Cisco’s advocacy neighborhood, Cisco Insider, brings our prospects collectively and supplies a method for them to make highly effective connections, develop their skilled and private networks, and study from prime consultants of their subject. Certainly one of our objectives with our advocacy neighborhood is to deepen {our relationships} with our prospects. Our Q&A collection permits us to shine a highlight on a few of our most passionate advocates as we study 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 information by his weblog.
Welcome, Mateusz! It’s so nice to talk with you immediately! Let’s kick issues off by studying a bit of 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 entails implementing, managing, troubleshooting, and enhancing our community automation options. These options are essential in a company that gives and manages supply-chain options for 1000’s of consumers. 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 workforce makes use of to troubleshoot networks, leading to quicker isolation of frequent community points.
Are you able to inform us about your journey into community engineering? What obtained you began?
My journey started after I was 18 and attending technical faculty. I used to be uncovered to varied specializations like programming, databases, and networks, and I selected networks as a result of I used to be fascinated by the subject and interested in what actually occurs behind the scenes whenever you load a webpage like Google.
Over time, 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 information heart and campus environments, utilizing Cisco merchandise. Practically three years in the past, I made a decision to pivot into community automation, leveraging the abilities I had constructed over time. 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 just’ve had a powerful profession development. How did you become involved with the Cisco Insider Advocates neighborhood, and what has your expertise been like to this point?
I used to be seeking to grow to be extra linked with a neighborhood of pros, so throughout Cisco Live 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, for my part, is the power to ask questions on to subject material consultants (SMEs) throughout unique Q&A classes. The responses I’ve acquired from these classes have been extremely insightful, permitting me to enhance my abilities and deal with challenges in my job extra successfully. I’ve additionally linked with quite a few SMEs, tapping into their experience and making use of it to the tasks 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 take pleasure in demanding processes like making ready for the DevNet Expert certification and dealing on difficult tasks. The DevNet Knowledgeable certification demonstrates experience designing and creating community automation options by your entire 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 all the time been impressed by professionals who generously share their experiences with others, corresponding to John Capobianco, who revealed Automate Your Community. In his GitHub repository the place the e-book is obtainable, he said, “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 information.”
I’ve additionally been impressed by Conor Murphy, a technical options architect at Cisco, who shares technical blogs. He tackles very difficult situations and explains them in a method that’s straightforward to know.
I dedicate hours on daily basis to learning new subjects and applied sciences. As I profit from the free assets shared by Cisco, John, Conor, and lots of different technical writers, I really feel a robust need to present again by sharing the information 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 helpful useful resource for somebody who’s beginning their DevNet Knowledgeable journey. My purpose is to assist others really feel much less pressured throughout their preparation and the examination itself. I understand how difficult it may be to keep up 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 also be a method to enhance my technical writing abilities, improve my English, and most significantly, deepen my technical information. Writing content material for a weblog takes time and sometimes requires in depth analysis to create articles that not solely inform, but in addition encourage readers to consider issues from totally different angles. This, in flip, would possibly cause them to options they hadn’t thought-about earlier than.
I even have a dream of writing a technical e-book sometime. I imagine that the method of writing for my weblog will assist me develop the abilities I must make that dream a actuality.
What can readers anticipate 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 purpose is to assist others really feel much less overwhelmed when making ready for such a demanding certification.
Once I began my journey, there weren’t many assets out there that mentioned these features intimately. My first try was troublesome—not attributable to lack of understanding, however due to surprising elements that affected my efficiency. Being conscious of those small but vital particulars may also help 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 it.
Sooner or later, I’ll additionally share insights from my day by day work to present a practical view of life in IT. Whereas there are a lot of 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 study extra out of your experiences?
For those who’re taken with diving deeper into my journey, notably my ongoing DevNet Knowledgeable certification course of, you possibly can observe alongside on my weblog at mateuszfrak.com. I often 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 seeking to develop your information in community automation, I hope my weblog could be a helpful 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 would possibly take pleasure in this interview with Rob Taylor.
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