Note: This is a translated version of the Norwegian blogs I did for my company Conscia Norge AS, with some edits.
Cisco Live was a dream come true! Little did I know how awesome it would be when I also was (still are) a Cisco Champion. Meeting all my favourite networking people! Yeah, those Twitter folks, writers, engineers, bloggers, Cisco people with huge smiles, cool hats and all. Networking people sure are nice, weird, smart and fun people! I did travel with my job and with our customers, so it was very nice to have a good place to stay and every dinner planned (Thank you Isabel at Conscia Norge), but I had to skip one dinner for sure.
So how did it go, now come the “translating” part. One chapter for each day, let us begin. I know it was 2 or 3 people who asked for my blog to be in English. So here it is. 😊
Warning! It has a bit of a diary feel, and not so technical – first time attendee you know!
Day 1
Plane did go a bit late, so I could not attend the work dinner or the Cisco Champion welcome dinner, but I did read a chapter about 802.11ax on the plane to Barcelona so it wasn’t all that bad. When we landed it was straight to the hotel, finding out that my name was not on the list, so I had to wait to get to my room. Btw! I do not know how many times somebody misspell my name to Kjell instead of Kjetil.
First day it was a lot of technical sessions, and it was one about the new CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure that wanted to join, but I found that out a bit late so my first day was more to look at stuff and meet other Cisco Champions.
What can I say, being a Cisco Champion at Cisco Live is awesome, you get a lot of “special treatment” at Cisco Live so thank you Lauren and Kevin for making my trip so cool! First thing I did was to attend a Cisco Investment Tour with the other Champions and later I was going to attend a podcast called “The Future of Wireless” (Yikes, and we didn’t even mention 6Ghz). The podcast went OK, it was cool to meet and talk to Matt MacPherson (Cisco’s Wireless CTO), Anupam Upadhyaya (Director, Product Management, Cisco) and Pieter-Jan Nefkens. I gave them a Kvikk Lunch after the Podcast (KitKat ripoff) and Pieter-Jan gave me some stroopwafels! Yummy!
Pieter-Jan Nefkens book here! Read it! – Transforming Campus Networks to Intent-Based Networking.
Podcast here: https://soundcloud.com/user-327105904/s7e5-future-of-wireless
Shoes! You need good shoes! The conference centre in Barcelona is big, and you end up walking very long distances. I also heard the word “cloud” a record number of times during my talks with companies at different booths, and of course «single pane of glass». I also did a “walk-in-lab” about configuring a 9800 controller – I wish I did more of these, loved it!
btw! I did not know when they scan my badge I will get calls and emails later, so this swag ain’t free 😂
Later that day I had a nice dinner with my job and customers, but I had to go early because I had en exam the next day.
Day 2:
Next day I woke up to eat a huge breakfast before finding my way to the conference centre so I could get to the Keynote.
you see me? The guy with his hands in the air. 😊
After the Keynote I had another Podcast about Cisco Threat Response, and after that one about EWC (embedded wireless controller in an AP). The last one is a bit funny, since I did not know much about it, but I have configured one lately that is in production. I was not very prepared for the other one, and I felt a bit embarrassed. Luckily that quickly disappeared when one of the attendees is Denise Fishburne – one of the most geekiest funniest coolest networkfish!
Btw! You want to learn BGP? Look at here blog here – “BGP Show and Tell: Beginners”
After the EWC podcast I had to run to take CCNA Wireless before the exam was gone forever, I passed it – here is a post about that 🙂 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-ccna-wireless-now-kjetil-teigen-hansen?articleId=6629786354874228736
Then it was off to a new security session by Joseph Muniz – Malware Forensics – Sandbox and Investigations Techniques med Joseph Muniz. (BRKSEC-2498)
And yeah! He gave me his book (yeah, I asked him to sign it), and I got a selfie! Very awesome, especially since Joseph and Omar is the two people that helped me pass CCNA Cyber Ops! Really fun session!
The next day it was wireless, and more wireless.
Day 3:
Today it was a lot of wireless sessions, and the first two was perfect for me who likes wireless and was pretty new to enterprise wireless (yeah, much have happend in a few months – not so «new» to enterprise wireless anymore)
The first one was Cisco Catalyst RF Innovations, WiFi6 and Beyond – BRKEWN-3010 with Jim Florwick. Very good one, and I must have done something right on Twitter lately since he decided to follow me. Thank you Jim, I will make you proud.
After a 30 minute brake I had to join the next session – Advanced Troubleshooting of Wireless LANs – BRKEWN-3011. This was a popular one.
Next up was a short interview for Learning@Cisco to talk about why I decided to take CCNA Wireless at Cisco Live. The video here.
After doing this video I walked around talking to people and getting more swag! The most useful thing was maybe that Meraki Go AP that I had to take apart.
I was also invited to a VIP-tour at the Networking + Security Innovation Forum. Not allowed to take pictures here, but this was one great tour and I met a bunch of cool people! I do not remember who gave me the DevNet party pass – but thank you!
The DevNet party. What a party, I made a fool of myself dancing disco – this is why I do not drink. 😂 I am very happy that there is no video or pictures of that. 😂 – I have a few selfies from that party, but since so many people (including me) look very drunk I let them stay in my private selfie collection.
DevNet people sure can party! – you see me?
Day 4:
Today was a great day, I was going to meet my all-time favourite wireless guy (Gjermund, you’re my favourite Norwegian wireless guy 😉) – the one and only Jerome Henry! (CWNE #45, CCIE Wireless #24750). He had a very fun session called Optimize your WLANs for Small and Mobile Devices (Phones, Tablets and alike) – BRKEWN-2003. I have spent so many hours, probably around 25 to 40 hours by now listening to this guy talk about wireless. He is also the guy who inspired me to make my own wireless course at my job many years ago.
I had one small problem tough, and that was a planned presentation at my school 5 minutes after his session was done. So, I walked up to him to take a selfie and say a few words, but I really wish I could talk more with him! Next time! It was so cool meeting Jerome!
After the selfie and the small talk, I had to find a quiet place to have our group presentation at school. I decided to trust LTE outside the convention centre and used WebEx to join the group presentation in Kongsberg, Norway to talk about… Wireless of course. Our presentation had a bit of wireless in it. 😊
Next up was a session about the changes in the CCIE lab (actually Cisco had a recent webinar about the CCIE Lab Environment called “CCIE Certification – Deep Dive on the CCIE Lab Environment” it will be posted on Cisco Learning Network soon – https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/s/.
We got a sneak peak at Cisco Live, but that webinar goes way beyond what we learned.
After that interesting session (Yes, I have a plan to one day pass the CCIE Enterprise Wireless) it was over to the ending keynote with the Cisco Champions to get some fine front row seats.
Richard Browning came flying in with his home-made jetpack, and I ended up on CiscoLive TV wearing a spiderman t-shirt pretending to not knowing how to hold that banner. 😂
After the keynote I attended the Cisco Live party, but sad to say my feat was still hurt after all my dancing at the DevNet party. Nilde Rodgers and CHIC and I could not dance, well I had a lot of fun!! 😃
Day 5:
The last day, should I just go to the airport or take one more session about wireless and maybe meet my all-time security guy Omar Santos, who I found out was having a session when my plane was going to leave.
You know, it is a reason why I like this guy so much. If it hadn’t been for him, Jospeh Muniz and Cisco I would probably not pass the Cyber Ops exam (or even knowing about the Cisco Cyber Ops Schoolarship for that matter) I would probably not find the Cyber Ops group, and I would probably not be a Cisco Champion. Because it is in the Cyber Ops Group where I met Timothy Harmon (I think Timothy recommended me to be a Champion), Chelin Sampson and Luke Savage! Ironically it is also in the Cisco Champion Webex teams group where I talked to Håvard who got me a interview at Conscia.
First some Wireless of course Cisco Catalyst 9800 Wireless Controller – BRKEWN-3013 then to see if I could find Omar before I had to take a taxi to the Airport. – What an awesome guy! 😃 We talked for a bit, and I hope meet him again.
Cisco Live couldn’t have had a better ending! It has really been a Cisco geek DREAM this whole trip. Thank you Conscia, thank you Lauren and Kevin from the Cisco Champion group and everyone I met who made the trip so awesome!
Thank you, that’s all.
WirelessIsFun 