I had a wonderful opportunity to interview Russ White with Cisco. Many of my readers will already be familiar with Russ. He is a legend and it shows when you read about his background and also his recommendations. I’m sure you’ll be able to pick a few key points out of the interview that you can directly apply today. Unfortunately Russ is a very busy man, so we had to do this one via email, but here is the transcript of our correspondence:

The Russ White Interview

Brandon: Can you tell the readers a little about your background?

Russ: After completing part of my college education, I went into the USAF as a meteorological/navigational aids technician working on RADAR and other airfield equipment. While in the USAF, I worked on hardware encryption systems, telephone switching equipment, the deployment of a fiber backbone across McGuire AFB, and several networking systems –such as Banyan Vines, Netware 4, and a Xerox Star system. After leaving the USAF, I went through several jobs, from value added resellers to managing servers and networks at a large corporation, until I moved to the RTP area in 1996, and took a job at Cisco in the TAC.

After 18 months on the RP Team in the TAC, I moved to the Global Escalation Team, then into the IOS/XR team, where I worked with customers and did a little coding. After this, I moved into IOS Deployment, which went through several reorganizations to become the current IOS Architecture Team.

My background, then, is very diverse, including music and art, electronic engineering, RF systems, telephone equipment, coding in C and Java, network server management, general IT support (including desktop support), network design, and a few other things here and there you might not expect. I’ve shot handguns competitively along the way, written ten books, and been involved in a lot of other interesting things.

I’ve been with Cisco for 15 years. During this 15 years I’ve finished both a BSIT and an MSIT in Networking Technologies. I’m currently working on an MDiv at Shepherds Theological Seminary.

Brandon: Can you tell us about your certifications that you hold within Cisco, and any involvement you have had in creating these programs?

Russ: I am CCIE #2635, CCDE 2007:001, and I also hold a CCAr. I have been on the CCIE advisory council for a number of years. I originally became involved in the CCIE because several of the members of the IOS Deployment and Scaling Team failed their CCIE recertification tests (including me) –so we offered to help write questions, and clean up the written database. It was actually a bit funny, because each of us made our worst scores in the one protocol we were considered to be an expert at –for instance, I made my worst score in EIGRP, which, for years, was my best protocol (in fact, about that time I was writing the EIGRP white paper that’s on Cisco Online).

I became involved in the CCDE after the CCIE/Design failed and the first attempt at the CCDE failed. A lot of the problem in those efforts was trying to focus on building training materials in parallel with the certifications themselves –it’s never easy to do that sort of thing. Amy Reich built a small team to focus on the certification itself, and Cisco brought in a group of psychometricians (sp?) who had a lot of experience in building this sort of difficult certification.

It took us more than three years worth of work to structure the certification –one of the minor miracles in the process was getting the seven senior design people on the core team together in a single hotel in a single city for three days out of every month for more than three years. Our schedules are very difficult to deal with because of internal and external demand for our time.

(The final team was John Cavanaugh, Steve Barnes, Bruce Pinsky, Mossadaq Turabi, Khalid Raza, Alvaro Retana, and I. Bill Parkhurst was added midway through the process, bringing the total to 8 when the certification was released.)

The Cisco Certified Architect is our latest certification; development on this certification ran in parallel with development for the CCDE.

Brandon: Why is it important for people to pursue these certifications?

Russ: I think degrees and certifications, combined, show a breadth and depth of knowledge needed to be a successful network engineer. While a college degree, or experience, might provide you with a broad background, a certification shows a depth of knowledge in one specific area that simply cannot be repeated in a college degree. The dearth of solid degree programs on the technology application side of networking (as opposed to the technology research or coding side of networking) is a bit of an issue right now; certifications have taken up a lot of the slack in this space.

I believe the best combination is to have both a degree and one or more certifications. The certification shows current, relevant, and directly applicable skills, and the degree provides the general background and business skills.

Brandon: What should someone just getting into Networking take under consideration?

Russ: The field is really, really, broad right this moment, and in the process of splitting along multiple lines. We saw the same thing happen in the electronics world at the end of the 60′s and the early 70′s –there were once just “electronics people,” and now there are operators, troubleshooters, maintainers, and all sorts of specialized design folks. Since things are in a state of churn, it’s best to build a diverse set of skills, rather than really being focused in one area. Learn the questions to ask, rather than the answers to the questions.

To give a specific example: there are physical limits to what you can do with any sort of transmission medium, on the RF side of things. If you understand those limits, it helps a lot with understanding new technologies in this space. Whether you call it ATM or SONET, RFC1925, rule 2 still applies. I’m very glad of my RF background here, because it helps me understand a lot of what goes on with new ideas in wired and wireless transmission technologies.

There might come a point where specialization takes over –it’s a judgment call to decide when that is– but for now, there are only a couple or three different “strands” in the field; I would stay as broad as possible within one of those strands, rather than really being a laser beam.

Remember that the more things change, the more they stay the same. ATM LANE has been reinvented in the networking world a half a dozen times. If you understand the underlying ideas behind the technology, you’ll be able to quickly see where strengths and weaknesses are when you see something “new” come out. In other words, don’t skimp on understanding older protocols and ideas –they’ll come back around. RFC1925, rule 11, applies here. Or just read Ecclesiastes. History is still important.

Also, don’t skimp on “nontechnical” skills. I know most folks get into computers because they don’t like to deal with people constantly, but don’t short your writing skills, for instance. Make it a habit to spread your reading across technical and nontechnical, and learn to communicate well in writing.

In other words, being a geek is fine. Just try not to sound like one.

Brandon: How about someone that has completed the CCNP?

Russ: I would be looking for the next level certification, or a good college program in networking technologies, or perhaps project management, or something along those lines.

Brandon: And if I have a CCIE, what would be the next logical path? CCDE? Then CCAr? Should I get more than on CCIE?

Russ: It all depends on what you want to do… Design, architecture, and protocols are my passions –not operations– so the logical path was CCDE/CCAr. If your passion is operations, then getting multiple CCIEs is probably the right path. There’s nothing wrong with either path –it just depends on where you are.

For instance, if you’re at large company with outsourced operations, the CCDE might be better. If you’re at a mid-sized company with both operations and design roles, then one of each might be best. If you’re at a large company or in a provider where your role is primarily deployment and troubleshooting, then multiple CCIEs would make sense.

Of course, since I’m all for flexibility, I’d pursue just what I have today –the route/switch CCIE and the CCDE. If I had the ongoing interest in the operations side, I might pursue operations type certifications from other vendors, as well –but that’s not where I am.

Brandon: Anything you can convey to the readers that would benefit them in preparing for network certifications?

Try not to focus on memorizing. Instead, focus on understanding the questions you should ask about technologies, and how to use them. It’s tempting to get trapped in the CLI for the CCIE, for instance –but that’s not the best place to be in the long term. Don’t try for more depth than you really need –focus on the breadth, it’s a better strategy, overall, in my opinion.