Cisco Live 2016 (#CLUS)

For the past few years, I’ve written a blog post about Cisco Live - whether it’s a motivational post to attend or a cool wrap-up of how awesome an event it was.

This year, I’d like to discuss the benefits, specifically to new network engineers, of attending the Cisco Live 2016 conference. Seasoned engineers can look at the online content (http://ciscolive365.com) and understand the value of the presentations. Cisco Live regulars (“NetVets”) have tangibly experienced the value that attendance brings personally (for career development) and professionally (real skills for your company). If you are somewhere in between, Cisco has posted a form (http://bit.ly/1YqIfGt) on the Cisco Live website to help you make the case as well.

New engineers, though, might not be seasoned enough to build a coherent case for professional development in general or specifically for Cisco Live. So, I hope the following builds a strong desire for learning and excitement in attending this amazing technical conference.

As a new engineer, you probably fall into one of two camps -

a specialist focused on supporting a single service (VoIP or Video - or, Collaboration in Cisco’s focus)
an operations person with a focus on making all services are functioning normally

Cisco Live 2016 has something for either camp to help you reach the next level.

Deep as you want to go

As a new specialist, you have some experience with the particulars of your area. Requests come in, tickets get resolved. There are periodic service interruptions that the senior engineer handles and even briefs you on. Now you want to take on resolving bigger issues. Let’s take the wireless specialty, as an example.

Understanding Design:

BRKEWN-2010 : Design and Deployment of Enterprise WLANs
BRKEWN-2017 : Understanding RF Fundamentals and the Radio Design for 11ac Wireless Networks
BRKEWN-3014 : Best practices to deploy high-availability in Wireless LAN Architectures

Troubleshooting:

BRKEWN-3000 : Analyzing and fixing WiFi issues - Cisco WLC tools and packet capture analysis techniques
BRKEWN-3011 : Advanced Troubleshooting of Wireless LANs

Security:

BRKEWN-2015 : Wireless LAN Security and Threat Mitigation

A pretty comprehensive, multi-topic crash course in owning/operating an Enterprise WLAN environment, don’t you think? How to find those sessions is revealed a bit later on.

Broad as you want to be

For the other end of the spectrum, where you need a solid understanding across multiple technologies, Cisco Live literally has more opportunities than can be attended to broaden your experience. Of the available breakout sessions, there are:

75 Introductory Sessions
9 General Sessions
283 Intermediate Sessions
73 Advanced Sessions

There are 14 different learning paths. Within one of them, the Enterprise Networking path, there are 15 different sub-categories such as:

Campus LAN Design and Deployment
Identity and Control
L3 VPN
MPLS
Multicast
QoS
Routing Protocols
WAN Design

You see, the most frustrating aspect of Cisco Live (to me) is that there are only 14 or so breakout session time slots during the week of the conference. So, you have to adjust your approach to finding sessions that fit the areas of technology in which you are likely to be involved.

Fortunately, there’s a tool for that!

The Cisco Live 2016 session catalog is online now (breakout sessions here - http://bit.ly/1VPc44q) and includes a filter category called “Technical Level”. I used it to get the number of sessions listed above. For example, you can identify Intermediate level Breakout Sessions in the Enterprise Networks track that cover Collaboration, Security, Switching, and Wireless and find 38 sessions (http://bit.ly/1UXitvw), such as:

Campus QoS Design-Simplified
Cisco Catalyst 3850 and 3650 Series Switching Architecture
Design and Deployment of Enterprise WLANs
Enterprise MPLS - Customer Case Studies
Multicast Troubleshooting

This year, the tool is much simpler and more streamlined. The team has made some good improvements to it to make filtering the sessions easier and hopefully you can find the sessions that interest you.

“You never walk alone”

If your company is large enough, a new engineer and a senior colleague will likely attend Cisco Live together. This arrangement is the best possible scenario because the opportunities for mentoring are immense - as new material is encountered, the senior can contextualize the material with the junior for the benefit of the company and the services they support. Even better, the senior can provide a practical perspective on the balance of positives versus negatives for solutions.

What about small companies, though, where more than one engineer attending Cisco Live is too much a burden on operations to bear?

The “Cisco Live Mentor Program” exists to pair a first time attendee with a “NetVet” (like myself). The NetVet provides guidance and answers questions before and during the conference. At the start of the conference, there is a first time attendee meet up to put a face to a name. A great way to network (with people) and have a better experience of the conference.

New first-time attendees can fill out a New Attendee form (http://goo.gl/forms/DNc6e8hRIx) to register your interest in participating.

Be sure to take advantage of it!

Advice for the Senior Engineers

While it may seem like I have forgotten you today, the senior engineer has an important role in all of this - support your colleague’s request to go to Cisco Live! Help them make sense of the session abstracts and provide guidance on what seems appropriate for their enrichment.

Look at previous content as a level setting tool. Many of the entry level courses are offered for a couple years and have similar material content with updates. A little bit of guidance in selection will vastly improve their experience as nothing has the greatest potential for demotivation as being overwhelmed by material beyond your years.

If you have one of those nagging little issues in your network, one that doesn’t have priority to investigate but really should be resolved, I have a suggestion - perhaps your new engineer can visit the TAC engineers onsite and pick their brains for ideas. I found the TAC engineers to be extremely knowledgable, eager to share what they know, and love white boarding possible solutions for you. What better experience for your colleague?

Official information to help your cause

The Cisco Live website has some great information to help you, beyond what I’ve mentioned here, make your case to attend using Cisco’s “Attendee Proposal Letter” found on their “New To Cisco Live” page. It’s a quick stop, short list of good tidbits and tricks for the conference.

But best of all…

Wait, it saves money?!

Amazingly, the cost of the conference (as low as $1795 if you register early) is less than half of most traditional courses such as a CCNA boot camp or CCNP boot camp. The various locations of each conference will cause fluctuations in the travel, hotel, and meal expenses. However, for the breadth and depth of material and sheer number of hours to avail yourself of dedicate experts, you simply cannot beat the value for attending the conference.

Convinced?

I hope you have found a new level of excitement for attending the conference. Ever since my first Cisco Live (2009), my number one training priority has always been Cisco Live each year. It’s an exciting time to hear great keynote speakers discuss trends and roadmaps. I simply love learning from the very technical engineers who are helping drive the latest innovations.

There are a couple of different packages that you can use to attend Cisco Live. You can find them at the registration page. But hurry, the longer you wait, the more expensive the conference becomes. Worse yet, the further your hotel is from the convention center!

Come Meet Some NetVets!

There will be a pre-conference “Tweet up” at Cisco Live 2016. We don’t bite. We are (mostly) harmless. Some wear kilts. All have a great time catching up. So, come on by and introduce yourself! When the details are finalized, I’ll post it here and on Twitter (@broadcaststorm).

See you there!