Interview with Juniper Networks Ambassador Said van de Klundert

Had a chance to sit down with Netherlands-based Fellow Juniper Networks Ambassador Said van de Klundert (JNCIE-SP #2573 and JNCIE-DC #26) at the Juniper NXTWORK 2018 conference in Las Vegas. Said is an incredibly knowledgeable network engineer, content developer and blogger, with a wealth of practical experience in the Service Provider, Data Center and Cloud arenas.

We spent a good portion of our time discussing one of my favorite topics — the JNCIE-DC exam, building out a JNCIE-DC lab environment, and his contribution to iNET ZERO’s JNCIE-DC Lab Preparation Workbook. In addition, we discussed his current work at IBM SoftLayer and his emerging interest around DevOps and automation tools such as Python and SaltStack.

Although I am continuously challenged to pronounce NXTWORK correctly, I really enjoyed this interview and hope you do as well!

Said’s Twitter – https://twitter.com/saidvandeklunde

Said’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/saidvandeklundert/

Preparing for the Juniper Networks Certified Design Associate (JNCDA) Exam

Recently I set my sights on Juniper Networks‘ Design track as I am working with customers on an almost daily basis with regards to Data Center design. As such the Juniper Network Design – Data Center curriculum and associated JNCDS-DC certification looked very appealing. To top that off, according to Certification Magazine, the JNCDA and the JNCDS-DC certifications are two of the top six design related certifications at the moment, as of October 2016.

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An Inside Look at Juniper Networks’ Forthcoming JNCIE-DC Exam

Data Centers and the Cloud are all the rage right now, and Juniper has been at the forefront of the Data Center revolution from the very beginning – early on with their introduction of the QFX and the much maligned QFabric, and more recently with the addition of Virtual Chassis Fabric (VCF), various open architectures for creating IP Clos Fabrics, and even advanced features such as Junos Fusion for the Data Center which collapse and simplify the deployment and management of a large number of Ethernet switches.

[pullquote]The JNCIP-DC is currently rated as the fifth hottest Data Center certification by Tom’s IT Pro, an online resource tracking the demand of various industry certifications.[/pullquote]The folks at the Juniper Networks Technical Certification Program (JNTCP) have not been far behind, creating a Data Center track and releasing a new certification, the Juniper Networks Certified Professional Data Center (JNCIP-DC). I’ve been following the developments within the Data Center track for a while now, and you could imagine my delight when I saw the following a few months back on Juniper’s Certification portal:

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Book Review :: Juniper QFX5100 Series: A Comprehensive Guide to Building Next-Generation Networks

Juniper QFX5100 Series: A Comprehensive Guide to Building Next-Generation Networks
by Douglas Richard Hanks, Jr.
Paperback: 310 pages
Publisher: O’Reilly Media
ISBN-13: 978-1491949573

5stars

Much more than just a book about the QFX5100

This was an easy weekend read, and quite honestly I’d never thought I’d say this about a technical book but I literally could not put the book down. Doug has amassed a wealth of great information, approaching the subject matter from a standpoint of brevity, applying the Goldilocks principle — not too much and not too little — but rather just the right amount of information.

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Juniper Networks Announces New Network Design Training Curriculum and Certification Program

Juniper took a big step forward in rounding out their certification programs by announcing a new Design Training and Certification curriculum, focusing on best practices and techniques that can be used across the spectrum of network architecture and design. Slated to be included in this program are also technologies around software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV).

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Preparation Tips for the JNCIE-SEC Exam

Not a day that goes by since having passed the JNCIE-SEC exam that I don’t receive an inquiry in one form or another regarding how I prepared for the exam.  It seems that there is an incredible amount of interest in this exam, especially from all those die-hard ScreenOS folks that are now converting to Junos.  So instead of constantly repeating myself, I figured I’d just put it up on the blog so others can benefit (leaving me more time to do other things, ‘heh).

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JNCIE Tips from the Field :: Summarization Made Easy

Today we’ll start with a series of articles covering tips and techniques that might be utilized by JNCIE candidates, whether pursuing the JNCIE-SP, JNCIE-ENT, or even the JNCIE-SEC.  The tips and techniques I will be covering might prove to be useful during a lab attempt but could also be used in real-world scenarios to save time and minimize configuration burden in addition to eliminating mistakes that might otherwise be made.  I want everyone to understand that what I am about to write is simply a technique.  I am not divulging any materials or topics which are covered under NDA.

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