I flew down to Florida last night to get back in the car at 5am this morning to drive back to Jersey with my grandmother. After just finishing the first shift driving which was about 4.5 hours, I figured it would be a. good time to write instead of dozing off.

There is a lot of SDN hype right now --- that is obvious. And it is way too early to tell who the big winners will be over the coming years. What we do know though is networking is changing. The skills that employers will want and need will likely be different. That is my opinion anyway. Not just in networking, but in IT.

So as a network pro, where should you focus your time if you want to stay ahead of the game?

It really depends on several factors so you need to make the final decision, but I figured I'd share a few of my focus areas. 

1. Virtualization - via VMware; books, study guides, technical classes, and leverage your peers. All of their products have a 60 day eval that can be used to test and learn. I built my first real home machine and filled her up with lots of memory and CPU. Currently in the process of testing several things with my focus being vShield suite, virtual networking in general, and Cisco virtual network services. This lab will be the foundation for all testing in the future. 

2. Programming - probably the most daunting since I haven't programmed since 1999. I'm leveraging some personal resources and contacts and working to learn Java for practical use. Not looking to be the next Zuck, just want to be able to build prototypes and have conversations with others in the field and actually have a clue with what's going on. Just after a few personal 1:1 tutor sessions, I have my first prototype just about done to automate the building of configs for large deployments. I hope to integrate this with onePK in the future. 

3. Networking - a lot is changing daily, but this is just about keeping up with new industry products and trends like OpenFlow hype, SDN, NFV, and whatever will be coming in the future. 

4. Linux - this is slowly evolving and not a priority yet. I expect this will be a byproduct when learning tools and apps that require Linux. 

5. Management, Orchestration, and Automation - there are many out there, so now it's about getting the high level and see where there is traction. Examples include OpenStack, vCloud Director, CIAC, Cloupia, and even tools such as Chef, Puppet, and CFEngine. 


It's a lot to learn so I'll likely not be an expert in any of these areas, but it's important to know how they are working together. 

By reading this list, you can probably extrapolate where I think things are going, but that's just me, and anything can change that tomorrow. 

Please write below or privately on the contact page and let me know what you're focused on!

Thanks for stopping by and now it's time for a nap. 


Regards,
Jason

Follow me on Twitter: @jedelman8