Episode 17: New opportunities with Bearded IT Dad
In this episode, we sit down with Bearded IT Dad AKA Dakota Snow on his journey into the IT industry. We had some fascinating conversations about his job as a Director of Network Operations in the ISP world, some certifications that will help you break into the IT world, and his Youtube channel (@BeardedITDad) and how he's helping folks break into the IT industry. Be sure to follow him on all social media accounts and his Youtube channel!
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Pat: 0:03
All right, everybody. Welcome back to this week's edition of, so you want to be in it we're a podcast aimed at those starting their journey out in the vast world of it. We talk about navigating the world of it as a beginner, from how to climb the ladder, how to break in how to, how to get into a management office politics, literally everything in between. So I'm your host, pat. You can find me on Twitter @patallen18 2, you can find the show on Twitter @sywbiit the acronym for, so you want to be in it. So, we are back again this week, episode 17. I do believe this is, Dean is here with me as always doing his thing.
Dean: 0:46
Hey there, folks. Hey, pat.
Pat: 0:48
Ah, not too bad. We've got a good one today. I'm for it. I'm psyched. We have a guest one. We have a good one. he is the YouTube content creator. Bearded it. Dad also known as, Dakota. Hey Dakota, how you doing?
Dean: 1:04
Hey Dakota.
Dakota: 1:07
Excited to be here. Glad to be
Pat: 1:09
we're glad you're here. So it's it's been a, it's been a few weeks since we talked about coming on. So, here you are. And the, the vast world of, the it beginner space. So, Dakota, why don't we start, and see, take us to, cause we were talking a little bit before we hit the record button about where you came from and how you started and things of that nature. So why don't we rewind a little bit and just say, okay, where'd you come from? How'd you get here and what are you doing?
Dakota: 1:33
Absolutely. And, I have a very interesting story. so unlike many, I kinda started in the it, like I didn't start in IT. I used to be, before I got into IT, I used to be a bulldozer operator. I drove a big giant bulldozer. One of the biggest actually they make made really great money at it, but I was bored out of my mind. I was just absolutely bored. I hated my life and. I finally said, what am I doing with my life? I want, instead of working to just put food on the table, let me actually do something that does that. And I enjoy. And, I always had a passion for technology and stuff. So I started studying for, what it, take to get into the it field. And, even further back I dropped out of college, I didn't really have much experience, but I decided, you know what, I'm going to try. And, so after a while of applying for jobs, I actually got up my first job as a it support specialist, working for a hotel company, just doing basic help desk stuff. still at that point I had no it certifications. I had just, just with my soft skills, I was able to get a job and. Through working hard and dedication. I proved myself, moved up the ranks with that company. by the time I left, I was designing the complete it infrastructure for all their brand new hotels. and I was loving it. Unfortunately though life threw another curve ball. I had to move relocate to be back to, closer to family. I did a short little job with a local school district, designing, being a network engineer. And then, that led me to apply for my current job, which I am the director of network operations for a local internet service provider. I'm working my dream job now. So that's the in the nutshell
Dean: 3:19
so you have really good, in
Dakota: 3:23
Yeah. You know what? I don't live in my service area, so I'm really disappointed.
Pat: 3:28
it's it's a work
Dakota: 3:29
s a work in progress.
Dean: 3:31
have to extend that territory.
Dakota: 3:33
Yes.
Dean: 3:35
things to do. That's awesome That's awesome though. What ae in and what, so what's thiscompany you work for?R
Dakota: 3:40
I work for a small company. It's called my net fiber. It's actually owned by the local city municipalities. so we're actually government owned, and supported. And it's, it's a great little company. we're growing like crazy. We're one of the few, fiber optics providers actually in Oregon. that's offering gigabit internet to the home. We are expanding out to 10 gig to the home here with the, probably within the next couple years. And, we got. residential. Mostly we do offer business services too, though.
Dean: 4:10
Oh, wow. So you have
Dakota: 4:13
We offer gig right now, but we are actually in the middle of testing, 10 gig to so that's, that is on our roadmap, other fun, fun projects.
Pat: 4:23
Wow. That's crazy. can't get nothing to that here.
Dakota: 4:28
Yeah. I am jealous of my own internet. I have a pretty crummy internet at home, so
Dean: 4:35
gotcha. Okay. Nice. Yeah. What great. yeah, job to be a part So how long have you been doing that for?
Dakota: 4:41
I've been with that company for about a year now. It's like drinking from a fire hose. There's so much information to take. there's so much going on in that field of fiber optic internet. it's an ever learning battle to stay ahead of the game. but I love every minute of it. It is seriously, my dream.
Pat: 4:56
Look at that. I
Dean: 4:58
That's phenomenal. Yeah.
Pat: 4:59
I like it. So, because I want to back up a little bit to where you said you got into the it field with literally no, no formal education, no certification. And just sort of your soft skills. And we talk about soft skills on the show all the time. so yeah, I, I want to hammer in on that because, so how did, what does that look like as far as like, did you go in there and like schmooze people and, shake their hand and kiss babies and that sort of thing? Like, what did that
Dakota: 5:25
nearly it felt like, and the funny thing is at the time, I didn't even know what soft skills was. I was really a novice at it. but just it's the way you communicate with people. It's your communication skills. It's the ability to. To be approachable. it's all that kind of wrapped in a nice tidy bow it's how you can communicate with things with people and talk about very techie things in a non-techie way, but don't make them feel like you're talking down to them. that's one of the most important things in it. and it's one of the hardest things to learn. I think, all these other skills on, whether it's networking, cloud security, those are all teachable skills, I think. But these soft skills is one thing. I think a lot of people don't realize how important it is.
Pat: 6:08
I would with that a hundred percent. Yeah. Cause you can't, like you said, you can teach somebody the cloud, you can teach somebody any sort of technical skill, but you can't teach them. Talk to people, you can't teach them how to be, generally nice and not be an a hole sort of thing. I hate to throw that term It just is what it is
Dakota: 6:27
But absolutely, gone are the stereotypical days of your basement it department that smells like old pizza and dirty socks. you, IT is now frontline people that are interacting on a day-to-day basis and you have to be able to have those people skills to really succeed. And I think when I got hired my boss, I don't think I know because they've told me the reason we hired you is because your people skills the way you talk, the way you carry and present yourself. And we knew you would catch on to your other, the other skills, actual technical part of the job. But you don't find that someone every day that can be personable with other people.
Pat: 7:06
Yeah. That's.
Dean: 7:08
agree with that. Yeah. But there is a begging question that has to be asked what my mind anyway, the soft skills are great and I couldn't agree more. They do take you, they can take you very far, but that doesn't help when you get to the CLI or you're trying to configure a system oror, um, I dunno, integrate a ou
Dakota: 7:31
absolutely. I did have and to be a hundred percent honest, I did have some prior knowledge. in high school I did take a Cisco CCNA class. I never got certified by to take a class in high school. And so I knew my way around the CLI and the way I navigate it is I have this unquenchable thirst for knowledge, which is another vital thing in the it field, I think, because you have to constantly be learning. And what I did is I set up my own home labs. I went out and bought some basic cheap networking equipment off of eBay and started practicing and tried to come up with all these possible scenarios and started learning and trial by error. it was really the way I learned it doesn't work for everyone, but that's what worked for me. and I just started studying 24 7.
Dean: 8:19
okay. That's awesome. That's really cool. So what about in circumstances or situations where you don't have that ability or something's completely outside your skillset, where you might not be able to solve? How
Dakota: 8:31
yeah, so I, for those type of situations, Google is always your friend, anyone who says they don't use Google in the it field is lying. I mean, every exactly. I to be a hundred percent honest with you, I use Google probably on an every other day, if not an everyday basis. there's, the internet is full of tons of information. there's online e-learning platforms. I personally subscribe to a couple of different ones trying out to figure out what ones worked. there's YouTube videos. there's huge resources there for free. and if money is the barrier to entry, like I said, there's free YouTube videos. And then there's free programs. Like if you're in net into networking, there's packet tracer, you can download and set up a free virtual lab. you can set up VMs for free on your computer, and virtualize different operating systems. So you can learn those fundamental skills that you need to know for like a certification. Like the, Aplus that's what I ended up doing is I virtualized and started learning Linux, that way. And, there's tons of free resources out there. It just depends on how. Determined your are to learn.
Dean: 9:36
Yeah. Okay. That's huge. Yeah. I can
Pat: 9:38
Yeah, I agree. we've talked about that before on this show, as far as, you have to want to learn. There is no slowing down. it's, whatever's around the curb next and right now it's the cloud, obviously, right? I think the next, the next, I don't know. I want to say automation, but that's sorta here now as well. I think that's getting larger by the it seems by the second. it seems like the network field has been the last to sort of, come to the party with the automation stuff, but now you see like Python and, Ansible and Chef and puppet and all that kind of stuff creeping into the network world. And, it's just one of those things where you're gonna just have to know it going forward. And like I said, there's certainly not. there's certainly enough, things out there skills out there to learn that you could literally be busy for the next hundred years. And you'll be just to be just fine.
Dakota: 10:25
Yeah. And like personally, I have a list of certifications and skills I'm studying like currently I'm studying for the comp Tia Linux. Plus as soon as that's done, I'm jumping into a couple Juniper networking certifications because my employer is a Juniper shop. And then I have these lists and I, it's just like, as soon as I get this done, I'm going to do this, and I constantly tweaking that as the industry changes.
Dean: 10:49
okay. That's awesome. That's really cool. So you're maybe the first person I've come across and I think it's very interesting that you go first engineer or someone in the it industry I've come across that has more of a soft skill approach first and then a technical approach. Second. And I can't say it's, but it sounds like it's really done well in your career. It's just a really, to me it's a really novel way of, like having your career hats off to you because. It like, got you in a director position, which is phenomenal at an ISP company, but it's just, most people go in with a technical brain or technical mind, but I kind of like your way of approach because that stuff's always going to be there. Like that stuff that's expected. You could always learn that there's like you said, tons of resources for that. There's not that much resource for your soft skills really. So I really find it quite refreshing. Actually. I've been in this industry for a long time. And it's the first time, someone like, maybe just as technical will have technical sort of jobs like I have, and it's come with a soft skill approach
Dakota: 12:03
yeah. I have no problem saying I'm not an expert at anything. I'd never expect to be an expert at anything. because it's near impossible, but you can guarantee you if I don't know how to do something, I'm going to find out. and that's just, it's just the mentality that you have to have nowadays.
Dean: 12:22
absolutely. Couldn't agree more. Yeah,
Pat: 12:24
Yeah, I agree with that. I think in today's world, the soft skills are just as important as the actual technical skills. Cause like Dean said, the technical skills are always going to be there, right? You're always going to need routers and switches and dev and all that kind of stuff to, to make the world around and to make the business money. But you know, people change the dynamics, change, teams change. I think having those soft skills to talk to, talk to your team, whether you're managing them or not, or whether they're on your colleague, on your team sort of thing, you gotta be able to work with people or else, you're right. You're a hundred percent right with the basement theory that you said a couple of minutes ago the IT team doesn't sit in the basement, and as we sit here, I'm in my basement. That's where I record now. Yeah.
Dean: 13:09
irony of this
Pat: 13:10
I used to have a comfy, extra bedroom upstairs, but baby number two is on the way in March. So that's her newroomwell,
Dakota: 13:17
Well, congratulations on
Pat: 13:18
Yeah. Thank So,
Dean: 13:20
Yeah.
Pat: 13:20
yeah, so now I've been delegated to the basement where the rest of my stuff is here, but yes, no, I agreed Dakota, I think, I truly, I think it teams are sort of been thrusted to the front of the line, as far as from a business perspective or maybe businesses haven't quite taken it as serious as they should have. And then the pandemic sort of, thrusted them to the front of the line saying, oh, look, we really need those, for lack of better term, we need those nerds, that kind of thing.
Dakota: 13:49
absolutely. And with this pandemic, I think there is, there was a spotlight, all of a sudden shined on all these it departments and all of a sudden, all these high level people, all these CEOs are realizing their IT. Departments didn't have the resources necessary to do their jobs. The IT industry is booming. But now with that spotlight, I think there's more interaction between the higher level management and it departments. And that's where those soft skills are really going to go the extra mile. it's, it is really becoming that white collar jobs, no longer that blue collar job that it may have once, been and you have to interact. there's days, plenty of days where at my current job, I present to the board of directors on a regular basis. At my previous job, I would have one-on-one sit downs with the CEO and all of a sudden be pulled into a briefing and the CEO of the company, they're not tech savvy. They don't, that's what they're paying you to be. So you have to put it in a way that they understand you, but you don't want to make them feel like you're talking down to them because they're not going to like that. And it's not going to get you far.
Dean: 14:57
Yeah. I admit there's a wider appetite. I've tried being the, the hard brush engineer and like being a subject matter expert. Being great at your job is not an excuse to be an And it just doesn't get you anywhere. Maybe you used to work.There's a time in my career where I have seen multiple people get far in that, but in this day and age, is it that it's a wider appetite for soft skills and being pleasant and nicer to everybody, I find So
Pat: 15:29
Yep.
Dean: 15:30
yes, that's good stuff. t kind of technologies do you kind of use in your day-to-day job?
Dakota: 15:35
everything is constantly changing. The biggest push right now is IPv6 where we're a small ISP we've, haven't adopted it yet. And that's one of our big campaigns right now is making the switch to IPv6 environment, which opens a whole new can of worms with everything. So.
Dean: 15:55
okay. Absolutely. So are you, are you going for like a migration process right now from V6, V4 to V6? like, are you dual stacking or some sort of technology like that?
Dakota: 16:05
Yeah. we're trying to go dual stack, and this is our public facing environment. and so yeah, it's necessary to do dual stack, because unfortunately IPv6 is still not being adopted as quickly as it should be. so it's.
Dean: 16:20
is that because of your customers they don't feel comfortable with it is, or is it because you guys need, more sort of addresses? Like what is the huge move to, to move to V6?
Dakota: 16:30
addresses we're constantly expanding. and the availability and cost of V4 addresses is increasing, the cost is increasing every day. and they're becoming more and more difficult to get a hold of, and there's other benefits you can get from going to IPv6 without really going into it. But yeah, it is the future and, as a company, we just don't want to be, caught, caught last, we want to be ahead of the curve. we're adopting new technologies, like 10 gig to the home. a couple years ago, if you would've told me, I would have had 10 gigabit internet available to my house, I would have said, you're crazy.
Dean: 17:05
Oh, absolutely. So what does that look like for an ISP to achieve, like, such a challenge like that? Because like most ISP struggle to get a gig. Like, what kind of, are you allowed to talk about what kind of equipment or, like what kind of like engineering challenges that might be to like provision just at an ISP
Dakota: 17:24
I can't go into a ton of details. w we do use, fiber to the premise, application where you're utilizing, like, XGS PON environment, to deliver 10 gig to the home. I can't really go into too much more details, probably a little bit too far there, to be honest with you. I
Dean: 17:40
Okay. worries.
Dakota: 17:42
can't give away the secret sauce.
Pat: 17:44
We get it. We have a secret.
Dean: 17:46
no, we totally get it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And that's just, and that effectively, just back to y'all not switching
Dakota: 17:54
Yup. Yup. That's back hold, to the network operation center, which you know, that's my baby and just, and onto the upstream, DIA providers.
Dean: 18:05
Okay. So you have like, agreements with, other ISPs to sort of get out to
Dakota: 18:09
Yep. Big other big ISPs to back all that data and redundancy to, we, in our markets, we have over 80% saturation in our market, so we are widely adopted. so ensuring that service is going no matter what's going on, what natural disaster might come across is one of my day-to-day responsibilities. whether it's, ice storms, power outages, you name it. the internet cannot stop for whatever reason, it's crazy to think how reliant we are on the internet nowadays.
Dean: 18:41
Yeah, it is. It's huge. Yeah. It's like turning a tap on if it doesn't
Dakota: 18:48
the funny thing I've found since I've entered this industry is people would rather go without water power, but you shut off their Netflix and oh my
Dean: 19:00
yeah, it is. It is, you are announcing an act of war. Act
Dakota: 19:04
yes, you unleash the angry mobs.
Dean: 19:08
Yeah, you really do, people
Pat: 19:09
need my tick tock.
Dakota: 19:10
and that not all falls onto my lap as a director of network operation is to ensure to prepare for every contingency that might possibly happen and ensure absolute, as much uptime as possible.
Dean: 19:24
so you're not necessarily just focused on networking aspect. You've got to think about natural disasters, power per se, routing agreements with other ISP, as you briefly mentioned, and then probably customer complaints over utilization. So that's all I can of right now. That's a
Dakota: 19:45
And that's, and to be honest with you that scratching, I mean, I wear many hats and I probably wear more hats than your average director of network operations does. I'm in charge of server environments hence my, my current setting of Linux plus, I manage our entire a S on-prem and off-prem environment, server environments. that all falls on my plate as well. pretty much everything from the service that comes into the building until it goes out of the building. Once, as soon as it leaves the building it's off to the, off the outside plant people. But, while it's traversing inside our network, that's all.
Dean: 20:19
wow.
Dakota: 20:22
I w when, and that's why I said it is my dream job. my biggest fear, I think getting into this industry was being siloed off into some job. I wasn't happy with, and never to see any other technologies where that's one thing I love and there's other jobs out there because I've worked at several employers that I've seen this where you gotta be a Jack of all trades and okay, one day you're kicking a printer in a field. And then the next day, you're averting a disaster and, saving the company hundreds of thousands of dollars because you found this flaw that no one else found or something like that, I wake up so excited every day to go to work. it's amazing.
Dean: 21:04
really cool. I love that. Very inspiring.
Pat: 21:06
That's awesome.
Dean: 21:08
So you get, you said you get your hands dirty with technology store, ing in the position as a director, do you still do like, integrations or like get on a CLI at work? Or is that something you do or shy or is it something you shy away from?
Dakota: 21:20
even as a director, my job is to ensure the company runs smoothly. And as, wherever I can do to help that operation to make the company succeed, I will do it. a couple months back, we had some issues where it actually required me to go out in a bucket truck and be out there, dealing with fiber up on the pole. just because I happened to had experience doing that from back when I used to be a bulldozer and heavy equipment operator I'd experienced with bucket trucks and we had this issue and the guy that normally did that was out and I'm like, okay, give me a fall harness. And, I'll go take care of it, and I mean ,and it was pissing rain. It was just, it was a crummy day and I spent eight hours out there fixing fiber. I mean, that's something that, your average director doesn't do.
Dean: 22:09
They kind of, even if they wanted to do
Dakota: 22:11
they couldn't. Yeah.
Dean: 22:13
Yeah. Cause I don't have the skill
Dakota: 22:14
Yeah. not saying that I enjoyed it, but on the same hand they had to get done. And my job is to ensure the company, if I'm helping the company run smooth, if we all work together, it's going to make the company a better place and it's all gonna pay off in the long run. So why not? why would I say no to that?
Dean: 22:35
Yeah. I like it. I like it. Some people would, but no, I think that's a great attitude.
Dakota: 22:41
And, and like I said, I kind of found that diamond in the rough, I feel, not all jobs are like, this is not what everyone should expect, but there are these opportunities out there. If this is what interests you, there's these positions out there,
Dean: 22:57
For someone starting or someone who wanted to get into your direction or becoming getting the ISP field what w what kind of things as a director, cause you must do hiring I it. What kind of things are you looking for? in terms of like hiring or maybe someone who wants to follow your footsteps and
Dakota: 23:15
we talked about a lot earlier. You gotta have those good soft skills, those good personal skills. I can train someone. all day, every day on how to configure routers, configure switches, but I have to have someone that's willing and wanting to be there and willing to learn and talk. that's the biggest thing and everything else is trainable. someone who wants to get into the field that has similar to me that had no experience, no college degree, no certifications, get that entry level, help desk position, get a, start, get a foot in the door and build that one to two years experience. Once you get that one to two years of experience at that entry level position, the sky's the limit for you. You can start following your dreams, following your passion. And within that first one to two years, you really kind of learn what you want to do. I've always knownknown I wanted to beetworking. I from day one, when I decided I was going to enter tech, I knew I wanted to be either a network administrator or a system administrator, I guess I kind of overshot, it's not a bad thing, but, I knew what I wanted, but not everyone's fortunate enough or they think they know what they want and they start doing it and realize, oh man, I hate this. so that help desk position kind of helps exposes, expose you to the different types of aspects that are in this job field and you kind of can narrow in from there. so yeah, if you're looking to get started. Get that entry-level position under your belt. You don't need certain certifications to get there. They help though. certifications like your Aplus, that's a great entry-level certifications. if you're interested in networking go after like the Cisco CCNA or the comp Tia network plus, those are great, entry-level certifications again, not required to enter the field, but they help open doors to help get you past those HR automated screening processes that, will weed you out. and that's really the key to get started. I think.
Dean: 25:10
Nice.
Pat: 25:12
Yeah, I would agree to that. And actually fun fact. I just learned this tonight actually, taking out the garbage about, about an hour ago, maybe two hours ago now. is a couple that moved in across the street. and I saw the lady out there. We were putting our garbage out at the same time. And I knew her husband. I'm assuming it's her husband. they lived together. I'm assuming I knew he was going back to school cause they did. they had told me that at one point, but I never asked. So I asked tonight, what are you going for? what the husband, Mike is his name, he's going for? And she told me he's going to be a software engineer, software developer. And I was like, no way, look, like it was like the skies opened up and like, it was a perfect match. I was like new neighbors. He's in the it industry or, trying to get there. I was like, awesome. that kind of thing. So, and then, she was looking to get into it. She's like, yeah, I'm at this company and, blah, blah, blah. And it's, it's been about two and a half years and it's okay, but I'm starting to get to get the itch and I'm like, well, what are you into? and she's like, well, I'm kinda liking, you know what he's doing? And I was like, do it, get into the it industry, do it. Now. I was like, there are like, I told her a couple of hot fields, obviously cybersecurity is always hot. Right. And dev, and. The cloud is always huge. Networking is always, always huge. I said, literally, there's thousands of cybersecurity jobs alone that are going to be unfilled this year because they can't get the talent to fill them. There's just not enough bodies. And she's like, oh really? So yeah, we had this conversation and I told her about obviously the show. So I hope she's listening at some point to this and she's, she'll know who she is. but then she's like, I'm going to go look your show up right now. So I was like, yeah, get in there and do it, that kind of thing. I was like, tell your friends, so, yeah, I think it's, I think it's huge. I think there's just so much opportunity. I do agree with, with Dakota as far as, get that, get that first year under your belt, two years, that kind of thing. And then really branch out and go from there, into whatever avenue you, you'd like to, and I don't know about you Dakota. I think, you said you've been in IT, what? three, five years somewhere in there. 4
Dakota: 27:12
years. To be officially in IT, 4 years
Pat: 27:14
Okay. So Dean and I, I've been doing this since high school, so I'm going on 15, 15, 18 years, somewhere in there. But, and even before that, but like the amount of free content out there nowadays on the internet is just astounding to me. Like I would have killed for the free content and whatnot. Like back in the day when I was going through this stuff and the certifications, the CCNA CCNP, all that stuff, like I would absolutely killed for this stuff. And it's just literally now available at everyone's fingertips. And I'm just like, do you realize how lucky you are to live in today's times?
Dean: 27:48
no, that's why no one wants it because too to
Pat: 27:52
like, what are you doing?
Dakota: 27:54
Yeah. it has never been easier than it currently is to get into the field. The barrier to entry is so low. There's not many opportunities nowadays that you can make over a hundred thousand dollars a year with almost zero investment. other than your time, if you have the desire and the will to learn, there is no reason that you can't be making six figures within the first five years of your career. And that's that just as astonishing and there's so many great opportunities out there.
Dean: 28:28
Yeah,
Pat: 28:28
so insane.
Dean: 28:29
Yeah. But especially where you're from as well. The Dakota, I've been to Oregon and your community is very rich in tech. I kind of like there's a lot of tech guys out there. A lot of, I don't mean like really like really established guys who know technology in and out kind of
Dakota: 28:48
It is, the whole Pacific Northwest, is this kind of seeming with a lot of tech? it's kind of crazy. I grew up here in Oregon. I grew up in a small town and at the time I got into the, it, I actually had to relocate because in my small area, I was, I either had to commute like two hours daily to get a job in tech or wait for someone to practically die because people were getting into these jobs and just hanging onto them for dear life. Now, nowadays, especially since the pandemic, it's just like an explosion and there are so many job opportunities out there. So many jobs going unfilled. it's the perfect time to get in the industry and really develop your skills and find out what you're passionate about. there's nothing greater than going to work everyday to do something that you.
Pat: 29:37
Amen to
Dean: 29:38
sure. Agreed. So inspiring. That
Pat: 29:40
Amen to that. So, so Dakota, you said Linux plus for
Dakota: 29:44
Linux, Linux+ and then Juniper. And, I haven't quite decided after that, where I'm going.
Pat: 29:52
Juniper. What is it? The, the CCNA equivilent?
Dakota: 29:56
Yeah, the JC,
Pat: 29:57
C?J
Dakota: 29:57
oh gosh, I'm totally J C I N
Dean: 30:01
yeah. Some like that
Dakota: 30:02
yeah. Something like that. yeah, so that, that's the only reason I'm going to Juniper route is because my employer utilizes all Juniper stuff. to be a hundred percent honest with you, I would prefer to go Cisco route. I am, I'm a Cisco fan boy. if you could, yeah, exactly. I mean, I have a full stack. I have several full stack, Cisco deploy, networks that I constantly tinker around with, but, Juniper in my career path. And especially working for, ISPs is way more prevalent. going to go the juniper
Pat: 30:30
heard the ISP do use iper stuff on the backbone.
Dakota: 30:34
Juno Juniper is very popular.
Dean: 30:37
they use it in hospital data a lot too. And, I have to admit testing Juniper compared to Cisco Juniper, just flies man, like, for like what I'm testing the fasest i've tested with. I've actually tested in my career. YeaThat that, that they are
Dakota: 30:54
Yeah. And one great thing I found out. I don't know if Juniper is still doing this, you can actually get, they, they offer free study material a hundred percent for free. So yeah, Juniper's website, you can go and sign up and at least sign up for the entry-level certifications completely for free. And if you go through their practice exams, you get a very deep discount on your voucher as well. Like
Pat: 31:19
Yeah,
Dean: 31:19
going
Dakota: 31:20
yeah, like 75% off a voucher. I mean we're talking, significant and in all honesty, I feel if you were to compare them apples, to apples, the CCNA and the Juniper certifications, they are, they're fairly close, but Cisco is more, they set the industry standard and they're more well-known. I will. I have no problem saying a Cisco certification will take you 10 times further in this field than a Juniper or really any other certification, just because I think it is an industry standard and more employers recognize Cisco
Dean: 31:53
I agree with you. However, there's been so many times as a network engineer. Well, I've worked on customer premises and I'm just like, and they're running June apart. And I'm like, I wish I had that Juniper cert right now because I could tell them what to do. And I just don't know, like, I've looked at it. I try to work as it looks. It just looks weird. Like I probably could work out after a course, but go on a live network. I've just don't feel that confident to be making life changes like that.
Dakota: 32:21
Well, you know what, as when I got my current job as a director of network operations, I had never touched a Juniper switch before I got hired. but I had tons of experience in the Cisco CLI and at the end of the day, networking is networking. The fundamentals, how everything works is still the same. There's just slight nuances in the differences between different vendors. So once you have the basics down, those skills will transfer and you'll learn fast. You'll pick up on a fast,
Dean: 32:50
It's like driving a car like you D you don't need to take a new test. If you're going from Mercedes to
Dakota: 32:55
Yeah.
Dean: 32:56
it's a car. And the end of the
Dakota: 32:57
Absolutely.
Pat: 32:59
I agree. And I think, I, so I, so just, it triggered my memory. When you said that Juniper is, study materials are free, from what I'm talent, from what I can see Palo Alto. With their, yeah. With their beacon, that Palo Alto networks.com is their study platform. and actually, as of this recording, I sit for the Palo Alto, PC NSA on Monday at three 30. So, so I've been using a lot of beacon, Palo Alto, beacon stuff. they have practice tests and all their content is free. All you have to do is sign up for a, for an account on the beacon site. they're completely, there's no like labs or anything. it's just all dry content and the videos and things of that nature. But, It's very well done. I think it breaks it up into sections and talks about app IDs and zone protections and all that kind of crazy stuff that, that Palo is good for it. But, yeah, Palo Alto the same way free content. So if you guys are into the Palo and I'm like, you need to code, I'd never touched a Palo before I started this new job in September, I've always been a Cisco guy. So, ASA and firepower and all that kinda stuff. So, I started in September at the new gig and they're like, here's a palette. And I'm like, oh crap, is this? How do I do this? I'm like, my fingers don't work, but, yeah, it's I tell you what man, the Palo Alto is slick. It is really nice. So I'm really into that. So, Palo Alto for me, as of next Monday, hoping fingers crossed and then it's onto CCNP security with, Cisco ice and then, AWS to round out the year. So those are my we'll see what happens.
Dakota: 34:23
Very nice.
Pat: 34:25
Yeah, we'll see what happens, but, to flip the script a little bit, Dakota, let's talk about your YouTube stuff. Put on your content creator hat for a little bit. So what the, what sort of spark that the, the YouTube
Dakota: 34:38
there was another YouTuber who's actually not too active anymore. who really inspired me, I was watching his videos and it really inspired me to make the jump into the career field that I didn't need to be an expert. I didn't all the self-doubt I had, I could put it aside and I could get into the field. And after being in the career field for about a year, I wanted to give back, I wanted to help motivate people that, the barrier to entry in the it field. Isn't as great as you think. and I just wanted to give back to the community. so, I started a YouTube channel, just talking about trying to offer that free information about different certifications. I wanted to share other people's story in the it field with different job roles were like, and, I just really want to kind of just give back.
Pat: 35:27
Nice. So you're, you're about what, about three years
Dakota: 35:33
Three years. I D I, yeah, I took about a year and a half, two years off. about four months ago, I really kind of hammered down and started taking this serious. we just got done. yeah, at the time of this recording, just about a month ago, we did a huge holiday giveaway where we gave her away $25,000 worth of training in the it field. and that was a huge accomplishment for me. I worked with tons of different brands. I got them to donate to this giveaway and we were able to give away. Tons of it training, back to people. and that w I felt so proud of myself afterwards, being able to give back to people, it was so cool and now we're, we're going into more, how to videos, I've got different things going on with, like companies, like Synology where we're going to start diving into the inner workings of a network attached storage device and start giving some of that entry-level training and kind of those skills people, this is given those things that people might run across in actual production environment.
Dean: 36:35
sweet. That's really cool.
Pat: 36:37
Nice. I like it. Yeah, that's cool.
Dean: 36:39
Yeah, it's really insightful. Really cool. So what kind of age group has this, sort of, categorized or is it more sort of younger people? Older people wore a mixture of sort of both.
Dakota: 36:49
yeah, it's a huge mixture. one of my early videos I did, I was actually interviewing, this 13 year old kid that who had passed two CCNA certification, age of 13, which I was just astonished at 13 years old, he got a CCNA certification and was studying for his, CCMP you know what I mean? he's gonna, I think he's probably gonna end up being, if he continues to up his rate, he'll be the youngest CCIE out there. but yeah.
Pat: 37:14
I couldn't tell you what I was
Dakota: 37:14
no, nothing good. Nothing I'd like to mention on a recording,
Dean: 37:18
absolutely.
Dakota: 37:20
but, and then I have 20 year plus veterans in the it field constantly coming into my live streams, talking and sharing advice. it's really a broad great community that, I'm building of anyone who's looking to get into it as much like you guys. I just want to be another resource, out there for someone to talk to someone, to, like, if they're unsure that this is the field for them, or they don't know where to start, I want to be that motivation to help them join, help them follow what they want to do.
Dean: 37:51
excellent. That's cool. So do you personally mentor right
Dakota: 37:55
You know what, I don't personally mentor. There's not enough hours in the day for me, I got three kids of my own. I do the YouTube. I work full-time I hope my wife run a graphic design business. so there's just, that is a full play. so no, I don't currently do any mentoring. I would love to, I've actually had several people reach out to me. but outside my current employer, I really don't do any mentoring.
Dean: 38:20
Okay. Nice.
Pat: 38:20
That's fair enough.
Dakota: 38:21
I, but you know what I'm always willing to, if someone has any questions, I'm always, willing to give advice and know, one thing I try to pride myself on is I get back to every single comment on like any of the social media platforms or my YouTube, when people have questions, I try to answer them like within a day or two.
Pat: 38:38
Yeah. that's really cool. Yeah, that's kind of what this is for our space. Just trying to give back to as many people as we can and, me personally, I'm not mentoring anybody right now, but this is sort of, this medium is being used as a mentor in, in, in certain aspects of it. Right. So, whoever wants to listen, go for it. And we're not holding anybody's, head to the fire sort of thing, saying, listen to me, like, I don't want to be that old man, like off my lawn and listen to me, like what I had to go through 20 years ago. nobody wants to hear that.
Dean: 39:04
speak for yourself. I like me. Adele bag. Someone has to be all bad
Dakota: 39:09
Back in my day, we jumped from cow pie, the cow pie to keep our feet warm uphill in both directions in the snow.
Pat: 39:17
we walked to school uphill, both ways in the snow with no feet.
Dakota: 39:24
But, I just want to be another resource. I want to motivate people because sometimes that's all they need is they need that little, the kicking, the rear end, the little push. and that's what it was for me. And I just want to be that for someone else, though, and I don't focus on one thing. I don't focus just on certifications. I focus on real-world skills. I, last week I did a Cisco CCNA lab where we were working through questions, that you might see on a Cisco CCNA exam. the week before, a week before that, on our live stream, we did, we went through hack the box and we were actually, hacking Linux, virtual machines. I like to kind of cover it all and, try to be that general broad resource.
Dean: 40:04
Yeah, like, so you've got like an overall picture of the ear of a whole sort of system production, as opposed to narrowing them just one particular
Dakota: 40:12
Absolutely. And that kind of really is how I kind of live my life. I am a Jack of all trades, MIT field. So I think that'd be perfect for the YouTube channel, just to be a Jack of all trades.
Dean: 40:23
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Get you more rounded, way more rounded. Yeah. The guys who are specialized, it just it's good when they specialize. If you've got a problem, what is particular to what they're specialized in. But yeah. Other than that, it's very hard to explain concepts and things like that. If you don't have a general idea or picture of how the scenes work in.
Pat: 40:46
Yeah, that, see that, see, that popped another question into my head. So, so do we think like, cause when I was coming up, it was, the only way to steal the way to make money was to specialize. Right? You have to specialize, you have to be a Cisco guy. You had to be a VMware guy. You have to be a, this, that, it was very siloed in that aspect. Then there are, And the larger companies I've worked at there, there are silos, right. People have strict, specialties is what they do. And, never the two teams shall meet sort of thing outside of, you're working on a project together sort of thing. So like me being a network, I'd never touched a V center, the center hosting and replicate and all that other crazy stuff. Like, that's just not like that. Wouldn't be an ask of me.
Dean: 41:23
see I do it. I don't do it well, though, by having an idea on how to do it. So I've run exci I've got products box at home. I could, might run a back up my do, high availability. I'm out to duo. But is there probably better ways to do it? Yeah, sure. Is it a book way? Probably not, but I know how to do it. And I met the idea of how to do it, but my specialization is networking, but I need to know the other stuff because I kind of a lot, what's the point of having the network without a Saba. And then what's the point of having a server about the application? It's just dead, isn't it? It's no point having one without they all need to be together. And then a user needs to be using the applicant all comes together with the users in the application. You can't really, you got to look at it holistically and not just networking. Cause this is
Dakota: 42:14
And it really is. you're just securing your career. you, if you're a Jack of all trades, if something doesn't work, you always have something else to fall back on having that approach. I feel.
Pat: 42:25
So I guess my question then is like, like I said, when I was coming up 20 years ago, it was very siloed. Do you think there's a shift going back to the Jack of all trades is the preferred guy at the Mo or gallery person. I don't know, political world. We live in
Dean: 42:42
I think so.
Pat: 42:43
this.
Dakota: 42:44
I think that's quickly becoming the future. especially right now during the pandemic. I think a lot of companies are scrambling to beef up their R T departments and they really need people to be a Jack of all trades because they just don't have enough. They don't have enough bodies there to take care of, to silo everyone off. So, at least for the foreseeable future, I really think being a Jack of all trades is going to become a very high commodity. and it's gonna lead to success.
Dean: 43:11
yeah. I agree. Even with job interviews and stuff, they always pushed the boundary. Always like, okay, you're a network and what'd, about. Or they always asked you staff midnight, you always have to have something intelligent to say about it. You might not know intrinsically, but you have to be aware of the next coming thing or have some sort of idea or understanding of how it works, if it's even of its simple concepts.
Dakota: 43:35
to me that shows motivation and drive that shows someone who is eager to learn and in the right mindset. so I, to me, I like to hire those type of people because, I think they're going to go far and their desire to learn is going to be great. And that's the type of people I like to work with.
Dean: 43:52
Absolutely.
Pat: 43:52
makes sense.
Dean: 43:53
So yeah, answer to your question. Yeah. I think that the Jack of all trades I wouldn't
Pat: 43:57
back and favor.
Dean: 43:58
desired. just like the soft skills now, too. I think it's
Pat: 44:02
Times are a changing
Dean: 44:05
I think so, buddy.
Pat: 44:06
tide would be alive,
Dakota: 44:10
Absolutely.
Dean: 44:10
But those old guys don't really work anymore today. You know what I mean? Those ones who don't, I'm not the Jack of all trades. I'm willing to learn or change the way you like. Eventually you don't have a job anymore. Like your job gets light, phased out. You've not moved on to news beans, your skill sets dead, I mean, you can't realistically do this job for 30 years and expect to
Pat: 44:32
Now.
Dakota: 44:33
I don't think you could do this job for more than five years without some form of major change.
Dean: 44:38
That's all right. Yeah, for sure.
Pat: 44:39
I
Dakota: 44:39
so you it's the willingness to evolve and adapt your skills. If you're willing to evolve and learn new things, you'll never be out of a job. I hear people say is AI or, network automation is not going to take all the jobs. No, it's not. It's going to actually create more jobs. But those jobs that is creating are going to look different than the jobs we see now. So, and
Dean: 44:59
just a different space it's shifting, but yeah, there's going to create way more jobs, but people are just frightened to move on and to really experience
Pat: 45:08
It's cause hate change. People hate change in general. So it's like, oh my God, something has been this way for X amount of years now something new is here, blah, blah, blah. Like I, I equate it to like back in the day when servers were physical before virtualization and then the server guys were getting asked the same questions. Right. They were like, Hey, oh, is that is, is VMware is going to take your job. Isn't it cloud gonna take your job? And it's like, no, you still need somebody to push the buttons instead of a clunky physical server that you're kicking with your foot every 10 minutes. You're it's virtual, like.
Dean: 45:43
if, you've never, if you've never bothered to learn EXSi or any other KVM or any other virtual platform or product out there, then I know you can do is turn on the box on and off. You're kind of dead in the water. You weren't a server guy, but you're a server guy in the eighties. Light servers don't work that way. And then if you're a server guy, now you should be looking at a cloud because that's where it's going next. Then if you're running edX, you might be able to still keep a job on prem for some stuff. But realistically, it's all kind of go in that way. So you kind of got to move with the times and be astute in
Pat: 46:15
always a student of the game. That's the way I look at
Dakota: 46:18
Absolutely.
Pat: 46:19
That's the way I look at it. It just is what it is. It's just the industry we're in. And if, if you like to set it and forget it as far as from a, a career mindset, it's just this place isn't for you. it's just not.
Dean: 46:32
yeah. I'd actually like to automate things and that way I get to learn other stuff because I've done, I've coded it. It's doing its thing. I don't need to pay attention anymore and I can work on something new. That's what I
Pat: 46:45
Now I can't, can't disagree with that. So, the cooler we're coming up on the hour. So, so first of all, we want to thank you for joining us. This has been awesome, really great conversation.
Dean: 46:54
So good.
Pat: 46:55
this has been awesome. So Dakota, why don't you tell the people five finds masses of people that are out there where they can find you and, give you a 32nd pitch.
Dakota: 47:05
Best place to find me as YouTube. I'm always doing something new. I put out videos weekly. I'm always live-streaming every week. So YouTube, bearded it, dad. w I'm on Twitter, beer. It that as well, pretty much any social media platform bearded it. That is where I'm at. Like I said, we do weekly live stream where we do Q and a. You can ask any question about the it field, whether it's what certifications are currently hot, why you're not getting calls on your resume. That sucks. you can ask any question and we will answer it.
Pat: 47:33
when do you
Dakota: 47:33
every Friday currently at, 8:30 PM Pacific standard time.
Dean: 47:39
nice. And what
Dakota: 47:40
YouTube, Twitch and Facebook all simultaneously. So choose your platform of choice that might change in the future. But for right now, we're going to stick with all three.
Pat: 47:51
Good deal. All right, Dakota, this has been awesome. Thank you very much. We're going to give our a get by a last minute spiel here. That's so tell the fine find people that are out there where you can find us. So this is your first time listening. Thank you for listening. This has been great. You're tuned into a good one. again, thanks to Dakota for joining us, being at it, dad look him up and he's got some really good stuff. I was looking at him earlier. it's really good insight. And he's, obviously you heard him for the last hour. He's down to earth and really approachable. So go check this stuff out. Subscribe, hit the bell, do all that kind of stuff. So you, you get his stuff from now on and, depending on if I can stay awake long enough, I may be able to join a live YouTube, every now and then on a Friday, because I'm an east coast. So eight 30 your time? Yeah. Eight 30. Your time is 1130 my
Dakota: 48:36
Yeah. we might eventually moved to the weekends and bring it up earlier. It's just, that's what works now. But at any time, you're always welcome on the show. I'll send you a video
Pat: 48:45
Sounds good. Yeah, let's do that. So, yeah. Thanks everybody for joining us this week on the show, make sure you visit our website. So you want to be an it that com where you can subscribe to the show on your favorite platforms. There's a new subscribe button there, or a subscribe page there. Actually, the website's been redone the last couple of days, so still tinkering with it, still seeing what looks good, but I think it's, it flows a little better now and it's a little more friendly. So go look, go check that out. If you haven't even just for the fresh coat of paint, but we're all on there, right? So you can, subscribe right from there. iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, pretty much anywhere, Pandora, Amazon music, anywhere you listen to the podcast, there's links there for, to the show you can subscribe, and then obviously the ever important, ratings on iTunes, throw us a rating. It messes with our algorithm and we get to the top. What do you guys get a little bit closer to the top of the list for the tech podcasts they're on apple podcasts or simply tell a friend, right? So that's a, that's always good word of mouth is always good to the tried and true version of a way to get around is word of mouth. So always good there. again, follow us on Twitter. at S I always have to do this. I have to spell it out. S Y w B I T they have Twitter. It's only a certain of characters and the, our holes, our whole name wouldn't fit. It was short by one character. So I had to shorten it. so follow that and all of our socials are in the show notes. So if you went to, join us there, Dean you're at DeanMacUK on Twitter. Yeah.
Dean: 50:10
you, Yeah. At millennium bursts on Instagram and then millenniumburst.com on my blog and website new posts on there too, for a CCIE content, security content. I just, released their site to site
Pat: 50:24
Yeah, so. New blog for the show as well. These is going to double dip on that. So blog for him, blog for the show, again, that's right from our website as well. soyouwannabeinit.com and there's a blog page that redirects you to deans, Dean's page. So, I read it today. that was really good. so if you're into the VPN stuff and security and whatnot at the, the blog that he just did is phenomenal. So check that out. and, again, discord server, the invite is in the show notes, but, for you, folks listening here, it's, uh, sywbiit.com/discord, that gives you the link to join us there. the YouTube is getting better, speaking from having a YouTube content creator here today, with Dakota. So, our YouTube channel is getting more videos up there, for the podcast. So if you like to do the YouTube stuff, you can do that too. And then. For the foreseeable future. We're running that survey that we did, that we created a couple of weeks ago for, just some feedback. Let's see what you like about the show, some general questions and things there's like 10 on there. all the info is just it's anonymous. We don't know who you are. It just tallies for us as far as, just results and things of that nature. So it just tweaks the show a little bit and gives us a little bit of idea what you like, what you don't like, and then helps us with advertisements, or I should say advertisers, so, that's it, Dakota again, once again. Thanks for hanging out. Really appreciate you. This has been great. go check him out.
Dean: 51:42
Absolute pleasure.
Pat: 51:43
awesome.
Dakota: 51:44
Thank you. Thank you for
Pat: 51:45
Yeah, absolutely. Bearded IT that on YouTube. check them out for sure. I'm going to actually, I already am following you, so it's all good, but everyone go follow him. And again, we'll see you guys next week with a, another guest. All right guys. Check it later.