day long bringing stuff in and out.  And to AJ's point at the beginning, they've

25:23
They've got this thing figured out. mean,  everything's timed. They've got food, drinks, stuff coming in throughout the day. Yeah, there's never a dull moment. Oh my gosh.  for those that are listening that might  not have been to  a conference of any sort, right, a  conference,  a lot of times when  you have these vendors that have their booths in there, uh

25:48
They have people there in the booth that is willing to show demos of their products and whatnot. So you kind of get to see the ins and outs of what their product does and  whatnot. But just  I'm assuming the world of solutions,  those vendors are doing the same thing. They have TVs everywhere and showing demos of their products.  depending on what they are  and what they sell, they  like, for example, Dell. Dell is a sponsor.

26:17
They're also a competitor, but they also sponsor. They just don't bring their competing products. And they'll bring in  a whole racks of servers. And you can look at the servers, touch the servers. I don't think that they'll power on, but they have pretty LED lights in the rack that make them look really cool.  But you can get an idea of what these look like. And I think they have whole sections of endpoints. So if you're doing virtualization of any kind, you can look at the lightweight endpoints for the virtualized desktops and whatnot.

26:47
OK, yeah.  And they're just showing that off. They're just showing it off. Yeah, that's awesome.  So let me ask this. Can a person  in one trip actually see all of that stuff? Or is it like you have to take Cisco live a couple of years at a time kind of thing where  you get my question? Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK,  so. Yeah, go ahead, Tim. So from from.

27:12
like the world of solutions and seeing all the vendors and everything, you can definitely sweep through that  in a few days. It's  what I think you need to pay attention to are ahead of time are the sessions that you want to see and the things that are really time sensitive, like scheduling time to talk with a  business unit engineer. If you have a project coming up or something that you want to implement and you want to talk to that business unit level engineer.

27:41
You'll want to make sure you plan for that. And again, the sessions that you want to see live.  But again, like we touched on earlier, don't fret because all of it's recorded. You can get all the session material afterwards. It's really, you just kind of want to pay attention to the stuff that you really want to see live. And again, that goes back to just preparing ahead of time. m Yeah. So  you can go to the website now, ciscolyde.com and you can look at  the save the date for the US

28:10
version of it and you can sign up to be notified when you can register. Registration should start sometime after the new year, maybe even around March. uh And shortly after that, they'll open up sessions and there's two windows. if you're somebody that has attended three out of five years of Cisco Live, you earn what's called NetVet status.  Oh, you fancy. Yes, it is fancy. And  if you have NetVet status, there's a couple of things that you get.

28:39
You get a different color of lanyard to go on your badge, so you stand out. It's usually red or orange in color. uh You also  get uh an opportunity to meet with Chuck Robbins or whoever the standing CEO is  of Cisco at that time. And you'll go into where they do the keynotes, you'll sit around the stage,  and  you'll get to hang out with Chuck for a little bit.  OK. uh

29:09
And then you also get early access to register for sessions. And I think they give NetVets a full week or two to register for sessions ahead of  the general population, right?  So if  you're average Joe registering for the first time, ah gin pops.  Yeah.  Yeah.

29:31
So uh I've heard they do.  think Jordan thinks that might not be correct. And that may be true.  I don't know. I thought that NetVets got a chance to meet with Chuck. IEs do for sure. So maybe that's what I was confusing. ah Because I know a number of IEs that are also NetVets. And they were posting pictures and selfies with Chuck. So maybe it was an IE meet and greet, not a NetVet meet and greet. So  don't take what I say as usual.

29:57
So you've decided that you want to go  walk us through that AJ. You know that you need to get signed up early so you can get the sessions you want. can book the hotel somewhat close to the main venue that you want. You want to do all that. If I'm somebody who's never gone before  and  looks at, because there's different options, but  the base pass looks at that and goes, hmm, that might be a little steep. Can I get work to pay for that? What are the options? What have you seen people do?

30:27
to get there. Yeah. So  to get there, it's going to take a chunk of change. um Registration for a standard conference pass, even if you register early, is going to run you between $1,500 and $1,700. The  earlier you register, the bigger the discount. And it's not like a small discount. I'm not talking about $25 off. You could get $200  off the earlier you register. So if you register as soon as registration opens, you're going to get the best price.

30:56
ah You can also pay Jordan Jordan commented you can pay with learning credits So if you're a company that has acquired some learning credits over there, you can use your learning credits to cash in and go to Cisco live I think you can also earn learning credits  to go to Cisco live and with the new  way they've done the certifications I think attending Cisco live in certain sessions at Cisco live you can earn credit CE credits continuing education credits in order to renew your certifications

31:21
And that's true not just of the IE, that's true for the NP and even the NA. I think you can earn continuing education credits to renew your certs of any kind. So you definitely need to build a business case, right? You need to understand all the costs. So you're going to have the registration fee. You're going to have your air travel, assuming you don't live in Las Vegas, or road travel if you live close enough, Hotels.

31:49
There are good hotel deals if you can register early. ah You can stay at certain hotels for relatively cheap if you register your hotel as part of your conference registration. uh I will say that if you are fortunate enough to send multiple people from where you work, I would strongly urge you to consider the Airbnb option. in- That's going to be the A1 option right there,

32:16
In 2018, I attended Cisco Live and I brought two other coworkers, my CIS admin and Taylor, he was another admin. So was the three of us, we went to Cisco Live together and we got an Airbnb, we rented a car and those two were cheaper than renting or getting a hotel for the week that was tied to the conference. A one day Airbnb.

32:45
So we do need to find like a  16 person. And then, of course, there's like all your meals and entertainment and stuff for the week. Like there's plenty to do at the conference. But, you know, there's there's it's also Las Vegas. Right. So there's plenty of stuff to do,  you know, throughout  the week. And there's there's lots of sponsored events that you can attend so you can get free food or, you know, you want to try to play it.  Excuse me. Plan your week. But  it's definitely going to be a bit of an expense. So

33:15
If you're budgeting for next year, you want to put that in the budget for next year and make sure there's something in the budget for it. you definitely need to to the business state. I will say also, I'm assuming that's still going to be an option. Now, I'll say first that a lot of the benefit of Cisco Live is being able to sit in on those sessions and see all those live. But they at least used to have an option. I think it was called like the Explorer's Pass or something that was

33:45
that was actually relatively cheap, like three or $400.  And that was  to get you into the world of solutions for the week. And I think  that also got you into  the customer appreciation event too. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds right. So I mean, you still get a lot of value there. You can still meet up with everybody. You can still hang out in the world of solutions and  do all that. And that's  much less.

34:12
significant a price and then you still obviously have access to all the content on CiscoLive.com afterwards.  So there are options.  There's definitely options. I will say too on the more expensive end if you're a leader ah there is an IT management track and the IT management track is very cool. uh My first Cisco Live I was an IT manager and I sold my boss on the IT management track  and  you got to have meetings with and basically sessions

34:42
that  you were taught by leaders at Cisco, IT leaders, HR leaders, leaders of all kinds. And they brought in some very cool guest speakers to  come in and talk. And I think one of the more inspirational things that happened to me while I was there is uh Chuck Robbins came in and he was talking to the customers  and the people in the IT management track.

35:05
And some of them started to voice their opinions. And he asked, right? He's just like, my goal here is we really want to make Cisco better. What can we do? And a lot of people started to speak up. Tech support's gone south. We really need to step up the support. I'm having a lot of issues with my routers. And he started handing out his personal business card. He's like, I want to make sure that this gets fixed. And he was walking around the room handing out his business card to these people. And I think he was serious about working directly with them and making sure they were satisfied.

35:35
Wow, that's pretty crazy. ah So how was that experience, the management track?  It was incredible.  It was  so much fun.  I will say that ah that was also kind of the point where I realized I  think I like the tech part a little bit better because I would meet up with Taylor throughout the day and he would tell me about all these cool tech tracks that he was doing and then I would go back to my management track.

35:59
The management track for the most part is in one part of the facility where  you're not really getting to see the campus and go out and do other things.  I could skip some of my sessions and I did skip some of my sessions because I didn't feel like they were super applicable to what I was doing at the time.  And then I did bounce into some. I remember that was my first exposure to VXLan. I sat in on a VXLan session and they described how all that works and I was like, whoa, that's cool. ah So yeah,  it's definitely worth it.

36:28
Um, I,  you know, looking back on it, I don't know that I would recommend  the IT track for your first Cisco live experience.  Um, just because you do end up in one part of the facility for so long, you don't really get to see a lot of the campus or experience what, is like really Cisco live. So, you know, maybe for the first time do either the standard pass or the Explorer pass. I got you. So yeah. So which one are we doing?  Um,

36:56
Whatever we can get, whatever is going to get us there.  Honestly, ah if we can get, if  you can get work to sponsor a pass or uh whether it's the full or the world of solutions, I think whatever we got to do to get there. So, ah but we'll talk about that in a minute.  You got to  get approval from the boss.  And I think the big selling points are, you know, networking with others in the industry and learning

37:26
ah from them, what they do, how they handle with, with, you know, given issues, right, that you're facing.  And then kind of like, you know, what's coming?  What skills do I need to have? Well, you know, that's, those are the kinds of things you're going to learn. You're going to see like what's coming for the future. What do need to know to handle this stuff? ah You know,  having this information will help you make better investments in the network infrastructure as that stuff pops up. ah So it's just

37:54
a great event all around. And then there's the opportunities to do the technical deep dives. There's opportunities to spend time with tech engineers.  There's just opportunities abound, as they would say. And there's always announcements, right?  Right. They usually save some big announcements for Cisco Live to throw out there to the public. So to be able to catch some of that firsthand,  that might be valuable to you. But  again, yeah, the

38:20
If you're having issues with certain things, being able to get in front of not just Cisco engineers, but other people uh either in the same industry as you or similar industries that just have the same products, that's helpful too. And if you've got big projects coming up and you want some advice on how to implement, how other people are doing it, there's just a lot of valuable conversations that can happen there.  And I think that's a lot of value right there, honestly, because uh some of the smaller

38:49
conferences that I've been to, you know, Cisco has their, what they call it Cisco connect, uh which are kind of like they're more local ones.  They, those  have been beneficial to me whenever  I've been working on a project or a new product or something like that.  And I can talk to the people in other companies that might be in different verticals, right. And,  and, but they're using this product a certain way and it's like,  Oh, okay. So you can use.

39:18
you know, XYZ product in that way.  And it's like,  uh, I don't know. It just, it just nice hearing about any issues that they ran into during the implementation.  Like they are like, you know, Hey, we struggled with this one section.  Uh, don't do this.  Like  something like that. It's just, it's so nice to be able to collaborate with other people, see how they're using these products  and improve your,  way you're using them, you know? So, right.

39:45
So Jordan just mentioned, and I couldn't talk about Cisco Live and not mention this too, uh the  social media engagement from Cisco Live is unlike any other  conference in our industry, I'll say. They get an  army of people  to operate the Cisco Live Twitter account, and there is  so much engagement from them  as far as  getting people to talk about what's going on. And as a result, like,

40:13
You can be anywhere on the Cisco Live campus and as long as you're following the hashtag Cisco, it's Cisco Live now, not CLUS, it used to be CLUS. ah But you can follow that hashtag and you can feel like you're a part of anything going on across the entire campus  that is Cisco Live. And during the keynotes,  that's when it's really fun to engage in the conversation on Twitter as the announcements are coming out live. Like  I will sit in the audience with my iPad and my smartphone and I'm just.

40:41
creating tweets on both devices. So I'm hitting send on one, going back to the next device, to write the next one, hit send, go back to the next. And it's just really crazy to be a part of that. Because I think last year you got like second, I took a screenshot. I think you were at like second place or something like that on one of their during the Virtual Cisco Live. was in second place for that week.

41:04
And then just during previous Cisco Lives, a lot of my tweets have been featured in stuff that has said like during the announcements and stuff like that, which has just been super fun and cool. And they also have a lot of contests. ah If you're a blogger, content creator, they look for content that people are creating about Cisco Live, whether it's recommendations or just sharing the experience that they've had. ah And then your level of engagement on social media will also help you win some fun prizes.

41:33
I've won some pretty cool stuff. I got an Apple TV out of it one year. I got a really cool coffee mug. forget what they call them now, but it comes with the heated tray and it always keeps your coffee perfectly hot at a certain temperature. That was pretty fun. Fancy did win, in 2019, did win a blogger pass to come back in 2020, a free full pass, a blogger pass. Oh, cool.

42:01
Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to use it yet. I hope it's still valid.  I check with the Cisco Live team. But uh I was also featured.  They asked me to talk about my Cisco Live experience. And so somewhere out there on the internet, there's a video of me talking about it in San Diego. So that was pretty neat. uh Yeah, there's just tons and tons of cool stuff. And the engagement is  really, I think, what makes the event. Yeah, I think a highlight.

42:28
of it for me the next time around is honestly going to be, and this is going to sound corny, but it's honestly going to be the people. So back  in 2017,  mean, believe it or not, I was more awkward than I am now.  I just, I wasn't really  active on  any social medias from a IT technology networking standpoint.  I went by myself. oh I knew a few people, but not a whole lot. So I just didn't have a whole lot of people engagement. Now I've got

42:58
Oh, you guys, everybody from our awesome community,  a lot of people at Cisco that we all know now. It's just, it's really exciting to think about. Yeah, definitely pumped for that part. yeah.  There's a whole social media center, right? Like, uh so at the beginning of the conference and the end of the conference, they do a tweet up.  So everybody that engages on Twitter comes to this event and they take these massive crowd shots.

43:26
of everybody. And that's really where you get a chance to meet a lot of these people from the community. That was where I met Tom Hollingsworth. They had already asked me to come to a networking field day later that year. so we were crowding around to take the Tweet It picture. And I looked next to me, I'm like, oh, you're Tom. We shook hands, and I introduced myself.

43:51
Yeah, I've met a lot of other people. It is really fun because you're you're engaging on Twitter. You're meeting these people and then you like that's that's when you get to meet in person for the first time. And that's usually where Tom's corner is and is in the social media area. And yeah, it's a ton of fun. And they always have cool stuff to do. I remember one year in San Diego, you could build your own Lego minifig. What?  So that's that's a Lego AJ.  Lego AJ. Yeah.  Yeah.

44:21
So yeah, they had some really cool stuff. ah think I was going through  CCNA material at the time.  I'm pretty sure I had my book with me. And then I see 10 feet in front of me walked by was Wendell Odom, I the guy that wrote the book.  It's crazy to see that kind of stuff and to think about that.  It's like the rock stars in our world.

44:49
Yeah, and I got to take a picture with uh D Cloud Steve. I don't know if you guys have heard of him. He was kind of the face of Cisco's D Cloud for a while. mean, getting to meet him, he was super nice. It was cool taking pictures. It's just such a fun time. Yeah, for sure. So Jordan brought up something. He said they have a merch store. I feel like this is going to get expensive really quick.  it will. It's Cisco store. You ever been to the Cisco store online?  They bring that to Cisco Live.

45:19
Oh my gosh, there's just so much stuff.  And then they do uh book signing days. So the authors of the Cisco Press Books will get together at the store. You can either go buy a book or bring your book and have the author there sign it, take a picture with them.  It's really cool.  OK. And Jordan said you get a duffel bag if you buy enough stuff.  I have a couple of duffel bags. I'm ashamed to admit. my gosh, AJ.

45:48
Wait, wait, hold on. How many Lego AJ's did you get? Yeah, just one. one. Those were free. I didn't A whole duffel bag full. All right. He's got a Lego scooping Lego mini-fags into the bag. It's a Lego army. That's too funny. Yeah, no, all true. It's all good stuff. Yeah, just about anything that you can buy in the Cisco store online, can buy in the on-prem store there.

46:14
They sometimes offer some Cisco Live Extras, you know, only available there at the event. The 2017 event, was it the 2017 event? No, was Orlando. Orlando was the first time I passed a Cisco exam. I took the full CCNA at 2017. oddly enough, so Taylor and I both took this full CCNA in 2017 in Las Vegas, and we got the same score. We didn't pass, but we got the same score.

46:44
Got the same score, Were y'all cheating? No, we weren't sitting next each other.

46:52
I'm checking. Yeah, No, it's good stuff. Good stuff for sure. ah Yeah.  They have tour buses that operate around the city. The tour buses will stop at each hotel along the way and bring you to and from. So  transportation, if you plan it right, can be included. However, if you choose to stay at hotel that's not on the route, you have to get yourself to the venue or get yourself to, you know, on the route to  get picked up by the bus, which, which, you know.

47:20
Might be easy, not be, not sure, depending on where you are. Las Vegas, everything's pretty close. So if you're not at a hotel that has the tour bus bringing you, stuff's pretty walkable, I would say, again, depending on where you're staying. Yeah. Yeah, I stayed two or three hotels away from Mandalay. And I could walk all the way to Mandalay inside, walking through.

47:48
three, but just with how Vegas is set up, walking through essentially three different hotels and I never had to step outside into the 97 degree heat. Yeah.  Yeah. That's interesting. And another thing to add too is if you  are a company that works with one or multiple value added resellers, there's a good chance that they're going to have people down there and you  can meet up with them and that kind of thing too. you don't know,  even if you don't know anybody there, you're probably going to know somebody there. Right. Absolutely.

48:17
Absolutely. I've had when I was a customer, I've had my partner attend conferences with me and wow. Took good care of you. That's all I'll say about that. You ain't right AJ. I know, I know I'm not. I know, I know. The next thing I would say is planning.

48:45
to anybody who's attending for the first time, it can be absolutely overwhelming to look at all of the different options available to you for sessions and things to go and do. When you're planning your sessions, leave yourself some time. ah Do not schedule back-to-back sessions, because chances are they aren't in the same location.  The campus can be sprawling. It will take some time to get from one end to the other.  And it is very

49:12
overwhelming, especially for a first time visitor. You're in a sea of people. There's a lot going on. It's loud. You're in Las Vegas and by design, they don't want you to,  um,  you know, be able to know what time of day it is, right? Like they want you to go into the hotels, get lost in there and not see daylight for a while. And they want you to just kind of like spend money. So  it can be very overwhelming. Give yourself breaks.

49:38
make sure you build in time to go get lunch.  They offer breakfast at the venue. Sometimes they offer dinner at the venue. Make sure you're taking that time. uh You may have to work. ah And so make sure you're giving yourself time to  get out of the venue or get to a space in the venue that's quiet enough to allow you to work, attend that meeting, do whatever it is that you need to do to make sure that you can keep up with your job ah while you're gone. Because I'm sure...

50:06
It's very difficult to leave your job for an entire week and not have to check in or do something, right? Like  the reality is, is you're probably going to have to work a little bit while you're there. I have a question, AJ. If,  uh, let's say you scheduled, you know, the sessions that you wanted to go to  and you change your mind day of, can you go to the other session or are you not allowed to switch up your sessions?  You can do that. I would say it's based on availability. Um,

50:34
If you register, they're going to hold a spot for you. And at a certain point after the session starts, if you don't show up, they're going to let people queue outside the session. And if there's space available, so it's available, they will scan your tag and let you go in, even if you didn't register for the session. there are just super popular sessions that are going to fill up,  out, and probably be maxed out for the duration of the session. So I would definitely closely look at the technologies and sessions that you want to be a part of and not

51:04
bank on the fact that you're going to be able to make a last minute change like that. I'm not saying it's impossible. It's absolutely possible. I've done it. I've walked into a number of sessions myself, but there's definitely been long lines, wait times,  and then some, it's just you're not getting in because of  either who's presenting or the topic, right?  How long,  like, an average are these sessions? Are they like hour long sessions, two hour long sessions? I've seen hour, hour and a half, uh and I think  some of them can be up to two hours.

51:34
Okay. m Interesting.  But they're worth it. They're really worth it.

51:41
Tim, when you attended in 2017, what was the favorite session that you attended? Favorite session? I would say the things that were coming out around because I think that's when the the cat 9Ks were announced. So there was a lot of buzz around that. And we were doing some stuff at work with new facilities and that kind of thing. So I was really interested to see the information about that.

52:09
Oh, favorite session. I was also starting to get into BGP and I got to sit in a BGP session delivered by Denise Fishburn. Fish. Yeah, fish.  That was incredible. So yeah, that was probably the session capstone for me for 2017. sure. For  sure. Yeah, that was definitely the year that they announced intent-based networking. Yeah.

52:38
And I think that was kind of like the first we heard about the CAT 9Ks. Not all the 9Ks were out at that point. I think they just had like the 9200, the 9300, maybe the 9400. But I don't think the 9500 was out and the 9606 definitely wasn't out yet. And then I think that was also kind of the initial release of maybe DNA Center. Yeah, that sounds right. Like the very, very early announcements of it. And TUNS ACI. I mean, that was.

53:05
That was getting big around that time. It wasn't new but it was getting bigger on that time as well. Yep, for sure. ah So yeah, scheduling definitely leave yourself some time.  You do a lot of walking, so good walking shoes and pack light.  If you normally hook around a backpack with a laptop in it and a bunch of other stuff, I would seriously reconsider that load because you're going to be carrying that from your hotel.

53:33
to the venue, around the venue all day long, and then  back to your hotel. And that could be a lot of weight on your back.  Finally, after three years  in 2019, I had a  lightweight backpack with my iPad and a bottle of water  and a charging brick, like a battery pack so I could recharge my stuff. And that's it. I  got it to where I could VPN in and our remote desktop into a server at work.

54:01
from my iPad, if I absolutely needed to. Most everything else I could do from an app on my iPad, so that way I didn't have to carry my bulky work laptop and everything else I went with it. So yeah. So who's going to help me carry camera gear?  Andy, because he's not here. I'm nominating. Volunteering.  Volunteer. uh And I guess that's a good segue. um While we don't have definitive plans yet, and of course we don't know for a fact that

54:29
We're going to be in person at Cisco Live, all things being equal, assuming that we will be. We are going to make every attempt possible to get all of us here at the art of network engineering to Cisco Live in 2022. The idea is to have a big gathering of fans. We would love to an opportunity to do a meet and greet depending on how things are going with the podcast. Come Cisco Live. Maybe we'll talk to Cisco Live about, you know, getting a room and.

54:57
doing some recording or something like that. know they do have a, Cisco Champions does have a podcast recording booth. And so we might be able to do some content creation in there with the Cisco Champion team. But we, we absolutely plan on being at Cisco Live in 2022. And another thing that we really want to do is hopefully we can do some fundraising, get some sponsors. We want to get other people like you, our listeners to Cisco Live as well. So, you know, if we can get a couple of people there,

55:26
on  an Explorer pass or maybe  one or two  full passes,  we are hoping to be able to provide that opportunity to a couple of lucky people. um So I definitely want to keep an ear out for that. And  we're going to do everything we can here in the background to make that a reality for some folks.  Are you guys excited for Cisco Live? I know I am.  I'm pumped,  Oh, yeah.

55:53
I'm nervous. world can stop being sick and we can get out and meet each other. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Well, let's put a bow on this one. Cisco Live US coming up June 12th through the 16th, 2022. You can definitely look for more content to come out. We'll probably do another episode dedicated to how to prepare for your first Cisco Live and get some more tips and tricks.

56:23
tricks from myself, Tim, and I think we'll engage the community as well to put together a full, maybe a top 10 or something like that on  what people might recommend  to prepare for your first one.  And  as we develop more plans on actually getting there and having a presence at Cisco Live, we will keep you all posted to that  as well. Tim, any last minute thoughts on attending Cisco Live?  If you can get there, get there. I can't wait to meet you. Dan?

56:52
I'm just excited to see everybody. So  I can't wait. I'm going to be overwhelmed because this can be my first one. But I really am looking forward to meeting everybody there. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be great. It's going to be so much fun.  I hope we  fill up a room  with a bunch of A1 fans and people from the Discord community. all about the journey and uh just

57:14
finally get a chance to hug it out, congratulate each other for the winning and,  you know, pat each other on the back for all the fails and just continue to encourage each other like we do in the discord. But in person. That  I'd tell you what, like one thing I was just thinking about is if we roll up in there and there's people with like a one shirt on and stuff,  it's just going to be a surreal moment for me. Right. Yeah.  I know like we  fans share.

57:42
You know, like like there  when they go take their tests and they have a one shirt on stuff and that just that blows my mind. And  you just see that, you know, digitally. But  when we're in person and we see people, it's just  it's going to be.  Oh, my gosh.  Yeah. Tim Ross cardboard.  It  must do it. Awesome.  Oh, man.

58:10
That's good. You see that walking through the crowd? Oh, my God. I will have made it at that point in my life. We're to have to find 10. Bob Ross, Wig. Yeah, it sounds like one may or may not have gotten one mayor may not have gotten delivered an hour ago. So yes. right. for 10. Come on. Halloween is coming. Oh, man. Yeah.

58:38
I hope anonymous is there  with all their shirts and coffee mugs.  Yeah. Someone needs to wear like a hashtag anonymous shirt or something. Right. Excellent. Well, I think that's going to do it for us in Cisco Live. We will hopefully see you at Cisco Live next year. But for now, I'm AJ signing off. Thank you. And join us next week for another episode of the art of network engineering.  Take care now.

59:06
Hey everyone, this is AJ. If you like what you heard today, then make sure you subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcatcher.  Smash that bell icon to get notified of all of our future episodes.  Also,  follow us on Twitter and Instagram. are at art of net eng.  That's art of NET ENG.  You can also find us on the web  at art of network engineering.com,  where we post all of our show notes.  You can read blog articles from the co hosts and guests.

59:33
and also a lot more news and info from the networking world.  Thanks for listening.