Ok - So I'm all out of CCIE Labs to Prep for....
Just remember... the World's Best Hackers can do what I do in like 60 minutes.... but when you need someone who can do it in like 60 Seconds.... well... go buy a copy of Swordfish...
Not really... Cisco never seems to let me down in that department... not ever.
So... I earn my living by Contracting and Consulting or whatever else we may call it these days...
December was good to me this year and it had nothing to do with Santa Claus, as a matter of fact at over $56,000.00 secured before Christmas Break... December was my best month to date.
So I asked what would it take me to take earning over $50,000.00 a month into earning a similar amount per day...
I mean really... is it possible?
I once knew a Consultant in the Financial Banking industry who happened to be a CCIE and he earned a whopping $10,000.00 a day or else $2.5 million a year plying his trade. He's since passed away leaving the mantle empty for any such high-earning CCIE Super-Star to emulate.
So... We all have to find our way....
A few years ago I had topped $300k a year as a Remote Work 100% From Home Contractor/Consultant and thought I was doing quite well doing so... even from what was once called the Dismal Swamp.... or the Boggy Depot...
Today, I've learned how to "Scale" and as a result I've learned that I can exponentially increase my income based upon my own inherent ability to work at what I do and what I do best....
So... I chose to do more of it.... but I felt I needed a little more FirePower... so to speak and what do you know... Cisco just happened to have a FirePower Product...
Investment Time!!!
Item number 1: Invest in the Plant... I needed a Factory....
So... like any company who just acquired capitol I invested in my plant's footprint:
The Core has to be 10GE... minimum. I know I could suffice with the Dell M1000e and MXL Blades.... But... That's not Cisco. I love to work with Cisco...
1. I bought 8 Cisco Nexus 5K's and 4 2K's to build out a Core.
2. I upgraded my Cisco 6504's and 6503 with 10GE Supervisors and Line Cards.
3. I bought the Cisco 5580 (not 5585's) for my 10GE Firewalls.
4. I picked up the Cisco 5760 for 10GE Wireless to the Core and 2800 WAP's for 5Gbps Home Wireless so my internal clients could breathe a little clean air.
5. I invested in more Cisco 9971's IP Phones.
6. I picked up some older EX-Series Video Equipment for my Cisco TeleConference Projects.
7. I upgraded my PVDM-128's to PVDM-256's... just because.
8. I added a small fleet of Cisco 3750-X's to the mix.... I got my reasons.
9. I added 10GE NICs to my Servers (at least dual).
10. I added a fleet of Cisco UCS Servers and 5108 Chassis with VIC and 10G interfaces.
11. I added more Ram and a started building out the Petabyte. Nothing like having a World-Class Network for doing mostly everything a World-Class NOC/SOC can do mostly any day.
12. I added like equipment pools - and silent for the in-office equipment - This means items like desktop 3560 Switches and 1841/1941 Routers - quiet stuff. I script a little... Python and Ansible or whatever... Perl if it comes down to it...
13. I'm perfecting my documentation...
- Data Center - Check
- WAN - Check
- PSTN - Check
- Custom VPN Solution - Check
- DMZ - Check
- Campus / HQ - Check
- B2B - Check
- Collaboration - Check
- Wireless (Indoor/Outdoor/Warehouse) - Check
- Service Provider(s) - Check (My environment calls for at least 4)
- Video Conferencing - Check
- SAN - Check
- Virtual / Cloud / Multi-Tenancy - Check
- BYOD - Check
- Load Balancing - Check
- Optimization - Check
- Change Control Process - Check
14. To all that documentation I'm adding consistency so that each item looks and feels like it is consistent, clean, and optimized to perfection. The idea is that I can repeat anything I've ever done and use all of my work I've done to build a better more structured repeatable process...
I'm scaling my career... It seems like the thing to do.
Maybe one day I'll build out a team to do work with me on this stuff.... It really takes a lot of effort comparatively speaking to get and keep a team on the same page.
Quality versus Quantity.
I've always prided myself on "No Fix, No Pay" and it has worked for me and it has sometimes made me work to ensure it was Fixed... "The Net Works.... No Excuses" mentality.
So I'm using CCIE Prep as a bit of a yard stick to help me make sure my confidence levels are where they should be.
I've prepped my labs as well as my budget might allow for and am settling down to a 2-year commitment to work the plan... and develop the process.
It's all about architecture and scale...
So that's what my little Data Center is doing....
Meanwhile in the wild... I'm all 100G to the Internet on like 6 redundant links .... kinda hard for my home lab to compete with Trillion Dollar networks...
Hey... We all do what we can for as long as we can...
Darby Weaver
The Cisco Network Architect
www.linkedin.com/in/darbyweaver
Here's what I started with...
I'll update new pics... later with what this little Battle Star looks like after I get everything working together and all cabled up for my little excursion into virtualization, automation, and customization....
Just remember... the World's Best Hackers can do what I do in like 60 minutes.... but when you need someone who can do it in like 60 Seconds.... well... go buy a copy of Swordfish...
Not really... Cisco never seems to let me down in that department... not ever.
So... I earn my living by Contracting and Consulting or whatever else we may call it these days...
December was good to me this year and it had nothing to do with Santa Claus, as a matter of fact at over $56,000.00 secured before Christmas Break... December was my best month to date.
So I asked what would it take me to take earning over $50,000.00 a month into earning a similar amount per day...
I mean really... is it possible?
I once knew a Consultant in the Financial Banking industry who happened to be a CCIE and he earned a whopping $10,000.00 a day or else $2.5 million a year plying his trade. He's since passed away leaving the mantle empty for any such high-earning CCIE Super-Star to emulate.
So... We all have to find our way....
A few years ago I had topped $300k a year as a Remote Work 100% From Home Contractor/Consultant and thought I was doing quite well doing so... even from what was once called the Dismal Swamp.... or the Boggy Depot...
Today, I've learned how to "Scale" and as a result I've learned that I can exponentially increase my income based upon my own inherent ability to work at what I do and what I do best....
So... I chose to do more of it.... but I felt I needed a little more FirePower... so to speak and what do you know... Cisco just happened to have a FirePower Product...
Investment Time!!!
Item number 1: Invest in the Plant... I needed a Factory....
So... like any company who just acquired capitol I invested in my plant's footprint:
The Core has to be 10GE... minimum. I know I could suffice with the Dell M1000e and MXL Blades.... But... That's not Cisco. I love to work with Cisco...
1. I bought 8 Cisco Nexus 5K's and 4 2K's to build out a Core.
2. I upgraded my Cisco 6504's and 6503 with 10GE Supervisors and Line Cards.
3. I bought the Cisco 5580 (not 5585's) for my 10GE Firewalls.
4. I picked up the Cisco 5760 for 10GE Wireless to the Core and 2800 WAP's for 5Gbps Home Wireless so my internal clients could breathe a little clean air.
5. I invested in more Cisco 9971's IP Phones.
6. I picked up some older EX-Series Video Equipment for my Cisco TeleConference Projects.
7. I upgraded my PVDM-128's to PVDM-256's... just because.
8. I added a small fleet of Cisco 3750-X's to the mix.... I got my reasons.
9. I added 10GE NICs to my Servers (at least dual).
10. I added a fleet of Cisco UCS Servers and 5108 Chassis with VIC and 10G interfaces.
11. I added more Ram and a started building out the Petabyte. Nothing like having a World-Class Network for doing mostly everything a World-Class NOC/SOC can do mostly any day.
12. I added like equipment pools - and silent for the in-office equipment - This means items like desktop 3560 Switches and 1841/1941 Routers - quiet stuff. I script a little... Python and Ansible or whatever... Perl if it comes down to it...
13. I'm perfecting my documentation...
- Data Center - Check
- WAN - Check
- PSTN - Check
- Custom VPN Solution - Check
- DMZ - Check
- Campus / HQ - Check
- B2B - Check
- Collaboration - Check
- Wireless (Indoor/Outdoor/Warehouse) - Check
- Service Provider(s) - Check (My environment calls for at least 4)
- Video Conferencing - Check
- SAN - Check
- Virtual / Cloud / Multi-Tenancy - Check
- BYOD - Check
- Load Balancing - Check
- Optimization - Check
- Change Control Process - Check
14. To all that documentation I'm adding consistency so that each item looks and feels like it is consistent, clean, and optimized to perfection. The idea is that I can repeat anything I've ever done and use all of my work I've done to build a better more structured repeatable process...
I'm scaling my career... It seems like the thing to do.
Maybe one day I'll build out a team to do work with me on this stuff.... It really takes a lot of effort comparatively speaking to get and keep a team on the same page.
Quality versus Quantity.
I've always prided myself on "No Fix, No Pay" and it has worked for me and it has sometimes made me work to ensure it was Fixed... "The Net Works.... No Excuses" mentality.
So I'm using CCIE Prep as a bit of a yard stick to help me make sure my confidence levels are where they should be.
I've prepped my labs as well as my budget might allow for and am settling down to a 2-year commitment to work the plan... and develop the process.
It's all about architecture and scale...
So that's what my little Data Center is doing....
Meanwhile in the wild... I'm all 100G to the Internet on like 6 redundant links .... kinda hard for my home lab to compete with Trillion Dollar networks...
Hey... We all do what we can for as long as we can...
Darby Weaver
The Cisco Network Architect
www.linkedin.com/in/darbyweaver
Here's what I started with...
I'll update new pics... later with what this little Battle Star looks like after I get everything working together and all cabled up for my little excursion into virtualization, automation, and customization....
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