Ep 08 – (Dis)Order in the Data Center!

In this episode we meet Micheline. She's a lawyer turned Network Engineer hyper focused on Data Center and Cisco ACI. Hear more about Micheline's journey and her advice for success. 

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Transcript

00:00
This is the Art of Network Engineering podcast.

00:10
this podcast to look for keys, technologies and talented people. We aim to bring you information to expand your skill sets and toolbox and share the stories of fellow network engineers.

00:23
Welcome to the Art of Network Engineering podcast. My name is Aaron Wyther. You could find me all over the internet at AaronEngineered, AaronEngineered.com. And with me as my cohost this evening is the other most glorious cable guy to ever emerge out of someone's basement, and that is Andy Laptev.

00:45
Hi, Eric. You can find him at Andy Lapteff. Very easy to find or permit IP Andy Andy. Got some cool stuff on YouTube and some other cool stuff going around that you might want to check out. And we have a very illustrious guest with us all the way from Seattle, sunny Seattle, Washington. And her name is Micheline Murphy. Micheline, would you like to introduce yourself? Hi, everyone. This is Micheline Murphy.

01:15
So what do you do up there in Seattle, Micheline? What am I doing up here in Seattle? Well, right now I am making my dog Kibble as a consulting engineer with CDW. I build ACI data centers, so design, build, troubleshoot, you know, all of that good stuff. Gotcha. It's actually a lot of fun. I am one of those weird people that actually...

01:44
of geeks out about ACI. I know that's just probably not the thing I should lead with, but. Honesty is the best policy. I know, really? Yeah. We're in the trust tree here, trust me. Everybody that's listening to is like, there's no judgment to be passed because, like I started out with this, is that Annie and I were cable guys. So that's kind of where we came from. So we're definitely not.

02:12
going to judge you for liking ACI by any means. Now, the data is- I'm in good company then. You are. The data center thing, though, I will touch on a little bit. Because that's interesting, because we have yet to interview anybody that's gone. And I wouldn't say they had a trajectory of data center, but has ended up in the data center field. But I like that personally, because it's a different perspective. But you are in a-

02:41
design slash consulting slash architecting role though is that right? Yep. Yep. Okay. So what is that? What does that entail then? Are you do you meet with customers? Do you have like a sales team walk us through that? sure, so Typically by the time a project crosses my desk there's been a team of sales who have you know talked to the customer about a CI as a

03:10
a potential good solution for their data center. It's usually in the kind of the situation where you get, you know, a data center that just needs some refreshing, or you've got a team that's interested in knowing about ACI. You know, they contact one of our sales engineers or, you know, on our sales team. And if those conversations progress well, the next step that...

03:36
that CDW recommends, and I recommend for everybody who's considering ACI is to really sit down and take a look at what your network needs are currently. And so the first step in doing an ACI implementation for CDW is to do what we call planning and design workshop. Even before we start specing out what kind of gear you should be looking at, you know, I think what...

04:04
What we want to do is to take a look at what your needs are currently. You know, what are your traffic flows look like? What's going in and out of your data center? You know, from the data center, where does it go? What kind of treatment do you have to have? You know, does it go through a firewall? Does it go through several firewalls? Do you have load balancers? And, you know, so we sit down and we go through, you know, basically crawl the data center that they've got currently. Um, take a look at what, what they're doing with their traffic.

04:34
And then work with the customer to design an ACI fabric, or maybe sometimes not an ACI fabric, or that best suits their needs. And the reason that we do the planning and design before, the ink is signed on a big grocery bill is just for that reason. So that we can really just kind of go through and say, hey,

05:03
Have you thought about your out of band management, for example? Have you thought about taking this as an opportunity to refresh that because you're kind of deficient in that? Or hey, have you thought about building a dedicated core instead of running everything through ACI? These are the kinds of questions that we flesh out in a planning and design workshop. And what we like to say is that, you know,

05:32
If we spend a little bit of time upfront and we kind of do a deep dive on your own network and what your network is doing right now and what your needs are right now, we can probably save some grief and heartache and you know, some RMA or some, you know, uh, some last minute, uh, try to rush orders and try to make that implementation process smoother, uh, and get, get more efficiently to what, what.

05:56
you know, what a new solution needs to look like for you. The end goal, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. So there's a couple of things that I want to circle back to there that were really good that I think that people would benefit from knowing. But just so everyone has an idea at home, CDW is, how would you describe them? Avar, in your own words.

06:22
Well, you know, CDW started out by a guy selling his computer out of his garage. You know that, right? I did not know that. Yeah, literally started out with the guy with a guy had a computer and he extra computer and he put an ad in the newspaper and sold it and sold it. And he, you know, he made a profit out of this. He said, I think I got something here. He did. Also, I think there's like a, there's an unspoken.

06:49
This is unspoken, but I'm going to speak it now. Like, if you want to get in head and life, apparently you got to start in the garage, right? Start in the garage. Yeah, no kidding. Also, but like, start in the garage, but don't be a car mechanic, God forbid. Right? Like, everything you're not supposed to do in the garage, go do it. Don't do it in the garage. But you know, all of that crazy, like, Brainiac stuff. Yeah, like Microsoft, start us out of a garage. Nirvana, start us out of a garage. Nirvana. Yeah. Wow, those are.

07:19
not definitely two things I would have put in the same sentence, but still. But they make sense. I'll give you that. That's funny. So how did you get started then? I know it wasn't a garage, right? Like CDW. So CDW did get started in a garage. Yep. How long have you been at CDW? I had the misfortune of starting about two weeks before the world shut down with COVID. So I'm like recently there.

07:48
You want to talk about crazy times. Yeah. Wow. That's interesting. We'll have to get your feedback on that too here in a minute. So what have you been doing then, Connie, your whole like start us out at the very beginning with your career. Like what did, what was your first foray into the business? So total disclosure, this is my third career change. So interesting.

08:16
Yeah, so before this, I was a child lawyer. Whoa! Wait, wait, wait, wait. OK, so hold on. So you're like, if the glove does not fit, you must have quit. That was you. That was me. Oh, man. Yeah. So you didn't like it? You know what? I did it for a while. I did criminal practice. So I did it.

08:45
I did it for almost 20 years. Wow. Almost two decades. I did basically everything that you can do in criminal defense at get a public defender for, um, did almost everything. Um, here's the thing about the law is that it, it changes super slow. Um, you know, for people who are looking for the law to, to, to, you know, change.

09:13
to make some like incredible changes that comes along like once in a lifetime, where there'll be like a piece of legislation that's just so, um, you know, so change groundbreaking, you know, but like for day to day stuff, it's kind of like, you know, watching the snails crawl. So I had already been looking to, to try and

09:38
do something different because it was kind of getting to the point where I'm like, I'm doing the same thing over and over and over and over. And you know, it's a... Was it not challenging anymore? You kind of bored? It wears on you after a while. Yeah, yeah. That kind of doing the same thing over and over and still trying to maintain your like passion and your drive and your acuity. So my husband had a conversation.

10:07
uh, with me kind of like right around that time. He's like, well, why don't you think about doing something different? I'm like, well, what do you think I should do? And he said, uh, I think you should do what I do. I think he's good at it. I was going to ask if he was in tech. Yeah, I was too. Oh, he's totally in tech. He's a data center architect. Oh, shocker. I had to ask him, I had to ask him, well, what is it that you do? That's great. Well, you guys are keeping, I'm like.

10:34
Everybody's probably thinking the same thing that I am right now. And that's like, I wonder what the conversations are like around the dinner table. Cause like, you know, Andy and I, we start talking like this in front of our wives. They're, you know, you can see the smoke coming out of their ears and they just think I'm trying to, you know, they're like, okay, dude, I don't care. Like, you know that. So we have to vent to each other, right? Like, like, oh, did you see this? Did you see this? But you know, we're not cool.

11:00
Um, so you guys have found solace in each other. That's super helpful. So did he help you then when you asked him that he helped you get into the field? Yeah. I, so I asked him, you know, where should I start? And, you know, what should I look at? And, uh, you know, he, he kind of had this idea in his brain about, you know, get some like good foundational knowledge and, and then, you know, decide what you want to, once you've got a good foundation. So.

11:28
You know, I kind of took that to heart and I started out with what basically everybody starts out with route switch. And, uh, I did a little design on the way. And then I just, I, and I said, you know what, um, I'm going to do data center. They always need people who understand data center and it's not going to go away even if the cloud becomes dominant because you still got to have a data center for that cloud. So, um, so that's kind of how I got into it. Just kind of.

11:57
kept going and you know, and you guys know, and our listeners know, you know, it could be like six months and bam, there's the next new thing, right? Yeah. It's like the next release, I'm like, you know, all these new features are coming out. Always. So there's always something new and interesting to learn. You're never at the top. You're always, you know, climbing the hill. Yeah, I think a lot of people find that, I think there's like one of two views when it comes to that, right? It's like,

12:27
There's just too much and it's overwhelming. Um, and some people like to kind of just like specialize very, very niche, you know, and they can learn that. Cause a lot, cause being like a generalist is very, it's hard. It's really hard to do. Um, even like sys admin work is very hard. There's just so many things, like so many applications and so many different things to learn. Um, but to be able to find, like you said, it was, you know, he had great, your husband had great advice there, at least I think, which is like, Hey, do the general stuff. And then.

12:57
specify, so at least you had like, you know, kind of a compass to follow like toward the data center stuff. So when you were doing route switch, did you get a CCNA? I got a CCNP route switch. So what do they call that these days? Enterprise? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you skipped over the CCNA? No, I got the CCNA too. Okay. So you got both. Cool. So but you started with the, you started with the NA. Did you then go back?

13:27
If it was any time before the beginning of this year, which I'm assuming it was, then there was the CCNA data center. Did you do any of those? I ended up taking the CCNA data center, the first one. So what I did is I took the route switch and troubleshoot for the CCNP. And then I realized that, oh, I needed to go get the CCNA because it was a prereq.

13:55
So I went back and I'm like, well, I'm going to pick up the CCNA and data center to prereq my route switch. Took the first exam. Wait a minute. And then I found out that you couldn't do that. You passed all three MP exams just out of the gate? No, totally no. Well, hold on. Wait a minute. Hold on, hold on, hold on. You walked out of law. You said, okay, I'm bored with law. And then you just went and got your NP.

14:25
without your NA. This is great. This is hurting my feelings. No, this is great because I failed a lot. I'm going to super up front. I failed a lot. We all need to hear that, but I think it's hilarious because like you went straight- because this is what people do. They go on the internet and they analyze the process so much. So what I mean by that is like they go on the internet, excuse me, and they Google.

14:53
How do I get a CCN or what should I do first? What should I do first? And had you done that like a little bit, you would have found out that you need, but this is why this is so good though, hear me out. So had you done that for like two seconds, you would have found out, hey, guess what? You need a CCNA to get a CCNP. But you were- Totally did not do that. That's so impressive. See, I think this is, to me this is the value of this, which is like,

15:21
All you got to do is just start learning. And you're going to figure it out, and you're going to get it, and it's going to happen. Don't analyze the analysis paralysis, right? Don't analyze the heck out of this until you're like, oh, gosh, it's going to be so long until I get a CCIE or a CCMP or whatever. Just freaking do it, right? That's kind of the advice I'm getting from you. Just go. Just start putting in the time. Go get yourself a lab or get into somebody's lab. Go start breaking shit. Yep. You know?

15:50
Go start fixing it. Yep, yep. I'm with you. We've always been preaching that here too. It's like having the lab and just getting in there and doing this stuff. But a lot of people that listen to this are studying or for one of many different certs out there, usually like CCNA or CCNP. So it's good to hear that it's achievable. So now you're a current CCNP, right? Uh-huh.

16:19
How many years ago was this now? That you got the CCNP. I got the route switch in 2017. Okay. 2018, I got the CCDP. And I passed the written exam for the CCIE data center. Oh wow. Yeah. Sweet. So with those credents, like,

16:48
At that time in 2017, were you working then for a co- You clearly weren't a lawyer at that point, right? No, no. Okay, so what kind of job did you have in tech then? So I didn't do anything for 2017 and 2018. I just, I studied. Okay, so you took some time off then. I took some time off, yeah. And then 2019, I started writing articles for Cisco.

17:17
And surprisingly or not surprisingly, at that point in time, they don't have a ton of subject matter experts in data center. So I was asking a ton of questions about data center. I was super lucky to be put in touch with some of Cisco's really big brains to answer my questions. And then I turned around and kind of,

17:47
paid back the favor and started writing articles for the Cisco Learning Network. I published like eight, I think, articles about ACI. This is crazy. Okay, so let me just make sure that I- Before you ever had a job in networking. Yeah, like I was just- Before I wanted to do networking. Yeah, let's clear that up. Just to be clear. So, you know, kind of the way I look at it is that I'm going to have to make my own opportunities. And so, you know, I saw an opportunity there. I'm like, you know, I'm going to have to make my own opportunities.

18:17
I'm gonna take it. I love that, I love that. It's awesome. I mean, this is cool because it's a very unorthodox path because I think that writing something for Cisco might give someone out there the ultimate imposter syndrome feeling. You know what I mean? Oh God, I get that all the time. Right? Yeah, we all do, right? But imagine you though, because I love pointing this stuff out,

18:47
punching me in the mouth right now, which is you're, you are, you don't have a single job in tech. You've taken CCNA, CCNP, you did the CCIE written for the data center and you were like, dude, I can't find anything. You know, you guys have all these like exam blueprints out here and I can't find any documentation to study for, right? Like, because the CCNA, like the farther you go lower in the stack, the more stuff there is, right? Because there's less and less and less of you as you go up, right? So.

19:16
What happens is by the time you become a CCIE, you're not using books necessarily that are meant for the test blueprint. You're finding books that are white papers and a book on ACI you probably could have used at that time. So to just further, yeah. I was gonna say, especially with data center, if I stayed in Route Switch, there's a lot of materials that have been published about how to study for the IE in Route Switch. Totally. But there's nothing.

19:46
for data center. There's not a single, you know, there, there are no, there's no singular source of, of information or guidance or anything like that. You have to cobble everything together. Yeah. It's exactly what you said. You know, I'm pulling white papers and I'm pulling books and I'm, you know, and I'm, I'm, I'm pulling on strings to see if they're, you know, there are people I can talk to and you know, right. No, I, yeah, it was, it's a, it's a crazy experience.

20:14
So you did the thing where you kind of took it a step further because since you couldn't find any information, what was your first step to go find someone at Cisco to ask? Like, how did you do that? Did you go to Cisco.com and then just go email the website, the web developer, the web admin? Hey, dude, I need some help. I can't find any ACI stuff. Is the link broke or is it just not there? How did you do that? So by that time, I had already been on the Cisco Learning

20:44
years, you know, and I was that, you know, I was, I was that, that chick who show up like every week or so and, you know, hey, can somebody tell me about OSPFL essays? Or, you know, hey, can somebody help me out with, you know, I don't understand this PGP thing or hey, can, you know, can somebody help me out? I'm trying to figure, you know, this out. And then eventually I started being, getting to the point where, you know, when the next person came on and said, hey, can somebody help me out with blah, blah, blah.

21:14
I was the person who could say, well, you know, blah, blah, blah. And, and, and just for me personally, that was a way of giving back to the community that helped push me up. Right. And so, uh, when I started kind of deviating from routes, which into data center, and there was, there was, there was less and less people I would be asking questions and there would be fewer and fewer responses. And, uh, um, one of the community moderators took a pity on me one time.

21:44
and said, hey, I pinged this guy and asked him to answer your question. And just so I still remember it because it's kind of like a starstruck moment. I had been studying VXLan and I had a question about VXLan and they were able to pull in the author of the book that I was reading at the time.

22:11
Whoa. I was like, now you see why I was so starstruck, right? I mean, I'm like, one day I get on my computer and I, you know, I log in, I'm like, oh no, hands of flutter. You know, there was like that little star moment. Yeah, that's so funny. So backing up just a little bit, what other than your husband being in the data center, what really struck you about the data center when you were doing the route switch stuff? Um,

22:41
You know, it was a, so first of all, you know, as a lawyer, I can understand kind of enterprise, right? You know, it's kind of familiar. You know, I need to know how to, to get my, my job to the printer. And, you know, when I plug my, my desktop into the plug into the wall, you know, how does it connect to everything else? You know, enterprise stuff to me seemed like, okay, I can understand that. Uh, data center had new idea. I spent.

23:09
I spent a while kind of flopping around trying to figure out, you know, what I got myself into. You know, I did, I spent some time really just kind of trying to figure out, you know, what do you mean by a server farm? What is that? You know, that sort of thing. There was actually a really good book that I read and by the time I picked it up, it was, it was a little bit.

23:38
old, but it was kind of taken in the vein of, let's follow all these technologies up. Right? So it started out, the author did it really, really well. It started out with like, well, here's a problem in the data center, and this is the first solution to that problem, and then this is the next solution to that problem. And this is the, so like for each chapter,

24:08
chapter on like, you know, spanning tree in the data center or how do you get over, you know, layer two extensions in the data center? And he would start each chapter by defining what the issue was. And then just talking about how each technology grew up to kind of answer the problem. You know, what was the problem with that technology that led to the next technology?

24:36
know, that led to the next technology. And so it was actually, it ended up being a really neat way to get into data center and just kind of understand the history of it. And so, you know, for myself, I don't know for other people, but for myself, it was a really good way to kind of ground myself into technologies. And the crazy thing about data centers is that, you know, you got to know a little bit about so much.

25:05
So you need to know a little bit about storage, and you need to know a little bit about server, and you've got to know your route switch, and you've got to know a little bit of WAN, and you've got to know it. No, totally. It's funny, because even in the enterprise, it's like you could say the same thing. It's like you've got to know a little bit about data center. You're probably going to connect to one. So you also have to know a little bit about WAN. But each one of those has its own magnifying glass that we could peer into.

25:34
Yeah, I love the data center perspective. So when you were right before this job that you just got pre-COVID, right pre-COVID, what was it you were doing before that? I was doing technical writing. I had actually been able to land a contract to technical write. Nice. Yeah. And I was writing kind of, I don't want to say one-offs, but they were kind of.

26:02
uh, short pieces on, you know, introducing different technologies. Oh, okay. Um, you know, so I, and I was, so I was still writing Francisco and I was doing these short pieces, uh, for other companies and, um, you know, I got a call, uh, actually my husband got a call from a recruiter and the recruiter asked if he knew anybody who had some ACI chops. And, you know, and he said,

26:32
And I remember really well this had happened because he had talked to me about it in like October. And I'm like, oh, okay, well, you know, send it my way. And you know, he got busy and da da da da da da da and like November or December rolls around and he's like, did I give you that, the name of that recruiter? And I'm like, what? So, you know, eventually I contact this recruiter. They're looking for somebody, you know, that had ACI skills and.

27:00
Yeah. Now I'm sitting on this body of work that I've published through Cisco that I could point to. Yeah. And it ended up being a way that I could showcase my skills with ACI that ended up being really pretty unconventional, right? It's not like I could say, well, I worked on...

27:23
You know, I built this data center for this customer. So that's what I was going to ask, right? Because everybody, like in the job descriptions and stuff like that, right, they always want a couple of different things. Either they want a degree or they want, you know, they want certifications and 10 years of experience installing data centers. So how did you overcome that? Because I'm sure they asked. Yeah, that is what they asked. And you know, what ended up happening was that I said,

27:53
you know, I had it on my resume, take a look at my body of work. And, you know, the hiring manager went and he read several of my articles. And, you know, we got on the phone and it turned out that the hiring manager manager was a was a not just a manager, but he was also an engineer. So we had a a really lengthy, you know, technical talk. And, you know, it.

28:18
By that point in time, he was convinced that I could have the technical chops to do the job. And here we are. Here we are. 2020. I got a question. I don't know anything about ACI. Micheline and I kind of sort of help manage data centers. Like you said earlier, I'm still flopping around trying to figure out this from that.

28:44
You know, when you're a route switch person, you get you an ass, you build a lab, whatever, and that's how you kind of build up your muscle memory, so to speak. So when you go to that interview, you know what you're talking about. So like, if I wanted to study ACI, I mean, is that something you build in a lab? Did you just study and write so much that you just became an expert? Or were you able to practice? How does one practice whatever this ACI magic is? So I had the fortune of

29:14
at various points of time, being able to get access to an ACI lab. And so, you know, that's I think is pretty critical. You know, Cisco offers several free resources to demo ACI. There's plenty of dClouds that they have that you can get into that are kind of like formalized settings. But they also set up a sandbox, an ACI sandbox for DevOps folks to

29:42
to work on. But you can get into it just the same way as you would get into it as a regular user and you can tool around in it. So I kind of like by hook or by crook kind of weaseled my way into whatever ACI fabric I could at the time. And when I was in there, when I had access, I was in there as much as I could be because I didn't know when the next time I would have.

30:12
you know, have lab access would be. And which really brings me to, you know, a point that I tell people today when they're studying up is that more important than just getting in the lab and doing things in the lab is to keep a really good lab notebook. And so, you know, I was, because I didn't know when the next time I was gonna be able to get in the lab was, I would, I have a lab notebook that's got like, you know, it's got screenshots of this and it's.

30:41
got step by step of, you know, what did I do? And, you know, if I, you know, if I blew it up and that was pretty often, you know, what was the, you know, what did I do wrong? How did I figure out I did it wrong? You know, and what do I need to look for in order to do it right? You know, so I've got this, you know, lab notebook that is probably the most valuable thing I own.

31:06
That's really smart. You know, I've always had an unlimited access to my home lab, let's say, or GNS or whatever it is, but the fact that you had a finite resource, it really made you, you know, almost... It was a precious thing that you had to do, you know, as much as you could while you were in there and then document the heck out of it. And that's something that I should probably even do today that I don't, is document my labbing. I kind of just get in there and get dirty and see it work or not work, and then I'm out, but...

31:34
Sounds like your documentation's awesome. Yeah, no, because I needed to have it. And to this day, I'll still refer to my lab notebook. I'm like, oh, I had that problem. Hold on just a second. Let me go back to my notes and let me figure out what I did. That's funny, because that's like, we always talk about the lab. We'll call this your lab. Being in the ACI sandbox is definitely your lab, whether it was sitting next to you in a home lab or not. But still the same thing. But yours, like the ability to

32:04
talk to those things and even to this day in your own like actual job day to day job, you can refer back to your lab notes, which really when you put in the job description, we're looking for experience. That's what you're looking for. It doesn't necessarily have to be that you've been doing this for 10 years, five years, three years. If you've been doing the right things for three years, that's all you need. And you, it's crazy that you're still drawing from that. Cause I don't, I don't personally.

32:33
I often find myself in a conversation, and then I go, oh crap, what was I doing when I labbed that that one time and that happened? That has yet to happen to me. You're not talking to the right people then. I'm not. But the thing is that you still even, that notebook, it's almost like a failure notebook in a way. In one of our episodes, we had failure plaques, right, based off the amount of times that we failed. We were like, hey, we should get plaques for those. But yours?

33:03
Yours is like a war journal, like a war story, right? So then when you go to war the next time, you're like, aha, this is what's gonna happen. I know that and I can speak to it. So even though somebody can look at you from across the table, like he or she that's on the other end, like the data center, you know, networking folks, and they could say, yeah, I mean, like, why should we trust you though? You know, you've only been doing this for like a year. Why should we? I mean, you've got, it's almost like you jam-packed a bunch of...

33:33
experience into learning at the same time. I tried hard. I mean, I knew so like, you know, I said that I, you know, this is like the third career change I've done. You know, I've done this before. I've done a career change before. I know what it's like to like be on the on that not even on the first rung because that first rung is for the intern. You're not even on the ladder. Yeah. And I knew that the

34:00
first job was going to be a stretch for me. So I really, as, as I went along, I really looked for opportunities to network, to, you know, pardon the pun, you know, connect, connect with people, you know, other people in the industry, you know, and really look for opportunities as a way to showcase, you know, what I, what I kind of felt like I had to offer. And, you know, so it was actually a really

34:29
really conscious on my part to because I knew that I was going to struggle with that first job. And I probably looked for that first job for almost a year. Oh, wow. Sounds like you worked really hard at this, right? This didn't come easy. It's not like because you know, when I grew up in a blue collar family, so like, you know, doctor and lawyer, you know, they're like the creme de la creme. It's like, oh.

34:53
I almost have this impression of you of like, well, she's so smart, she could be a lawyer, this is all probably easy to her. But it sounds like you worked really hard at this, right? I mean, you really had to get in there and- Well, I started from less than zero because one of my first questions was like, well, what do you mean by switch? What's a router? Yeah, no, we've definitely all been there. Yeah. So, the beginning-

35:22
For me was really painful because you know as I mean and the other get a really good point I was accustomed to being You know smart. Yeah, and being considered smart and You know, yeah, that's the satire these look at you, right? Like they like he mentioned the doctor and the lawyer for some reason you guys both get grouped into the same You know two-pillar mountaintop, which is dr. Lawyer and

35:50
Everything else, I mean maybe rocket scientist, right? But everything else is just kind of like, eh, and you, and I'm going to ask a very, very black and white question. So answer to the best of your ability. What's harder, a data center refresh or being a lawyer? It depends.

36:13
I already like that answer. I already like that answer because if you didn't just look at both of us and say, dude, it's obviously lawyer, I'm just trying to climb to the top of that mountain and knock one of those pillars down just for my own benefit, because I'm selfish. I mean, it really depends. I mean, there are data center refreshes that are fairly straightforward. For you. Yeah. OK.

36:43
For, you know, if you've got the, if you've got the, you know, if it's like a layup for you, like your personal layup and you know, it's like, oh yes, I know exactly what you need to do. You know, a data center refresh can be easy, but the data center refresh could also be really challenging. If you're looking at a data center that hasn't been refreshed in a while, it's got, you know, all sorts, it's, it's got a lack of documentation, so you don't know what's going on. Your specialty.

37:11
Yeah. You know, I know, just the person, you know, if it's got some, you know, kind of weird, funky traffic flows that you, that you need to kind of, kind of control for, you know, if the company's got like some funny security or not even just funny, but you know, it's got, got some particular security needs that, you know, they need to do traffic.

37:38
Perhaps not unique, right? These days, perhaps not unique. Yeah, exactly. It all sounds painfully familiar, by the way. Yeah. I mean, it could be super challenging. It's in the same token as, as a lawyer, if I took a case to trial, it could be somebody, it could be some stupid, chippy trial where.

38:07
uh, you know, you're taking it to trial because the prosecutor just, just won't dismiss the case. It's stupid. We're going to take this to trial. You know, we're not pleading guilty to this. I don't care what you say. Yeah. Or and, or it could be, you know, a really heart wrenching case. I mean, it could be somebody, you know, somebody got seriously hurt. Somebody got badly injured. Somebody died. Uh,

38:33
You could be dealing with the family of the victim. It could be very, very, very painful. And so, you know. In what ways do you think that being a lawyer, since that all sounds super stressful. In what ways from being a lawyer, or like what do you think has helped you from being a lawyer in the data center environment? Well, I think that the thing that I take with me

39:03
uh, into the data center are, you know, the skills that I learned as a lawyer, how do you communicate with somebody? How do you, how do you connect with somebody on a human level to understand not just what they're saying, but what they're not saying to you? Um, you know, uh, soft skills you would say, yeah, exactly. You know, how do you deliver a tough message, uh, to somebody?

39:28
in a way that will be the most receptive. I can't just roll in there and tell somebody, your data center sucks. Yeah. You know? Even though you want to, right? Yeah. This one's gonna burn to the ground. I give it five weeks. I can't say that. That might be the inner monologue that's going on, but you have to be able to talk to...

39:54
You have to be able to meet a customer where they're at and talk to them in a language that they understand in order for what you say to be given the weight that it needs to be. So if you're delivering a tough message to a customer, it doesn't matter if that customer is a client and I'm talking to them about the legal trouble that they're in, or I'm talking to a customer and I'm talking to them about their data center, those are the same skills. Yeah. Either way, they're going to have to fork out a ton of money is what you're saying.

40:26
Either way it's going to be painful. How's that? Yes, and the pain is all relative. So it could be in your wallet, it could be physical pain, you just never know. Yeah that's interesting. The whole thing about this is interesting. I mean we always say like, oh man, like everybody we talk to we're like, oh man, you have a really unconventional path. But I think what we've been learning is that this is conventional.

40:55
You know, the more kind of like off the wall it is like, gosh, I didn't expect anybody to ever be a doctor or a lawyer and then switch to, you know, being interested in data centers and helping people, you know, fix data centers and make them more efficient. Um, it's, it's a, it's a different perspective, but it's like, it's the same perspective in that, like none of us have like this predetermined, this is how you get from point A to point B scenario, right? There's like different challenges.

41:25
If I had to guess, I would imagine that since you've switched careers a few times, that it's almost like when people get like multiple CCIEs, right? They're always like, oh, the next ones were always easier because, well, because they always learned how to learn, right? So in your case, it's like you learned how to start over and to be the most efficient when you do, right? Because when you're a kid and you're like 18 and everybody's telling you,

41:52
Oh, you need to go here. You're still kind of blind. You're like, OK, I'll just kind of go this way, I guess. But you had a couple of things working for you. You've done it a couple of times. You're an adult. You have life experience. And that may have given you an upper hand when it came to being able to buckle down and study. So speaking of that, what kind of studying were you putting in? So you took two years off. You're doing writing, all that stuff.

42:21
I consider that working for sure. How much of that were you doing on a daily basis? Was there a mixture of like, I did videos, book, lab? Did you have a structure to it? I took it as this is going to be my job for two years. So, Monday through Friday, I was hitting the books, six, eight hours a day. I am personally biased against videos.

42:50
I have a hard time watching a video and absorbing. So, you know, I end up having to rewatch the video several times. And then the amount of time that I've rewatched that video several times, I could have read something and absorbed it faster. So I think one of the things that people need to learn when they start to study is how do you absorb? So, you know, for me personally, I needed a book.

43:19
I needed printed material to be able to... So you printed your own because there wasn't any. You're just solving for X constantly. Yeah, exactly. Do you think, Micheline, do you think that was from your law training? Because all you guys do is read books, right? Yeah. There are no case videos. That's entirely possible. That's the way that developed. It just so happened I knew that that was the way I studied best and so that's what I looked for.

43:49
And so I would lab in the morning, take a break for lunch, and then read in the afternoon. And I would be like, read and note take, read and note take. And then the next day I would do the same thing over again. So did you have a structure to that though? I mean, you obviously have like a daily structure, but like, did you have pre-planned out what you were going to read for the next day or like?

44:16
you know, I'm going to review the notes from four days ago or. Right. I was like, uh, July seems like a good month to study VX land. I like it. That's kind of the way I did it. I mean, yeah, July seems like a good month for VX land. Let's, you know, let's, let's do that. Let's, you know, let's do OTV in August and, and, uh, let's, you know, Again, analysis paralysis, you know, and you're, you're just like,

44:44
VXLand for July, let's go. Yeah, exactly. And when you got tripped up, you went to the Cisco Learning Network, was that kind of your support system? Yeah, yeah. I ended up meeting virtually a lot of really generous people who took the time to explain things to me that I wasn't able to wrap my brain around. And in some cases,

45:13
the people that helped me were incredibly patient. So, you know, I felt, you know, as I was kind of growing in my knowledge base, I felt very aware that there were a lot of people whom I had never met before face to face in real life, for whom I owed a lot because they had the patience and the kindness and the...

45:42
and the time to sit with me and help me to understand. And, you know, I, so when it got to, when I got to the position where I could turn around and start helping people, people myself, you know, I felt like this is how I pay that forward, you know, because there were a lot of people who helped me out and, and, you know, to this day, I will still like kind of, you know.

46:10
go in and I might not be answering like, you know, questions on a daily basis anymore, but certainly, you know, if any, if ever those guys over at the Cisco Learning Network call on me and ask me if I can help with them with something, you know, I'm going to be there because that was a really valuable resource for me. Yeah. And it's free. We hear that. It is free. And we hear that time and time again, right? Yeah. You know, you have to find your community, find the people that...

46:38
support you and I feel the same way and we've said it before, there's no way I'd be where I am without a ton of help that people really gave and any day, any way I can give back to anybody. I want to because it's just the right thing to do, it feels right. Right. Speaking of Micheline, if you had to put a bow on one of your illustrious articles, what do you think?

47:06
would be the number one prize winning, state fair winning article that you've written for Cisco. That I've written for Cisco? Yeah, like what's your crown, what's the thing you're the most proud of? This is so geeky. No, this is, but it better be. I wrote an article about the flags on an external EPG and what each one of them did. Okay. And it-

47:35
because the documentation for each one of those flags isn't super clear. And in like complete frustration one day, I just like, you know, I had one of those bratty pissy fits. I'm like, damn it, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna just lab this up and do it for myself. So I spent a great deal of time in my lab labbing up to try and test to see what each one of these flags, and there are eight of them. So, uh, so this took a while.

48:03
It just took a while. And then when I was done, I wrote about it. And so, you know, for me, personally, that article represented a lot of personal, personal work that I had invested in not just the writing of it, but in the labbing of it to actually discover what each one of them did. And I, and I, you know, and I wrote it with the purpose of, you know, I hope nobody else has to ever do this again, because you know,

48:29
There's got to be someplace out there where good documentation can live and be appreciated. And so that's what I was shooting for. I told you, totally geeky. No, that was actually a really good answer, because I hope that when a majority of people heard that, that they immediately googled what the heck that was. Because it should be your first instinct as somebody in this industry. What did she just say?

48:58
Before I go and read it, Micheline, I have to ask an embarrassing question. No worries. What's an EPG? So okay, so in ACI, the kind of the foundation of ACI is that instead of having like IP based security or VLAN based security, what it does is it...

49:27
offers the user an EPG, an endpoint group. An endpoint group is just a collection of endpoints. It can be, you can put it together in any way you want it to. So the easiest way for people migrating into ACI is to put their subnets. So like, you know, we've got a VLAN, it's assigned to subnet, you know, 10.1.1.0 slash 24. We're gonna call that one EPG-1.

49:57
All of the endpoints that are in VLAN 10.1.1.0 slash 24 are gonna go to end EPG one. And then from that EPG in ACI, what you do is you configure contracts and a contract is basically a set of rules that governs how that EPG can talk to other EPGs. And the...

50:25
the hallmark of ACI is different to like an XOS based data centers is that it's, it's whitelist versus blacklist. So that if you, if you do not configure a contract, the only kind of traffic you'll get are between endpoints that belong to the same EPG. That makes sense. It's micro segmentation? Yeah, it's micro segmentation. I mean, but you know,

50:55
You know, I am not a huge fan of that terminology because I think it makes something shinier than it is. No. You know. Yeah, there's new stuff out there now that uses similar concepts, right? Like, is it a TPG? Is that the something group? Yeah. The end groups, basically whatever group policy you're creating around that group. So basically, it's like a device-based.

51:22
identity, like role-based access kind of, right? Where I'm in this group and no matter where I am in the enterprise, I can only interact with this other group. That's a great analogy. I mean, it is kind of, it is similar to like role-based access for endpoints. Yeah. Yeah. That's palatable. So, you know, if you've got like a VM that's, you know, I belong to EPG one and EPG one can talk to...

51:50
members of EPG 3 and 5 but not 10. Doesn't matter where you are, you still belong to EPG 1. So I can move from, you know, I can move from server 1 to server 101 through a V-motion because server 1 crashed. Yep. And I still have the same security roles. Exactly. That govern me, after I move.

52:15
Right. So, cause like, I think if anybody's like in the CCNA level, right. They always teach us, I've actually brought this up before. They always teach us like, Hey, uh, the, the subnet you've seen the picture before it's sales, marketing, engineering, right. And they all have different subnets and therefore they never talk to each other because there's a, a, a VLAN AC, like a VACL or like you said, there's IP segmentation with the firewall, but it shouldn't matter if I'm on the.

52:44
Using that same example, if I'm on the third floor with sales, but I'm in engineering, I shouldn't be able to talk to sales. I should be able to talk to the other engineering folks who are on the 10th floor. Exactly. Right. Yeah. That's cool stuff. And that's kind of like the modern analogy, which really just kind of reminds me. I had this job interview one time, and it's the worst question I've ever had on a job interview. And I was interviewing for a networking position.

53:14
And the interviewer asked me to pick on a technology, and he didn't tell me what technology to pick. So I'm like, okay, I'm most familiar with VXLan. He's like, explain it to your grandmother. And I'm like, oh, sh. I don't like to this day, I'm not sure I could explain VXLan to my grandmother. It's hard when you know so much. I mean, obviously.

53:40
I think it goes without saying that you probably know too much since you were the one writing everything. But there's an element to that that once you know so much you're like, okay, well, but wait a minute, they don't know that. So let me explain that too. But they also don't know that. I can't say that because that doesn't make any sense. You don't know what a router is, you know? It's a slippery slope. And even more so if you don't have a grandma and they ask you to explain it to your grandma and then you say, I have no grandma. So there you are.

54:09
My mom schools me on zoom calls. There you go. I Have to teach my parents how to use the DVR So I don't know if that's a good way to go about this interview question So you did how did it go? How did the question go? Oh, I'm sure I bombed that question Like how do I explain the x-lan to my grandma? Yeah, are you kidding me? You're like, okay here Let me start at the beginning grandma

54:37
You have two tin cans and a piece of string. OK. You get them and you pull them real tight and then you can talk into one side and you can listen on the other. Yeah, I don't think I'm even that good. So I think I really bombed that question. But I think the point is well taken, though. I mean, as a customer facing engineer, I think it's important.

55:03
to be able to explain concepts to customers, especially for new technologies that they're asking me about as an expert, to be able to explain technologies that are in a way that's digestible. So that I'm actually getting what I need to say across to them and that they understand it. And I think that is, I might not be the smartest person in the room.

55:30
I frequently, I'm not the smartest person in the room, but at least I can make myself be understood. Right. Yeah, and you don't have to be, right? You don't have to be the smartest person in the room. Sometimes I'd like to be the smartest person in the room. And if you're not, you just sue them. Yeah, my suing days are over. Oh, I bet. So we have one last golden question for you, if you would be so kind.

56:00
as to answer, and I just want your honest opinion. What do you think the data center architect does on a daily basis? Is it more of an art or a science? Wow. You guys don't pull your punches. Nope. We're coming right at you. Yeah. Um, I think that a data center architect, I think the hallmarks of a good one is to be able to listen carefully to their customer.

56:29
to understand what their needs are and be able to draw on whatever sources of knowledge that they have to pull together a solution that works for the customer. You know, I mean, we've all had that, heard that situation where, you know, somebody bought something that was the next shiny thing. And then after they got at home and ripped off the packaging, you're like, why the hell did I buy that? You know?

56:59
Uh, you know, this is not, this is totally not going to work for what I need to do. And, you know, I spent so much money and, you know, now, you know, now what, and then people get angry and people get frustrated and. You know, uh, it happens in data centers too. It, you know, not just at Christmas. Uh, so I think that for a data center architect, you know, for an engineer is to be able to, to, to listen carefully to the co what the customer is saying.

57:28
that, you know, and, and what the customer and to be able to look at what the customer has and what their data center is doing to provide to them a solution that works for them. And I think that's a higher in my personal opinion anyway, that's a higher priority than giving the customer the shiniest new toy. Got it. So I'm going to go with art here. It's Yeah, I would say it's kind of a, it's a bit of an art. I mean, because, you know,

57:57
But you know, that's not saying that there's there isn't science involved. Of course, of course. You have to have the knowledge enough to be able to say, well, you know, this solution will work, but this solution will work better or this solution has this limitation. So you could use this, but we'd have to work around, you know, X, Y, Z. So, yeah. So basically taking the approach of like that book that you read, right, where it's like, hey, here was the original problem. Here are the different tools you can use to fix it.

58:25
you know, maybe their hierarchy, but a lot of times they are specific to situations. So that could be part of your, your troubleshooting repertoire. I guess you would say that's we, we really, really appreciate you taking the time, um, out of, uh, not beer drinking and bike riding like you do up there in Seattle.

58:52
I'm just, I'm just grouping you all into one, um, uh, EPG, um, Northwest EPG, granola, we wear pla and we wear pla and we're pla. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you did make a Nirvana reference earlier, so I did. You did. So if people wanted to find you, uh, Michelin on the internet, how would they go about doing so? I'm at missy fish Murphy on Twitter.

59:21
And I am also on LinkedIn, but you know, LinkedIn is for people looking for jobs. But look for me on Twitter. I am there. I am there every morning posting a quote of the day. So, oh, cool. I love your quote. I love your quotes of the day, by the way. I've always loved quotes and I really appreciate yours. I dig them. You always have like a really good feel good kind of insightful thing that.

59:50
I'm receiving them and loving them, so keep it coming. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. He can get really down on the dumps for no reason. Oh. Oh, ouch. He needs your help. Plus, no, we have to understand the way it goes, though, because by the time, Micheline, you and I wake up, Andy's already halfway through his day, right? Because he's on the East Coast. So he's had all this time to think about.

01:00:17
how much he doesn't want to be doing anything. And then here you come with this fresh motivational quote just to help him out. Do do do do. Yeah. I'm all coffeeed up in the morning. Yeah. He's like, you know. You're like, that is new. Here we go. Somebody give me an energy bar. We all help each other. You taught me PG, which I appreciate. And you inspire me with your daily quote. So thank you. Yeah. And like the Cisco Learning Network, we have a...

01:00:46
We have a Discord channel for those people who are looking to find like-minded folks to lift them up and help them and do all that kind of stuff and ask the questions. But Cisco Learning Network is also one of those places, too, where there's just a ton of people like Michelin out there. You could be the next Michelin, I guess, if you really pick your mind to. There needs to be an ex-Michelin. I won't be around forever. Yeah, there you go. We're looking for the Michelin intern.

01:01:11
Oh, I need an intern. You do, you do. Uh-huh. But no, we really appreciate you coming on and giving us your perspective and telling us all about the data center stuff and letting us peer into your personal life there a little bit. I'm sure someone will find this helpful. Especially maybe you'll spark somebody to get into the data center track and they hadn't thought about it before, which is pretty cool. But if you want everybody that's listening to...

01:01:39
To find out more about Micheline, we'll put her stuff up there in the show notes too, but arto I am at Aaron Engineered and we have at Andy Laptev, permit IP Annie Annie. Find us all on Twitter. We'll retweet those motivational quotes. Thanks for listening out there and until next time, see ya. Bye bye everyone.

01:02:09
Hey everyone, this is AJ. If you like what you heard today, then make sure you subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcatcher. Smash that bell icon to get notified of all of our future episodes. Also, follow us on Twitter and Instagram. We are at art of net eng. That's art of NETENG. You can also find us on the web at art of network engineering.com where we post all of our show notes. You can read blog articles from the co hosts and guests.

01:02:36
and also a lot more news and info from the networking world. Thanks for listening.