Raghib Al Amiry

Excited to be presenting at this event -- register and come to my session! Session Title: Rugged Networks, Smart Operations: Unleashing the Power of Cisco's Industrial Portfolio In an era where OT and IT are converging, resilient and intelligent networking in industrial environments is no longer optional—it's mission-critical. Join us for a deep dive into Cisco’s industrial portfolio, purpose-built for harsh environments and high-stakes operations. From the latest in industrial wireless and the CURWB platform to robust Ethernet switching, Cisco Cyber Vision for OT cybersecurity, and the rise of software-defined automation in industrial networks—this session will explore how to architect secure, scalable, and high-performance connectivity at the edge. Whether you're managing a factory floor, utility grid, or smart transportation system, this session will help you future-proof your operations with Cisco's industrial innovation.

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🚨 Now Enrolling: Data Center Operations Certificate Program 🚨 Looking to jump-start a career in the data center industry? The Certificate of Completion (CCL) in Data Center Operations is now open for Fall enrollment through the Maricopa Community Colleges, offered at both: 📍 Mesa Community College Southern & Dobson (6 open slots) 📍 Estrella Mountain Community College (3 open slots) ✅ Hands-on training in data center infrastructure ✅ Experience with motors, power systems, and PLCs ✅ Training in safety, industry ethics, and real-world operations 🎓 And here’s the big news: Thanks to generous donations from QTS Data Centers, EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure and the AFCOM Phoenix Chapter, tuition for AIT117 and AIT227 is fully covered for Fall semester students! 💼 Graduates of this 22-credit program can launch into roles as mechanical, electrical, or controls technicians—earning $49,000 to $80,000+ depending on experience. 📲 Don’t wait—fall classes are filling up fast. If you or someone you know is ready to start a career in data center operations, scan the QR code or contact with questions: 📩 alfonso.flores@mesacc.edu 📩 kristen.osborn@estrellamountain.edu Let’s grow the next generation of data center talent right here in Arizona! ⚙️🔌🌐 #DataCenters #ArizonaTech #WorkforceDevelopment #NextGenTalent #MaricopaColleges #DataCenterCareers

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I’ve spent a lot of time managing high-level IT and network projects across multiple clients, sites, and time zones. At one point, working for a California-based consulting firm, that meant projects across major U.S. cities while also supporting commercial server and network work in places like China, Korea, Australia, and Thailand. When you work like that, two things can really save you a lot of stress. You take notes. And you build your own documentation — even when documentation already exists. Most weeks, you’re getting 15–30 minutes, often shared with other vendors or contractors, and then you’re immediately context-switching into a completely different environment. Anything you don’t capture is gone. Being organized — having something concrete to reflect back on after a meeting — almost always has a positive effect. It keeps details from slipping and makes the next conversation easier. I saw this clearly while working as a senior network engineer on a multi-million-dollar university campus network project alongside a fantastic engineer, Michael Perez . Internal IT shared an official working document, but it didn’t meet the level of detail we needed to execute against our standards. Relying on it would have meant additional surveys and validation work, costing real project hours and slowing progress. Michael had kept the documentation he built during the previous network refresh. That documentation allowed us to validate quickly, avoid rework, and keep the project moving — crisis averted. Knowing the details helps. Having them written down in documentation you trust is what protects complex projects.

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#Types of Network Switches five main types of switches, each with a different purpose and feature set. * Unmanaged Switch: This is the simplest type of switch, often called "plug and play." * Play and Plug: You simply connect your devices, and it works. There's no setup or configuration required. No Configurations Required: This makes them ideal for small home networks or small offices where you don't need advanced features. Simple and Cost-Effective: They are the most affordable option. * Managed Switch: Managed switches give you complete control over your network traffic. * Managed through CLI/GUI: You can configure these switches using a command-line interface (CLI) or a graphical user interface (GUI). Advanced Features: They support advanced features like VLANs (Virtual Local Area Networks) to segment your network, Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) to prevent network loops, and Port Security to control which devices can connect to specific ports. Ideal for Enterprises: These are essential for enterprise networks and large offices that need high performance, security, and granular control. * Layer 2 Switch: A Layer 2 switch operates at the Data Link layer of the OSI model. * Uses MAC Addresses: It makes forwarding decisions based on the MAC address of the connected devices. Forwards Data: Its primary job is to forward data frames within the same network (LAN). High-Speed Forwarding: It's very fast because it only looks at the MAC address, not the network address. #Types of Network Switches five main types of switches, each with a different purpose and feature set. * Unmanaged Switch: This is the simplest type of switch, often called "plug and play." * Play and Plug: You simply connect your devices, and it works. There's no setup or configuration required. No Configurations Required: This makes them ideal for small home networks or small offices where you don't need advanced features. Simple and Cost-Effective: They are the most affordable option. * Managed Switch: Managed switches give you complete control over your network traffic. * Managed through CLI/GUI: You can configure these switches using a command-line interface (CLI) or a graphical user interface (GUI). Advanced Features: They support advanced features like VLANs (Virtual Local Area Networks) to segment your network, Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) to prevent network loops, and Port Security to control which devices can connect to specific ports. Ideal for Enterprises: These are essential for enterprise networks and large offices that need high performance, security, and granular control. * Layer 2 Switch: A Layer 2 switch operates at the Data Link layer of the OSI model. * Uses MAC Addresses: It makes forwarding decisions based on the MAC address of the connected devices. Forwards Data: Its primary job is to forward data frames within the same network (LAN). High-Speed Forwarding: It's very fast because it only looks at the MAC address, not the network address

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When ransomware hits, protecting your backups is critical. HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 introduces real-time encryption detection powered by AI and machine learning, along with immutable snapshots for rapid recovery. In this demo, I’ll show you how HPE’s data-adaptive ransomware detection works and how it can safeguard your workloads from ransomware threats. Watch now: https://hpe.to/6042fx9xj

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What does this mean for our jobs? Very prevalent question I received lately while talking to customer service engineers and leaders. Whether you're a student entering the workforce, an experienced engineer navigating new tools, or a leader defining your company's strategy, the conversation around AI is the same: The question I keep coming back to is: Is AI creating a new divide in the workplace? A recent Stanford paper gives us hard data. It shows a decline in roles for young professionals in jobs highly exposed to AI, while experienced folks in the same jobs are holding steady. The meaning behind that data is what matters. AI is getting incredibly good at "textbook" knowledge, but it's putting a massive premium on the messy, real-world experience that you only get on the ground. From my perspective, the path forward isn't about resisting AI, but about mastering the human roles that emerge around it. I see this evolving across three critical functions: 🤝 1. The Customer Knowledge Bridge A business unit builds a product, but a customer-facing team understands how it truly lives. They see how it gets implemented, integrated with other systems, and troubleshoot the complex problems that never show up in a spec sheet. This on-the-ground knowledge is the human insight that AI needs to learn from. ⚙️ 2. The AI Troubleshooter The new critical role isn't just building AI, but fixing it. Troubleshooting an AI system goes far beyond code. It's about interrogating the data, validating the answers, and understanding the entire system when it produces biased or incorrect results. It's about asking why. 📚 3. The AI Knowledge Curator An AI is only as smart as the information it learns from. A crucial human-in-the-loop function is to keep the knowledge AI uses constantly updated, maintained, and refreshed. Teams with direct customer feedback are perfectly positioned to ensure the AI’s knowledge is relevant and current, not just vast. Here’s the mandate as I see it: * For those starting their careers: Don't just learn to use AI. Aim to become the person who questions, fixes, and refines it. Your fresh perspective is exactly what's needed to challenge these new systems. * For experienced professionals: Your deep contextual knowledge is your superpower. Use it to lead these functions, guide AI strategy, and mentor the next generation on bridging the gap between technology and reality. * For leaders: Your strategic challenge is to build and empower teams that own these roles. This is how you move from simply implementing AI to getting a real competitive advantage from it. The future is about finding the essential human roles that make the AI based automation and augmentiom work better. Adaptability is, and always will be, the ultimate job security. Source: "Canaries in the Coal Mine?" (2025) by D. Rock & P. Tambe, Stanford Digital Economy Lab. #AI #FutureOfWork #CareerDevelopment #Leadership #AIStrategy #customerservice

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Cisco just killed DevNet - kind of. Starting Feb 3, 2026, DevNet certs are getting rebranded as the Automation track, with big changes coming to the CCNP version. Cybersecurity and Collaboration certs are also getting renamed or updated. Here’s what’s changing and how to not waste your time studying the wrong stuff. #CCNA #CCNP #DevNet #CiscoChampions #Networking #Automation #Cybersecurity #Collaboration

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🛜 Network Engineers: The Unseen Backbone of Every Mission We don’t always get the spotlight. But when the systems stay up, when communication flows, when operations succeed—we were there. Quietly. Consistently. Relentlessly. Network engineering isn’t just about cables, configs, and packets. It’s about trust. It’s about precision under pressure. It’s about keeping the mission moving when failure isn’t an option. We don’t just support infrastructure—we are infrastructure. If you’re in this field, take pride. Not everyone can do what we do. Stay sharp. Stay humble. Stay ready. #NetworkEngineer #MissionReady #VeteranEngineer #SilentProfessionals

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One of my most recent projects has been planning, developing, and building out a Proxmox cluster. With prices still climbing for RAM, NVMe, and now disk hard drives, I’ve had to reimagine and reinvent my builds and plans. Once it was an older Dell R730, then it was smaller 1U servers, and now it’s a full blown cluster of SFF computers. What I realized is that building for what you need is just as important as building what you want, and that market conditions often throw a massive wrench in any plans you have. Could I have used the enterprise servers? Of course, but my wife would have hated the noise of the fans and the power draw is extremely high. My first node was a Minisforum UM760 I purchased new, and honestly I’ve just been super impressed with it. I will be adding a pair of Lenovo M75q SFF PCs next. The plan is then to move towards a small cluster of Raspberry Pi 5s all running the new AI HAT, with an agent running on each one. I’m thinking of using MQTT as a simple communication layer between the Pi’s, with the broker running on a VM and the agents working on projects in a Git repo. Each agent would have a different function and task. One could architect and plan, one could code, and one could QA/QC. The beauty of MQTT is it’s simple and lightweight. The downside is the broker is that one point of failure and the whole system goes down with it. With all that said, this has been an awesome learning experience in starting new VMs on clustered systems that are not the same, trying new agents in ways I haven’t tested before, and breaking things along the way. What projects are you guys currently planning and working on? #Homelab #ProxmoxCluster #AIInfrastructure

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If you use KVM, check out KVMage. It works like Packer but for KVM! (Note: If you try to use the install function, it ONLY works with RHEL based Distros) Thanks Beave! Champ Clark III Docker image coming soon https://lnkd.in/g56Ja6zU

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Automating Infrastructure with Chef: Enhancing Efficiency Exploring Chef and Chef Server this week has revolutionized my approach to infrastructure automation. Key Practices: - Crafting reusable recipes for uniform server configurations - Crafting cookbooks for intricate deployments - Utilizing Chef Server for centralized and scalable configuration management Chef's Significance: In today's diverse cloud landscapes, consistency is paramount. Chef empowers the enforcement of desired states across servers (e.g., EC2 instances), ensuring predictability, scalability, and reduced errors. Future Focus: Next, I aim to integrate Chef with CI/CD pipelines and delve into test-driven infrastructure to elevate automation capabilities further. #DevOps #Chef #Automation #InfrastructureAsCode #LearningJourney

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Organizations deploying AWS must take an active role in securing their environments to prevent misconfigurations and vulnerabilities, so it's critical to understand the AWS Shared Responsibility Model.

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Anyone can activate a SIM. Provisioning that actually prepares devices for the field is different. This is how INS approaches turnkey provisioning: tested, validated, and ready before deployment.

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​The UCCE Engineer role is evolving at lightning speed! 🚀 What was once about traditional dial plans and server racks is now about AI, Cloud, and Programmable CX. ​Are you a #UCCEengineer still living in 2016? It's time to upskill! ​The "Next-Gen" UCCE Engineer is a CX Architect: ​AI & NLP: Building intelligent IVRs with tools like Google Dialogflow and Cisco Webex Contact Center AI. ​Programmability: Mastering Python & REST APIs to automate workflows, integrating with CRMs and cloud services. ​Cloud-Hybrid: Seamlessly managing migrations to platforms like Webex Contact Center and leveraging AWS/Azure. ​Data Analytics: Turning raw call data into actionable customer journey insights. ​What skills are you focusing on to stay ahead? Let's discuss! #ContactCenter #CiscoUCCE #CX #AI #Automation #CloudComputing #DevNet

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Lately I’ve been seeing some… creative job titles on the market. Things like “Junior Lead Network Engineer,” “Senior Mid‑Level SysAdmin,” and my personal favorite: “Junior C‑Level Executive.” At this point, it feels less like a job posting and more like a corporate Mad Libs exercise. But here’s the real translation behind these titles: “We want someone who can do the work of three highly paid roles… but we’d like to pay them like an intern with enthusiasm.” For anyone early in their career thinking, “If I just get in, prove myself for 6–12 months, they’ll adjust my title and salary,” let me offer a gentle reality check: If a company truly believes you can do the job, they’ll pay you for the job. They won’t invent a title that sounds like a riddle to avoid the compensation that comes with real responsibility. Your skills aren’t a clearance sale. Your title shouldn’t require a decoder ring. And your worth isn’t negotiable just because someone slapped “junior” in front of a senior‑level workload. Know your value — and don’t let anyone discount it with creative branding.

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Yum or Sudo, that's the question. When it comes to enterprise Linux, the choice of distribution isn’t just about preference—it’s about the right fit for your workloads, compliance needs, and long-term strategy. 🔴 RHEL / CentOS / Rocky / Alma (YUM/DNF) Best when stability, certification, and vendor support are mission-critical. ERP & Databases → SAP HANA, Oracle DB, IBM Db2 (all certified on RHEL/SUSE). Telecom & NFV → large telcos depend on RHEL-backed ecosystems. Healthcare → Epic EHR systems, pharma compliance (HIPAA, FDA). Government & Defense → RHEL’s FIPS, STIG, and Common Criteria certifications are essential. Mission-Critical Apps → stock exchanges, manufacturing controls, and even air traffic management. Enterprise Middleware → WebSphere, WebLogic, and Red Hat’s own JBoss EAP. 🟠 Ubuntu / Debian (apt / sudo) Best for cloud-native, innovation, and developer-first environments. Cloud Deployments → the default choice on AWS, Azure, GCP. AI/ML Workloads → optimized builds for TensorFlow, PyTorch, NVIDIA CUDA. Kubernetes & Containers → Ubuntu is the reference OS for CNCF projects. DevOps & SaaS → Jenkins, GitLab, Ansible, Node.js web apps. IoT & Edge → Ubuntu Core powers robotics, automotive, and embedded devices. Blockchain / FinTech → Ethereum, Hyperledger, crypto nodes thrive here. 💡 The bottom line: If you need stability, compliance, and certifications → go with RHEL-based distros. If you need speed, flexibility, and innovation → Ubuntu/Debian often wins. At the enterprise level, it’s never just “Linux.” It’s about matching the right distribution to the right mission. 👉 So, Yum or sudo… which one powers your servers today? #linux #Debian #Redhat #Ubuntu #Server

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Your firewall protects the network. But does every DER, meter, and charger on your grid have a verified identity? Four steps to close the device-layer trust gap.

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