Archive for the ‘Cisco Live’ Category
Cisco Live the final countdown, Last minute tips!
With Cisco Live 2015 literally right around the corner, now is the perfect time to grab a few last minute items!
- Portable chargers – The days a long, much longer than you expect and let’s face it smartphone batteries don’t last as long as we would like. While there are charging stations at CLUS it’s tough to be without your phone. I highly recommend grabbing a portable charger to keep in your pocket allowing you to keep you phone charged throughout the whole day. I’ll be carrying a couple of them with me, after all you can’t go without a phone!
- Pedometer – The convention center is huge! Without realizing it you can easily find yourself walking a few miles extra each day. It can be fun seeing how much you actually walked over the entire day. You don’t necessarily need a fitbit you can easily get away with a smartphone app. (Another reason to get that portable charger!)
- Twitter – There is a lot going on between important announcements and social get-together’s the hashtag #CLUS will be flying by, keeping you in the know!
- Cisco Events App – Yet another reason to keep the smartphone charged! (I think I see a pattern forming here) The Cisco Events App is an easy way to your schedule accessible in the palm of your hand. Along with a host of useful features such as a map of the convention center, session presentations, speaker information, and much more!
Just a few quick before the conference begins, see you there!
The two types of people that go to Cisco Live.
With Cisco Live US ( #CLUS ) 2015 slowly approaching, It’s becoming a popular topic and the question comes up, “Do you think it’s worth going to CLUS?”
Like most questions I answer I start with “Well, it kind of depends what you are going for”, CLUS is a big event and there is plenty to do. So it is safe to assume you (more than likely) will not be able to do everything you want. I’ve spoken to a lot of people who are planning on going to Cisco Live and you can almost classify everyone into one of two categories:
- The technical person – Someone who loads up their schedule with the most in-depth technical sessions that interest them, and may also hang around the testing center to take advantage of the free exam and/or the 50% discount on exams during the conference. The Cisco Store is also more than likely on your list of places to hit, loading on Cisco merchandise or Cisco Press with discounted prices is totally worth checking. You might run through the World of Solutions to get some vendor swag and see what’s going on the industry from some of the bigger vendors and see what new products are hitting the market. More than likely you will be watching the clock getting ready to run to your next session.
- Some other items on your list might be:
- Meet the engineer – Is there some technology you really want discuss in depth or just discuss one-on-one with a Cisco engineer, well here is you chance!
- TAC Walk-In Clinic – Got some issue that been bugging you or some a burning technical question, well go chat with some TAC engineers they are always more than willing to help.
- Some other items on your list might be:
- The social person – Your first stop is the Social Hub, what better way to start CLUS then with all you Twitter friends at the Tweet-Up. The certification lounge is a great pit stop for chatting about your certification studies, but the Social Hub is where it’s at keeping track of the #CLUS hashtag and you can even watch the keynotes from the kozy couches. By meeting so many people you quickly know where to hang out at night when the conference ends, there’s usually a party every night you just need to know where to find it!
- The World of Solutions is your next favorite place, what’s more fun than a scavenger hunt the #CLUS scavenger hunt!
- When the conference is over with at the end of the day you don’t care because you already know where everyone is heading.
Or… you can grab a few coffees in the morning and then a few espresso shots in WoS and try to do everything!! Like I do, 4-days of Cisco goodness, got to make the most of it!
No matter what reason you have for attending Cisco Live, you are destined to have a good time. Who’s looking forward to this years CLUS backpack and this years CAE Hat?
If you have not registered, make sure you do! You can register here!
*There are way than two types of people that attend CLUS, but for the sake of comic relief lets say there are only two.
CLUS 2013 Tweet-up
CLUS 2014 Tweet-Up
CLUS 2014 -Cisco Live Photo.
Why Cisco Live is awesome!
Having just got back from my second Cisco Live, I couldn’t help but think about what an amazing event it really is. After all 7+ hours on a plane provided me A LOT of time to think. (Now, If only I thought about typing up this blog post on the plane instead of just thinking about it)
I can sum up how awesome the event was in 2 words ‘The Social Hub’ & the ‘The Tweet Up’ (ok, well maybe that was more than 2 words)!! From the second I walked back into the Social Hub I was greeted by some familiar faces who remembered me from last year! Which I think was the best part, flying out all the way to west coast (from east coast) it was great knowing more than a few people in a new place. Not to mention from what I remember about the Tweet-up and Social Hub last year, it has grown quite a bit! I also got to take part in Tech Field Day, which was awesome. Although it was my first Tech Field Day and I relatively quiet since I wanted to see how they play out. Hopefully I get invited to another at the next Cisco Live. I’ll definitely participate more.
It’s also a great spot to talk shop with many of networking professionals from around the world that I probably would not have met otherwise! I also had to chance to speak with Ethan Banks from Packet Pushers, Ron Fuller from Cisco, Keith Barker & Scott Morris from CBT Nuggets, Brian McGahan and Mark Snow from INE! I’ll admit I was a little star struck since these are some of the people I’ve followed and learned from over the years. Even with four days of Cisco Live there were still a few bloggers and twitter’ers I did not get to meet but definitely next year!
A few other reasons Cisco Live is awesome:
- Testing Center – Half off exams, what more can I say! This year I was able to knock out the 642-996 & the 640-911, wanted to finish off the CCNA: DC but didn’t have enough time. I guess two exams in four days is still pretty good.
- Cisco Store – Easy way to pick up some cool Cisco merchandise or Cisco Press books. I just wish they had a better discount on the CiscoPress books during Cisco Live.
- The TAC ‘Walk-In Clinic’ – Somewhere you go to bounce ideas off Cisco TAC in person. I probably spent at least an hour (or two) here during both Cisco Live’s just to discuss certain situations I have seen in production and what their thoughts were.
- World Of Solutions – While is this usually a giant exhibition center, it is very easy to get a lot of useful information from here. For one, there are a lot of Cisco technologies on display with employees ready to show you have they work and go through some demo’s. Everything from the Virtual NAM’s to some of the newer SourceFire technologies. Not to mention it is easy enough to ask some of the top vendors how their products work
- The sessions – These are a given, the technical sessions are truly amazing going into great technical detail and provide you the ability to ask questions throughout the session!
- There are many more reasons I did even mention.
First Tweet-up Photo
Final Group Photo @ the sign. (Which you can barely see half of)
Off to Cisco Live!!!
Looks like it’s time to start my drive to Orlando! I’m all packed and ready to go, got my iPad (with keyboard) so let’s see if I can get some blogging done in the midst of going between sessions and all the new announcements! (CCIE: R/S v5 especially!!)
I’ll probably be doing a fair amount of Twitter so feel free to follow and follow along – @StepehnO86
Old Cisco Live sessions a great free resource!
Believe it or not, but the old Cisco Live sessions are available to view free of charge! You can search through the available sessions here. It looks to go as far back as 2011, and you can filter the videos by using various methods technology, product line, technical level, event location, and a few others along with a free text search option.
Many of these sessions include the recorded videos along the presentations in PDF format. No matter type of technology you are looking for there is bound to be some material for it. I’ve watched a few of these sessions already sessions ranging from advanced DMVPN deployments, Nexus 5k best practices, performing wireless site surveys and others. I highly recommend you browse some videos when you have spare time, I guarantee you will learn something new.
P.S. I’ll be at Cisco Live Orlando this year (and the INE event)! So feel free to drop me or comment or send me a DM over twitter @StephenO86 and we can schedule a meet-up when the time comes!
CCIE or Null! 