By Victor Kuarsingh

Innovation is a term used widely within the tech industry by individual contributors , managers and leaders alike.  However, such a powerful term is used by individuals with varying definitions.  What I am discussing today is not just technical innovation, as important as that is, but any innovation and approaches to foster such innovation with a focus on leaders in organizations.

I use the term leader purposefully versus manager (or boss) as I see these as different in terms of what they provide to a business, and how they are perceived by the organizations that report to them or follow such individuals indirectly.  Leaders help guide and move organizations in a direction driving positive advancement. Good leaders most often foster the willful and heartfelt desire for people to follow them, work hard for them, and help them achieve a collective strategy and desired set of outcomes.

How could one be a good leader? Well, that is a vast subject with many nuances depending on the domain or aspect of leadership one focuses on. In this particular write up, we are focusing on how to support and drive innovation within a business. I understand that with any set of so called rules we can apply to this topic, there will always be exceptions. Great titans like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs hav, or had, unique styles that were successful – for some definition of “success”. However that style of leadership cannot always be replicated as we all don’t often start our own companies and generate ideas which were optimally timed for unique (or forced) global opportunity.

Many leaders, especially if they are promoted or are managing an organization or function within their area of expertise, may try to over influence innovation and strategy with their own ideas. There is no rule that says a leader should not provoke innovation with their own ideas, however, to gain maximum benefit, one should set the stage and environment for innovation that provides access to a wider set of inputs. What does that really mean?

Firstly, don’t be a “know-it’all”. Nothing poisons the innovation punch bowl more than a leader who attempts to be the master of all ideas expecting their organizations to blindly follow and execute on those ideas irrespective of any erroneous conditions that apply to them. A good leader seeks to first understand what ideas are out there in the ether of their organization. Why is this important? Well no one, not a single one of us, knows everything, has experienced everything, and therefore cannot possibly brainstorm every possible idea of merit. Creating an environment where people can bring forth ideas for consideration, and a process seen to evaluate those ideas effectively, is a first step in innovating by inquiry.

Once those ideas are out, there is much more to be done. The most important components a good leader will often bring to the table is experience and information. In many cases a leader has experience. The experience does not need to be measured in in years, and may be of quality experience (albeit short) where that individual has met problems head on, and found ways to solve those problems. This experience has hidden value in that a good leader will have extracted the process of how the problems were solved and hopefully extracted generic questions that led to the successful answers. Asking good questions, challenging the ideas in a healthy way, and finding validity within the base assumptions or outcomes needs to be accomplished. Driving this conversation is an important role the leader needs to support. A leader also has needed information from within and possibly outside the organization. Normally in any business, leaders are senior individuals within an organization and therefore privy to information not exposed or readily available to others inside that organization. Understanding how business information applies to new ideas is of utmost importance in practical innovation. Applying these two inputs to ideas is an essential input a good leader brings to the overall equation. Contrasting new ideas to how they fit into a generic model of solving real problems can be a great way to tease the ideas out. Also, it can often enhance, focus or affirm innovative ideas for further progression. Mapping this all back the the business (information) is a leader’s duty as well. No matter how great an idea is, a good leader needs to make sure that it can be implemented, fits the business model and would benefit the business or team as whole.

I would be remiss if I did not mention an important concept at this point. That is the notion of – “bring your experience, not your implementation”. I have used this concept for the better part of my leadership career with my teams. One large error I have seen many prospective leaders make is trying to directly replicate past success without first understanding and asking questions on what problems need to be solved in new organizations and situations. Understanding “what problems need to be solved” should precede any immediate action to implement a plan derived in other places or situations. As an analogy (racing world), a great mechanic and new team leader immediately building the best F1 racing vehicle, only to find out they are racing on the Rallycross circuit , would be a sad waste of time and resources and would not deliver overall success. The point? Don’t over rotate your frame of reference to specific past experience or implementations and up-level yourself as a leader and see the forest from the trees. That great mechanic could have built a great Rally car had they first inquired as to the needed outcomes and mission.

Finally, once you have the ideas from the organization, and you have applied needed rigor and information to process those ideas, one must attempt to understand them in practice. Depending on the area of the business they apply to, such as technology, process, products, sales; the practice may differ on how to pilot those innovations. It is important to find ways to test out the innovative ideas for practical implementation. Many successful innovations need tweaks or changes to allow them to bring the most value. Willing to apply risk to the equation, in a tolerable and correctable way, would allow the practical enhancement of ideas before deciding to either shelve them or proceeding further.

As a review, leaders help spawn and guide innovation by applying three key concepts. First, foster ideas from the entire team and organization. Second, apply successful problem solving and user wider information sets in processing those ideas for further development. Third is a process to allow for needed risk taking and failing fast to test out innovations. Of course there will be other models that work and may be more expansive. The concepts noted here are applicable on their own or can be combined with other models to help drive innovation by inquiry.

In closing, effective leaders foster ideas from their teams, help their people succeed, encourage them, and are vested in their success. If a good leader can practice that , their reward , as a leader, will be a healthy set of innovative ideas and a thankful team who are also vested in the success of their leader.

By Victor Kuarsingh

The debate rages in North America over the need to use face masks when in public to curb the COVID-19 epidemic and how such ordinances infringe on our freedoms.  This debate is less obvious in Canada versus what we see in the US, but don’t be fooled, many Canadians are passive aggressive in their actions and many don’t wear masks.  I would argue from personal experience, the percentage of patrons in local grocery and hardware stores whom do not wear a mask is about the same in Toronto and Miami (shocking for some to hear). 

Does wearing a mask infringe on our freedom?  Well, it certainly can be argued that it does.  However, we need to look beyond simple arguments in this case.  Although we are “free”, none of us exist independent of others.  We depend on society, and society depends on us each day.  So instead of looking at how masks may infringe on your individual freedom, think about how masks intersect with our society’s ability “to be free” as a whole.  

Taking a step back, we need to first all agree that masks may help.  Sure political leaders wavered on recommending them back in February and March, which was sad because they had the needed data to make the proper recommendation. There is enough data to suggest that its potentially helpful, hence why we have doctors wear masks in operating rooms (to protect the patient, not the doctor). Empirically, asian countries have seen much higher success in controlling the coronavirus epidemic and social conformity to wearing masks and distancing is a key differentiator. Unfortunately, local authorities chose to mis-inform society in an attempt to protect PPE supplies early on in the epidemic versus leveling with those in North America – potentially adding significant pain and suffering as a result of their willful dishonesty.  

Now, back to this topic. We don’t wear masks to just try and protect ourselves, we do it to protect everyone else, and ensure we can all live in a free society and support everyone’s ability to move about safely.   This is a key point missed by many who argue against the notion of masks.  These individuals think about their personal freedom and not about protecting a free society.  By allowing the virus to spread uncontrolled, we lose our ability to protect the most vulnerable in our society which includes mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, cousins, uncles, aunts and so many more.  If we are all not free, then none of us are truly free.

So when you think about your freedom, think about everyone’s freedom.  Think about what so many young men and women gave up in WWI and WWII so our society could be free.  Those brave souls often gave up their lives and did not think just of themselves when they faced evil in the eye – they thought about everyone else – so should we.  The price of freedom is that we all need to sacrifice at times to attain it.

By Victor Kuarsingh

Following the advancement of COVID19 to full pandemic, many countries around the world took a step back and initiated lock-downs along with other strong measures to limit the virus spread.  As expected, the consternation was quickly followed by trepidation by the sudden change in circumstance and this change also had a large impacts on the job market.

Government quickly stepped in enacting measures to limit the immediate financial impact to people and many businesses pushed their workforce to operate from the “comfort” of their own home.  I noted comfort in quotations since for many, working from home is not very comfortable, nor convenient, and often not even possible.  Many people I have heard from, predominantly in western and affluent society, seem to have enjoyed this opportunity.  They have spacious living spaces, ample access to Internet and were able to achieve a new work-life balance while enduring the confines of lock-downs.

However, for many others, the ability to work from home in comfort, or work from home at all, was a luxury that was not available to them.  I have seen many articles noting that this work-from-home model will be “the new normal”, but I fear those sentiments are artifacts of people who enjoy the privilege of having that opportunity.  We often forget that many jobs cannot be executed from the protection of one’s home.  As a point of reference, those working from home need people how must venture out, to do their jobs, such that they can enjoy that level of protection and ease.

Who are these people?  A non-exhaustive list includes those in our food production chain such as farmers, delivery personnel, processing, wholesalers, retail and grocery workers; as well as others including auto mobile workers, transit workers, emergency service personnel, medical workers, home builders, contractors, just to name a few of the vast army of people who support those that can sit on their couch to get in a day’s work.

Why is this important?  Well, in addition to the privilege of working from home, many of these same leaders and workers seem to also be quite vocal on how we need to maintain such isolation (for their own protection), with little consideration to what that means to others.  I am certainly not advocating pushing everyone back to the streets, but an acknowledgment of the high level of impact and disruption our current circumstance has for people at risk or those who must venture out.  We must also not forget how dependent people who can work from home are on those who don’t or can’t work from home.

The term “privilege” is now used extensively based on a number of events that have shocked us in the past weeks , but that same word applies to many of us who seem to believe that what we have today is sustainable or can even be applied widely as a general reference model.  Having the opportunity to sit back and contemplate such things is in fact an opportunity only granted to those of us who are so privileged.  Think about our neighbors, think about those who must work hard to support our level of comfort and safety.  Also think about all those around the world who could not even fathom of operating like we do.

By Victor Kuarsingh

The novel corona virus, or COVID-19 which it is most often referred to by the illness it causes, is on the minds of most people today.  Whether the health of oneself, family, or the economic impacts we see, COVID-19 is certainly a major event in all our lives.   

When reading or watching the news, we see a tremendous amount of negative coverage, and given the impacts on our lives, much of that may be warranted.  However, while respecting the people who are affected and have lost their lives due to COVID-19, we don’t want to forget that we are human, and as we have done so many times before, we will not just survive, but learn to thrive again. 

We see the media and other prominent figures saying that “life will never be the same again”, and although that is true, I think many of them are over exaggerating what this means for us.  Even though this will change many of our lives and practices in the immediate term, we will adapt and learn to live with this contagion, and as we have done in the past, we will learn to prepare ourselves for the next event.

Humanity has survived so much in the way of disease, famine, societal issues and wars, and we have always learned to thrive thereafter.  It may not be instant, but we will overcome and better ourselves. I recall, after 9/11 (which was a horrific and inhumane act with unimaginable impacts), we said the world would never be the same again.  That was true. Air travel was not the same after that, but it certainly did not stop. We learned to improve security screening, we developed ways to pre-check people who traveled often and we continued. So, although “life was not the same”, we thrived thereafter. 

If we go back further, say 100 years, we saw the plight of world war.  We learned a lot of lessons in those conflicts, but after the devastation in World War Two, many realized how evil can creep up and cause so much harm, peril and anguish.  Society is now much more observant (maybe not observant enough) and we are more aware of our past and how to keep watch that we don’t let such events occur again.  

What does that mean? It means that we will survive, thrive, grow, and flourish again.  Yes, many will have needlessly lost their lives while we battle this today, but it will not mean the end of our society which has been anchored on our ability to adapt.  Sure, maybe we will need new screening at airports to detect signs of illness and perhaps we will no longer be tolerant of folks traveling when they are sick (we should have done this a long time ago anyway).   We may also learn to react faster, not allowing political correctness to cause us to not put in measures quickly which could limit the spread of a contagion like COVID-19 no matter where in the world it starts from.  We will likely keep many good habits in place such as our washing hands frequently, covering our mouths when we sneeze/cough, and limit our exposure to others if we are ill.   

What else?  We may also remind our society what anti-vaccine positions may cause us and rethink what it means to contribute to the common good by ensuring we maintain herd immunity to known diseases (which were starting to see a resurgence).   We vaccinate, not to help ourselves, but to help those around us as well (many of whom are much more susceptible to illness). In that vein as well, we also can empathize more with areas in the world who may not benefit from the wealth of the west, and give more freely understanding what devastation mass illness can cause.  

We will adapt to enjoy each other’s company again and travel the world.  We will enjoy concerts, dinners, park outings, village gatherings, religions fellowship, office banter and hugs.  It may take some time, we will likely need to make some adjustments, but we will get there. But for now, please consider what we need to do, to make sure we get there – don’t just think of yourself, this is not about you, you are not the exception, this is about all of us together!

Pilot’s Method to Managing a Team by Victor Kuarsingh

There is well known phrase used by many pilots which reads “aviate, navigate and communicate”.  Although managing a team is not directly comparable to flying a plane, I think there are many fundamental similarities which can help guide leaders in their journey when managing teams.  The method described here is really important to leaders in middle management who have moderate to large size teams, however can apply to anyone in leadership.  You, as a leader in such a situation, need to make sure you are managing both up, and down to get the job done.  Leadership mis-steps can create hardships for your team, and one may lose confidence from their senior leadership, the board, or shareholders if one cannot manage their area correctly.

First, each leader must realize that you don’t do all the real work, you are just responsible and in command of the team, as the captain is on the plane.  Many mechanical and computer functions are doing real work on the plane, and your teams are doing all the real work for you.   You are responsible to your team to help guide things toward the destination and make needed adjustments along the way.

To Aviate first, to me, is to make sure all the right things are happening at the fundamental layer of the team.  I know many leaders are well inclined to provide future direction, communicate things up to senior leadership, but without a functioning team, these needed high level duties can be for not.   Also, as in the case with a plane, should you run into trouble, you need to work, often directly, to take command and ensure you are part of the solution and keep the plane (or team in this case), in the air.   This is often the hardest thing to get right, and without fundamental control of the situation, all your other efforts are useless as you crash.  Good leaders need to be present, attentive and reactive as needed to help their teams along the way.

Once you have the team running well, all the right delegations in place, and you know you are safe, one can then focus on navigation.  Teams need to be accomplishing goals, running roadmaps, producing things and driving output.   With aviation in place, you can safely focus on making sure this is being done correctly.  It is important to set direction, adjust that direction, and chart courses around dangers as needed.  It is not always easy to do this well, and you may fly into difficult situations now and then (just like a pilot may unwillingly or unavoidably run into storms).   Communicating to your teams is a key part of this step and helps your team perform.  Remember to always be clear and upfront with your team on what you are thinking, your team members (co-pilots) can’t read your mind.

With all the fundamental team operations going well, and with all the right course and headings in place, a leader can focus on his next job – the wider communication.  I don’t mean standard team level communication and reporting, that’s often part of aviation, but I mean the upward communication to senior leadership.  This glorious task, often fraught with fear (if not going well) or satisfaction (when things are going well),  is defiantly needed.  Many call this “managing up”.   It is important to do this since you don’t want your leadership to only be exposed to the “bad stuff” since problems normally make it to the top naturally.  You want your leadership to also know when things are going well, and how your team is moving forward, solving problems and helping the business.    But be careful, if you spend too much time here, and not on the aviate and navigate items, you are likely to be left with challenges which may or may not be recoverable.  Don’t be so busy telling everyone your story, that you wind up hitting the ground or running into bad weather you can’t recover from.

Bad Leadership is easy, good leadership is hard.  Remember, you are not just “in command” of the team, you are fundamentally responsible for them and the output just like a pilot is responsible for the the safety of  the plane and the passengers.  Be present, be thoughtful, and help them to succeed.

 

By: Victor Kuarsingh

Whats going on with this Cloud thing? What’s all the hype? To put it simply, it makes things easier for people, business and providers. They can focus on what they do best, and the cloud provider can take care of making all the infrastructure work. Using someone else’s infrastructure is not a new concept, in fact I had a friend once tell me not so long ago – ” we use to call this hosting “. That said, today, it’s made easy and accessible for the user, which is what has led to the Cloud’s success.

So why am I talking about this? Well there is so much innovation in this sector today, and it’s allowing developers, engineers and leaders to rethink how we build, scale and manage large and diverse systems. This is what’s so exciting for me and those around me. Where there is a problem to solve, there is an opportunity to make something that did not exist before.

When I talk to network engineers, software developers and others, I see the excitement when these folks realize the vast potential they have to help us solve new and complex problems. It’s invigorating to see this excitement and what all these talented folks produce. I can’t say enough about the opportunity to be exposed to the challenges faced by cloud providers. It’s this need that drives so much innovation, investment and productivity. My advice to anyone looking to make a mark in the 21st century – be part of this elite team which is forging our path into how we offer computing to the masses and revolutionize how businesses run their applications.

Rethinking the Network Engineer – by Victor Kuarsingh

As a passionate network technologist and leader, I continuously think about what it takes to build networks for today and for the future. I started my career at a time when networks were either Enterprise focused – hidden and secured from this new thing called the Internet – or they were provider networks directly attached or connected to the Internet.  Enterprise networks would be enabled with, if Internet access was required, firewalls that provided flow based security and network address translation (NAT) capabilities.

Although both types of networks may have been connected to the Internet, enterprise networks and provider networks were built (often) very differently. Historically, the Internet was something that was primarily supporting early content sharing, email, news, and basic business functions towards the modern Internet.  Today, at least in western culture, the Internet as we now know it is a foundational part of how people work, shop, socialize, research, learn, and generally interact.

In this post, I dive into the evolution of capabilities needed to be a successful Network Engineer.  I concentrate more on the provider network side of the equation, however, engineers from the enterprise side can benefit from this discussion.

In the past

Over the years, “the network engineer” was a vital part of how the Internet came be be when thinking of the practical deployment of early networks.  Many people contributed to facilitating the growth of the Internet, however Network Engineers working in provider networks, transit provider networks, content provider networks, at hosting providers, Internet Exchange points (IXPs) were instrumental in building the infrastructure that allowed packets to flow.

In the early days, I know of many network engineers who “just fell into it”, picking things up and learning as they went along. Some early Network Engineers may not have had a deep background in computing, Internet protocols, communications, or programming, but were able to figure out how things worked and supplied tremendous value to building our early networks.  Determination and a desire to learn was a major advantage to those early entrants into the Networking Engineering discipline.

We had also witnessed the rise of the vendor sponsored learning and credential assignment, as the industry sought promote and financially reward people who were inclined to study and learn pre-defined skills for network design and operations. The vendors driving these programs helped many to join the ever expanding network engineering and network management workforce.

Networks in the early days were often much simpler than they are today and it was quite possible to have a person (or persons) who knew the details of how an entire network system worked.  These persons could help build, provision and troubleshoot entire networks using early user driven methods using the infamous CLI.  However, life has changed, and so has the demands on modern and future Network Engineers.

The stacking of network knowledge

I have been known by those around me to refer to a hierarchy of networking knowledge.  I call it the ‘what‘, ‘how‘ and ‘why‘. Seems quite simple, but there is more than just nuance to what these thresholds of capability are, and how that drives what I think the demands for networking engineering are becoming.

I call the ‘what‘ of networking the skills to basically build syntax and get networks up and running, along with fixing them when broken.  The ‘what’ of the trade is often covered by a vast majority of engineers and operators who know the basics and can operate well on a command line (syntax gurus).  They are familiar with networking protocols, the basics of how protocols interact with the network and can rangle the console and have a firm command of networking environment syntax.  Many network engineers, and most network operators I have known in my past fall into this first threshold. Let’s call this level one capabilities.  If we were talking about something like OSPF, the ‘what’ person would know that it’s an IGP (Interior Gateway Protocol), know that there are areas, how to configure them, how the areas work, and the various route types and functions of OSPF.  This is all you need for level one – the ‘what’ person.

I call the ‘how‘ the next level of skills around networking.  It goes beyond knowing how to configure things and is the skill and knowledge of how things really work at their more fundamental layer.  If focusing on our OSPF example, the ‘how’ person will know how OSPF works underneath.  The ‘how‘  person understands the link state database, how Dijkstra works, shortest path trees, and often how vendors have implemented the protocol into their platforms.  Beyond this, the ‘how‘ person will be able to drive network designs and understand how to best utilize and/or choose options within given functional models. This type of of person, with this ‘how‘ knowledge, comprises most of the remaining network engineer and network operations personnel.  A person with ‘how‘ knowledge could design networks with enough scope and guidance, and was often a master troubleshooter.  Within the emerging networks, I think this level two state of knowledge is the minimum level for the future network engineer (more on that later).

The ‘why’ person is far more advanced than the level one (what) and level two (how) person.  This individual understands, not just how something works in detail, but also knows why things are they way they are.  These individuals often can contribute in much deeper ways including working on future standards, modifying protocols, building new ones, understanding how to solve business issues with technology among many others deeper skills.  A ‘why’ person will be able to also look beyond today’s immediate demands, and take into account future potential demands, and assess intersectionality with other areas such as applications and services that operate in cooperation with the network.  At this level, the person is someone who has, and will solve more complex issues and help with any paradigm shifts in how we build and operate networks. These ‘why‘ persons are the elite and will be needed as we continue to move towards the future.

If one were only a ‘how’ person, they may lack the insight to really advance environments to places they need to go for the future.  If one were only a ‘what‘ person, many of the skills needed to design modern and future networks are (or soon will be) beyond their capabilities.  For those in the ‘what‘ roles today, we are seeing automation, monitoring, tooling and computational analysis replace functions managed by the ‘what‘ persons.

Modern and emerging networks

A great deal has changed since those early days of the Internet and the networks that were strung together to make it viable. We have seen an abundance of technologies introduced to help improve network function, visualize paths, stack services and build robustness into the system. Beyond that, the complexity of the networks that power the Internet have increased in many places – notably in the provider environment where previously independent services are now collapsed onto common networks. Networks got bigger, more complex and we begun to depend on them to a much greater extent and for a wider set of both business and personal needs.  Being offline 20+ years ago was a nuisance, however, offline in today’s world can crumble a business and render many workers immediately unproductive.

Today, some networks are incredibly big, so big that if you attempted to build (configure) them by hand, it would take months or even years to complete by applying traditional techniques. Other networks are highly complex as they stack many logical networks onto a single physical network with varying logical topologies, forwarding rules, service requirements and expectations.

In Service Provider networks one may see Internet services, access services, Layer-2 services, private Layer-3 services, video services, voice services and more – all live on a common backbone that needs to scale and function at a level of quality not demanded 15-20 years ago. All of this, while trying to build, expand and repair these networks at a faster rate. Cloud networks are no easier and have a host of other unique challenges given their dense scale. Here we see massively scaled data centers that need to accommodate a significant amount of hosted customers with a wide array of demands, workloads and a continuous need to drive more functionality into the service stack.  No only is it hard to design and deploy in these networks, but operational demands are much higher.

It may be true that some of the best network engineers have historically had the capacity to ‘see’ an entire complex and/or massively scaled network system in an abstract way; however, it’s had become increasingly harder to effectively troubleshoot and/or analyze such networks by hand (e.g. via the CLI) – even for the top/elite engineers. To keep up with the demands of new builds and to ensure systems are fixed within a reasonable amount of time and to verify overall service health – network automation, telemetry and tooled systems analysis is needed.

Modern and future needs

What does it take to build and manage a modern network? First off, it takes a different way of thinking (remember the ‘how‘ and ‘why’ persons). When one builds a network through legacy techniques, you build and configure it in a way that is ‘CLI centric‘ as I call it. The implementor or administrator types commands into a console window, and if you have a bit of extra skill, you can script the manual lines of syntax for faster execution.  You may also have a few drawings of what you are building, and it takes a long time to get the system configured since many of the steps are manual. Legacy configuration is often structured in a way to make it easier to apply the configuration and to later troubleshoot the system through direct human interaction.  One may desire, in a legacy world, a minimalist configuration to help the administrator when viewing it later.  This style of legacy optimization allows one to follow the more complex parts of the syntactical configuration when looking at it (e.g. such as routing policy, filtering rules and so forth).

Unfortunately, this manual style of interaction will eventually fully lose its’ viability. If you have 1000s of devices to configure in less time than you had before (to configure say 10s of devices), logging in to apply configuration no longer makes technical or business sense. Outside of just the deployment time consideration; in operational uses cases one may need to apply changes widely to 100s or 1000s of devices in a very short period of time.  This need demonstrates that it’s not advisable or even probable to realize success via the CLI in any reasonable timeframe. Above that, with so many data points to analyze during complex outages, it may not be humanly possible to assess all the data in a timeframe that meeds the expectations of the business and/or customer.  So what do we need? We need automation, telemetry, tooling and offline analysis.

When troubleshooting, especially highly complex systems, one needs to verify many aspects of the performance of the system quickly and to verify many components of the network state. Attempting to conduct that using a CLI or console is not effective, and I would counter – downright impossible to do effectively and to any level of quality. Tools are needed to export relevant data to be viewed externally which can often graphically show the state of network conditions and report on the network state parameters. However, even offline verification with these tooled capabilities is beginning to be untenable in a some places – moving towards automated verification, analysis and decision making.

What is the future network engineer?

The type of person needed to design, build and troubleshoot such networks is changing. This change will take a few years since many in our industry today need to retool their skill set and others need to be fundamentally re-educated.  Out of pure necessity, a rotation of new blood will roll into the industry and many current engineers may choose to find different roles inside their organizations. So what do we need?

Software and logic is on the rise as a foundational element for networks. This has become the primary tool to accomplish many of the needs we have in modern networks. It’s needed to build automation systems, deployment tools, analysis tools, verification tools and more. Understanding software, how it’s built, how to use it for networking purposes is essential.  We need design systems with the intention that software and logic is used to deploy, run and troubleshoot elements.  This will be essential for success and competitiveness in the future.

Not all Network Engineers need to be developers, but software structure, capabilities and ensuring logic can be applied in places where human interaction and decision making once was, is a critical part of the future network engineer’s skill set. Automation, for example, changes the way one even designs a network. The application of automation changes basic design patterns, driving designers to no longer anchor syntax and design structure to prioritize visual simplicity into the system. For example, a device configuration should be constructed, such that software logic can be used to build, adjust and remove components of the structure. Digging in further, it no longer matters if a complex policy fits into only a couple hundred lines of syntax (so one can read it), but it needs to be built to support offline analysis to identify validity and/or be adjusted. This is a major shift from years ago.  We don’t build it to be read in realtime; we build it to be parsed by code and apply quality to the equation during templetization and design cycles.

Unfortunately, many of these skills are not just picked up “on the fly”, and need to be taught through education re-training with the right aptitude. Given these skills are different than those needed previously, the same aptitude needed years ago by network engineers who came into the industry, may no longer match what is needed now. Don’t get me wrong, I know many incredibly intelligent and capable network engineers who will do just fine as they already have what it takes to move forward.  That said there is a large number of network focused folks whom I think will need to retool and re-educate themselves for the future. I am truly concerned that the skills and capabilities which were once lucrative (in networking) based on the previous “on-the-job” training will soon fade into commodity roles and/or be replaced by software and automation.

I am very hesitant to provide specific recommendations for large swaths of people, however, if I had to make note of key skills sets that all Network Engineers should seek to gain (should they not already have them), It would include those in the following paragraphs.

First, software structure and ability to code. Understanding how software is built and can be used for the purposes of networking is very important. It’s more important for the designer, but I would also say for the operator as well. Many suggest that network engineers learn ‘python’ as an example – I agree.  There are many options for high level programming languages, however, if you need to learn one high level language, it’s likely the best one right now. I would extend that by suggesting folks take courses (class, offline, etc) on programming and software structure. At least the fundamentals of this area of expertise will be valuable for all Network Engineers. The side benefit of this is those engineers can also better understand how network software (on common vendor platforms) works as well depending on how much they study and how deep they go. Far too often, I find engineers who cannot grasp why certain condition exist in production, many times a lack of understanding of how software functions is the culprit. This lack of understanding also drives those same engineers to not understand what it takes to change software, but I digress.

Second, math for the designer roles. I know folks shy away from math many times, however analysis, modeling and building complex systems means you need to apply mathematical models to a problem. Guessing or eye balling the problem is not a good way of approaching complex problems where specific solutions and efficiently may be needed.

Third, engineering skills and understanding of hardware.  I would say this area has always been needed, however, it is becoming a serious need and area for improvement.  For years, the use of big metal vendor appliances, firewalls and routers have allowed many network engineers to get away with not really understanding the depth of how hardware and software interact, and how these then impact networks.  Many big metal routers hid the intricacies and complexity of what it takes to move traffic effectively and dealt with complexity inside these platforms – at a high cost.  However, with many modern network designs, and the increased use of lower cost merchant based platforms, the need to understand hardware is especially important as we replace big metal with fabrics and more unique network designs.  Constrained capabilities on merchant based platforms means the designers need to really understand the details how how packet processing works at its most fundamental layer.  Additionally, those modern designs blow out the topologies and functions into discrete elements, once hidden by high cost big metal.  Designing in this new world means you need to know hardware, you need to know how functions are implemented in code –  if you want to be a successful Network Engineer.

Forth, drive. I think this will be as important as the first two. In any changing environment, a desire to be successful and lean what is needed at all costs is an attribute that is needed. I have seen too many Network Engineers fight change, only to eventually lose the battle and left in difficult positions. One need not look far into the past to find examples of people who fought technology changes – just to watch it change anyway.  All you can do to fight change is delay it. Necessity and economics will dictate things must change. So you may as well embrace change now and get on with it. Hiding information from peers, ignorance, or manipulating organizations to prevent progress and ‘insistence that changes to designs/deployments brings uncertainty‘ will only end up in failure at some point – at which point you are now behind all your peers and are forced to catch up.

Networks have been, and continue to get more complex. Infrastructure is also essential to how we run as a society (education, business, government and personal lives).  The skills needed to design and automate these networks are changing. If one wants to keep working in this industry 10 years from now in a role that is fulfilling, it’s time for network engineers to think deeply on who they want to be, what skills are needed to contribute to our future.

Working with Andrew Sullivan, by Victor Kuarsingh

A colleague and acquaintance of mine, Andrew Sullivan, has started a new role as the CEO of the Internet Society (ISOC) this month. Given Andrew’s background, drive and all around nature, I am sure he will both have fun, and help elevate the organization for the upcoming challenges. He wrote an excellent blog post for his arrival here – Andrew’s Incoming ISOC Blog Post

What I wanted to share here was my personal experiences working with Andrew, and how I think these interactions demonstrate Andrew’s ability to uplift and transform an organization such as the Internet Society.

I met Andrew back in 2009 while he was a co-chair of the DNS extensions group. At that time, I was very new to the IETF and had fewer connections. Andrew was very inviting, honest (brutally), and did not shy away from letting me know the state of things (with DNS and across the IETF). We were able to have a much fuller chat the next summer at the Maastricht IETF in July of 2010. It was there I realized, not just how aware Andrew was of technology, but was able to share so many nuances of intersecting ideas that really opened my eyes to seeing things differently. It was not just the “thing” we were talking about, but the vast breath by which he discussed the topic that was truly unique. As always, to him, the technology was just one component to why and how things work or evolve.

We kept in touch, seeing each other at times with a great culmination in the fall of 2013 when I was fortunate enough to join Dyn Inc (as DNS company now part of Oracle Cloud) to help rebuild their Network Infrastructure. Andrew did Interview me, and in traditional Andrew fashion, let me know what I was about to dive into. History shows that I did join, and over the course of the next few years, I was able to interact and observe Andrew in action many times. Each encounter was unique, eye opening and satisfying. The objectivity Andrew brings to each conversation helped me and the greater team see things in ways we just could not without him. He would often say something that sounded either preposterous or “off in left field” which made us silent – just to come back a few minutes later with the usual “I can totally see your point”. Many times, his direct and tactful approach also cut through a difficult topic and helped the team gear up for what we needed to do. I cherished each encounter, and am so happy I was able to experience his brand of thinking through problems.

Now that Andrew has moved on to the Internet Society, I will miss him as a work colleague. However, I know that his path is to share his level of intellect and thought provoking analysis with a much wider audience. Although we may not always agree (my thoughts on Net Neutrality for future blog post) , I think he is what’s needed to forge a path in a time where there is so much optimism and concern with the Internet. Andrew’s ability to see issues from so many perspectives is needed to help him and the whole organization deal with complex issues that cross the boundaries of technology, ideals, politics, lobbyists, corporatism among others.

The Internet is not just a “thing”, but has become a key component of how many live their lives – and I trust Andrew’s passion for it will help continue to guide it’s evolution towards a place that’s good for all people.

I wanted to find a place to comment and provide my thoughts on the many topics and opinions I have rolling round my head.  These topics will often be connected to things that are going on around us, in the media, or of particular interest.  In addition to that, I also wanted a place to describe travel and other personal experiences which over time, folks may enjoy reading, or perhaps it will just serve as a place for a future memoirs book I can assemble later on.

Areas I will want to focus on, as diverse as they may seem, include technology, the tech industry, business, economics, science, geography, history, humanity and at times, a mash up of a variety of those topics together.  I will try and stay away from politics since that often attracts negative attention with little room to convince anyone of an alternate opinion anyway (regardless of logic I can use and reasoning I can apply).

I see so much we can talk about and the endless horizon of toipcs is depicted in an abstract way with the picture below.

(Picture) Photo I took in Sintra (Portugal) on top of a mountain at The Castle of the Moors in August 2018 (built in the 8th / 9th Century).