Cisco Insider Mateusz Frąk is captivated with gaining—and sharing—data.

Cisco’s advocacy neighborhood, Cisco Insider, brings our prospects collectively and offers a manner for them to make highly effective connections, increase their skilled and private networks, and study from prime specialists of their discipline. Certainly one of our objectives with our advocacy neighborhood is to deepen {our relationships} with our prospects. Our Q&A collection permits us to shine a highlight on a few of our most passionate advocates as we study extra about their tales and backgrounds.

We not too long ago sat down with Mateusz Frąk to find out about his journey in community engineering and his ardour for sharing data by way of his weblog.

Welcome, Mateusz! It’s so nice to talk with you in the present day! Let’s kick issues off by studying somewhat bit about who you might be.

Thanks for having me right here! I’m Mateusz, and I work at DSV as a senior community automation engineer. DSV is a worldwide transport and logistics firm. My function includes implementing, managing, troubleshooting, and enhancing our community automation options. These options are crucial in a corporation that gives and manages supply-chain options for hundreds of consumers. I additionally concentrate on figuring out enterprise points, permitting us to develop options that assist community engineers keep away from repetitive duties. We offer numerous instruments that the operations crew makes use of to troubleshoot networks, leading to sooner isolation of widespread community points.

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

My journey started after I was 18 and attending technical college. I used to be uncovered to varied specializations like programming, databases, and networks, and I selected networks as a result of I used to be fascinated by the subject and inquisitive about what actually occurs behind the scenes whenever you load a webpage like Google.

Over time, I progressed from a junior community administrator to a community engineer, and ultimately a community architect. As a community architect, I centered on modernizing an organization’s community by adopting software-defined networks (SDN) for each knowledge heart and campus environments, utilizing Cisco merchandise. Almost three years in the past, I made a decision to pivot into community automation, leveraging the talents I had constructed through the years. This transition allowed me to mix my deep understanding of community engineering with automation, enabling the creation of extra environment friendly and efficient options.

It’s clear that you just’ve had a formidable profession development. How did you become involved with the Cisco Insider Advocates neighborhood, and what has your expertise been like thus far?

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

The best worth of the neighborhood, for my part, is the flexibility to ask questions on to material specialists (SMEs) throughout unique Q&A classes. The responses I’ve obtained from these classes have been extremely insightful, permitting me to enhance my expertise and sort out challenges in my job extra successfully. I’ve additionally linked with quite a few SMEs, tapping into their experience and making use of it to the tasks I’m concerned with at work. Moreover, it’s been a improbable technique to meet new folks from across the globe. I really recognize the facility of neighborhood—it’s what helps me take pleasure in demanding processes like getting ready for the DevNet Skilled certification and dealing on difficult tasks. The DevNet Skilled certification demonstrates experience designing and creating community automation options by way of the whole community lifecycle, from idea, improvement, and deployment to operation and optimization.

Talking of your DevNet Skilled journey, you’ve been documenting your experiences in your weblog at mateuszfrak.com. What motivated you to start out sharing your journey publicly?

I’ve at all times been impressed by professionals who generously share their experiences with others, corresponding to John Capobianco, who revealed Automate Your Community. In his GitHub repository the place the ebook is on the market, he acknowledged, “I imagine in open-source software program. I imagine folks ought to have common entry to Linux. I imagine open-source instruments like Ansible ought to stay open supply.” This impressed me to go a step additional and say, “I imagine folks ought to have common entry to data.”

I’ve additionally been impressed by Conor Murphy, a technical options architect at Cisco, who shares technical blogs. He tackles very difficult eventualities and explains them in a manner that’s straightforward to grasp.

I dedicate hours every single day to finding out new matters and applied sciences. As I profit from the free sources shared by Cisco, John, Conor, and lots of different technical writers, I really feel a powerful need to provide again by sharing the data and expertise I collect every day.

What retains you motivated to proceed writing and sharing your journey?

I hope that my weblog will function a helpful useful resource for somebody who’s beginning their DevNet Skilled journey. My objective is to assist others really feel much less pressured throughout their preparation and the examination itself. I understand how difficult it may be to keep up composure in such high-pressure conditions. I additionally wish to present that this certification is achievable by anybody who’s constant and devoted.

My weblog can be a manner to enhance my technical writing expertise, improve my English, and most significantly, deepen my technical data. Writing content material for a weblog takes time and sometimes requires in depth analysis to create articles that not solely inform, but additionally encourage readers to consider issues from completely different angles. This, in flip, may cause them to options they hadn’t thought-about earlier than.

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

What can readers count on out of your upcoming weblog posts?

My DevNet Skilled journey remains to be ongoing, and I’m planning to doc my examination makes an attempt quickly, together with ideas and techniques for tackling a CCIE-level examination. My objective is to assist others really feel much less overwhelmed when getting ready for such a demanding certification.

Once I began my journey, there weren’t many sources out there that mentioned these features intimately. My first try was troublesome—not as a consequence of lack of expertise, however due to surprising elements that affected my efficiency. Being conscious of those small but vital particulars will help candidates handle their stress ranges higher, particularly in the event that they’ve learn concerning the expertise of somebody who has been by way of it.

Sooner or later, I’ll additionally share insights from my day by day work to provide a practical view of life in IT. Whereas there are a lot of blogs that assist IT professionals get began with particular instruments, I wish to take it a step additional, discussing the challenges professionals face and providing options that transcend the fundamentals.

Lastly, Mateusz, for these impressed by your journey, the place can they comply with alongside and study extra out of your experiences?

In case you’re involved in diving deeper into my journey, notably my ongoing DevNet Skilled certification course of, you may comply with alongside on my weblog at mateuszfrak.com. I recurrently share insights, ideas, and detailed posts concerning the challenges and options I encounter. Whether or not you’re getting ready for certification, or just trying to increase your data in community automation, I hope my weblog could be a helpful useful resource for you.

It’s been a pleasure to talk with you, Mateusz. Thanks once more for becoming a member of us and for being a part of our neighborhood!

Learn extra advocate interviews.
You may take pleasure in this interview with Rob Taylor.

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For our prospects who’ve already joined our Cisco Insider Advocates neighborhood, say howdy to Mateusz should you haven’t met but. And should you’re a Cisco buyer however aren’t a neighborhood member, take into account becoming a member of. You’ll be capable to:

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