Cisco Insider Mateusz Frąk is enthusiastic about gaining—and sharing—data.

Cisco’s advocacy neighborhood, Cisco Insider, brings our clients collectively and offers a method for them to make highly effective connections, increase their skilled and private networks, and study from high specialists 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 study extra about their tales and backgrounds.

We just lately sat down with Mateusz Frąk to study his journey in community engineering and his ardour for sharing data by means of his weblog.

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Welcome, Mateusz! It’s so nice to speak with you right this moment! Let’s kick issues off by studying a little bit bit about who you might be.

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 vital in a company that gives and manages supply-chain options for 1000’s of consumers. I additionally give attention to 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 sooner isolation of frequent community points.

Are you able to inform us about your journey into community engineering? What acquired you began?

My journey started after 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 in what actually occurs behind the scenes once you load a webpage like Google.

Through the years, I progressed from a junior community administrator to a community engineer, and finally a community architect. As a community architect, I centered on modernizing an organization’s community by adopting software-defined networks (SDN) for each information middle and campus environments, utilizing Cisco merchandise. Almost three years in the past, I made a decision to pivot into community automation, leveraging the talents 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 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 to date?

I used to be trying to turn into extra linked with a neighborhood of pros, so throughout Cisco Reside 2024 in Amsterdam, I visited the Insider Advocates sales space. After talking with the neighborhood managers, I made a decision to affix the neighborhood.

The best worth of the neighborhood, for my part, is the flexibility to ask questions on to material specialists (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 initiatives I’m concerned with at work. Moreover, it’s been a incredible method to meet new individuals from across the globe. I actually respect the ability of neighborhood—it’s what helps me get pleasure from demanding processes like making ready for the DevNet Professional certification and dealing on difficult initiatives. The DevNet Professional certification demonstrates experience designing and creating community automation options by means of all the community lifecycle, from idea, growth, and deployment to operation and optimization.

Talking of your DevNet Professional 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, equivalent to John Capobianco, who revealed Automate Your Community. In his GitHub repository the place the guide is on the market, 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 situations and explains them in a method that’s simple to grasp.

I dedicate hours on daily basis to learning new matters and applied sciences. As I profit from the free sources shared by Cisco, John, Conor, and plenty of different technical writers, I really feel a robust want 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 invaluable useful resource for somebody who’s beginning their DevNet Professional journey. My purpose 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 also be a method to enhance my technical writing abilities, improve my English, and most significantly, deepen my technical data. Writing content material for a weblog takes time and infrequently requires intensive analysis to create articles that not solely inform, but additionally encourage readers to consider issues from completely different angles. This, in flip, would possibly cause them to options they hadn’t thought of earlier than.

I even have a dream of writing a technical guide sometime. I imagine that the method of writing for my weblog will assist me develop the talents I have to make that dream a actuality.

What can readers anticipate out of your upcoming weblog posts?

My DevNet Professional journey continues 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 sources obtainable that mentioned these elements intimately. My first try was troublesome—not because of lack of expertise, however due to sudden elements that affected my efficiency. Being conscious of those small but vital 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 day by day work to provide a sensible view of life in IT. Whereas there are numerous 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 comply with alongside and study extra out of your experiences?

Should you’re serious about diving deeper into my journey, significantly my ongoing DevNet Professional certification course of, you may comply with alongside on my weblog at mateuszfrak.com. I frequently 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 increase your data in community automation, I hope my weblog is usually a invaluable useful resource for you.

It’s been a pleasure to speak 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 get pleasure from this interview with Rob Taylor.

 

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For our clients who’ve already joined our Cisco Insider Advocates neighborhood, say hiya to Mateusz in the event you haven’t met but. And in the event you’re a Cisco buyer however aren’t a neighborhood member, think about becoming a member of. You’ll be capable of:

• Join with friends in a gamified, on-line neighborhood
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• Develop your skilled and private model
• Amplify your organization’s success story with Cisco know-how

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