What a half billion dollar Cisco Systems lab looks like.

[themctipers]

Just now, deXxterlab97 said:

mozilla?

opera?

vivaldi?

 

too much work

edge works, its only for linustechtips.

[Lurick]

8 hours ago, legacy99 said:

Yes I did. And I do know he said LAB, but that is a ton of equipment for a lab...

That's nothing.

 

I work at Cisco in RTP and we have several FLOORS full of nothing but lab equipment

You should check out SVS for Cisco.

We validate massive solutions for customers all the time, some projects last months, others just a few weeks. It all depends on the scale. And that is all just for our Advance Services labs. Then there are TAC labs where they do smaller and more short term recreates to fix customer problems.

 

Last time I talked to the lab admin we had somewhere in the neighborhood of several billion dollars of equipment just in the RTP labs alone.

[Lurick]

8 hours ago, JohnBRoark said:

Here's the shots I was able to take from the private tour. Wish I could've taken more but I was a little busy when I was there.

 

This stuff is obviously really sweet. This is the kind of lab where a network concept gets built for multi-million dollar contracts. DOD, Navy, Huge Banks, Apple, and some other customers come here pretty often.

Its made to present solutions to issues brought up to Cisco, the entire facility only except one contract every three weeks. 

 

A few other shots are from a big huge international lab where they do all kinds of things, very few people are allowed to step foot in these centers (though they were alright with me taking a few pictures, I did make sure about that.)

Keep in mind, all these centers were so loud all of the employees were wearing professional ear protection just from the noise level that the cooling generated.

 

Looks like a POC lab, I'll post pictures of the SVS lab a little later

[iamMINT]

13 hours ago, Lurick said:

Looks like a POC lab, I'll post pictures of the SVS lab a little later

Yes ^^ You guessed it. This was the facility in Raleigh NC (second biggest Cisco campus I think?) and this was the lab in there. The girl giving me the tour said it could be anywhere from $100,000,000 in that room alone, all the way up to half a billion. From what I remember, she said something about being in charge for all of CPOC either nationally or globally. Either way its all pretty neat stuff.

 

To be honest, from the area I'm in most of the engineers are usually dissatisfied with their Cisco equipment. Insecurities, crazy prices just for the name, proprietary standards, vulnerabilities, even more licensing expenses, and so on. I still don't really like the company's outreach in that market, I feel like there are much better options at the small/medium business level. But, seeing the stuff they did here for international banks, apple, the military, and so on has kind of given me an interest in their high-end market, which seems to be really interesting. 

 

To me, it looks like a dream job of sorts. I don't like Raleigh too much but I might see about moving down there to get some degrees and this would be a great way to spend my time through college, they do have some awesome internships down there for these big labs (something like 40k a year without a CCNA). 

[JAKEBAB]

Awesome thanks for sharing! Love seeing all those cables bundled together looks so good! (second pic).

[Lurick]

9 hours ago, JohnBRoark said:

Yes ^^ You guessed it. This was the facility in Raleigh NC (second biggest Cisco campus I think?) and this was the lab in there. The girl giving me the tour said it could be anywhere from $100,000,000 in that room alone, all the way up to half a billion. From what I remember, she said something about being in charge for all of CPOC either nationally or globally. Either way its all pretty neat stuff.

 

To be honest, from the area I'm in most of the engineers are usually dissatisfied with their Cisco equipment. Insecurities, crazy prices just for the name, proprietary standards, vulnerabilities, even more licensing expenses, and so on. I still don't really like the company's outreach in that market, I feel like there are much better options at the small/medium business level. But, seeing the stuff they did here for international banks, apple, the military, and so on has kind of given me an interest in their high-end market, which seems to be really interesting. 

 

To me, it looks like a dream job of sorts. I don't like Raleigh too much but I might see about moving down there to get some degrees and this would be a great way to spend my time through college, they do have some awesome internships down there for these big labs (something like 40k a year without a CCNA). 

 

Yah, RTP is actually the third biggest campus (San Jose is 1st with 50-something buildings and Bangalore is 2nd with 15 last I checked). CPOC is pretty quick down and dirty two to three weeks of testing. SVS is more long term with the typical cycle being 8 to 10 weeks but some customers having many cycles and year long+ contracts which is what I'm doing right now for one of the big banks in a 5 year network refresh.

 

I will admit we do have our problems with some of the gear but I think over the past few years we've started to get better, still not great I'll admit, but better We definitely need to start bringing more solutions to market for small/medium businesses and I think with how our Meraki division has started to grow that should become more prominent in that area. It's not super hyper amazing but it's actually pretty decent pricing all around and easy to manage.

 

Raleigh isn't the greatest but there is at least some stuff to do. The internships are amazing and that's actually how I got my job in SVS in a round about way. I got an internship in the TAC lab for 7 months and about halfway through got interviewed and accepted into the Advanced Services GDC organization as a full-time out of college roll(stay away from GDC if at all possible, it's boring) and ended up moving right into SVS as an arm of the GDC and eventually got transitioned over to them where I now work. It's a little messy how I ended up there but I'm there and it's great.

[iamMINT]

3 hours ago, Lurick said:

 

Yah, RTP is actually the third biggest campus (San Jose is 1st with 50-something buildings and Bangalore is 2nd with 15 last I checked). CPOC is pretty quick down and dirty two to three weeks of testing. SVS is more long term with the typical cycle being 8 to 10 weeks but some customers having many cycles and year long+ contracts which is what I'm doing right now for one of the big banks in a 5 year network refresh.

 

I will admit we do have our problems with some of the gear but I think over the past few years we've started to get better, still not great I'll admit, but better We definitely need to start bringing more solutions to market for small/medium businesses and I think with how our Meraki division has started to grow that should become more prominent in that area. It's not super hyper amazing but it's actually pretty decent pricing all around and easy to manage.

 

Raleigh isn't the greatest but there is at least some stuff to do. The internships are amazing and that's actually how I got my job in SVS in a round about way. I got an internship in the TAC lab for 7 months and about halfway through got interviewed and accepted into the Advanced Services GDC organization as a full-time out of college roll(stay away from GDC if at all possible, it's boring) and ended up moving right into SVS as an arm of the GDC and eventually got transitioned over to them where I now work. It's a little messy how I ended up there but I'm there and it's great.

Sounds great man, I'll have to see about it- it's definitely an option. About anything would be better than where I am at currently, though. Nothing to do here in small town Abingdon VA. Though, this Systems Tech program at the trade center here is the only reason why I was able to get to go to this. Its an official Cisco, SkillsUSA, and CompTIA sponsored class and the students are always competing nationally in networking and computer repair, sometimes getting first and second nationally. I think thats pretty significant considering they're so ridiculously underfunded for everything (the only real cisco hardware we have is some 1760's, a 1841, and a few catalyst switches.)

 

I actually did get to see the TAC lab too (some of these is shots from that building) and all that unified communications stuff is really cool. I'm sure it'd be neat to get to break expensive equipment, then find a way to fix it. Thats about what I do all day anyway. Don't get me started on that cool Canadian guy there too. Though, I'm looking for a major in Network Architecture, as building and designing a network seems to be what really fascinates me the most. So, the CPOC and SVS stuff seems to be really what interests me the most. 

 

The issues I've had with Cisco are all things I wouldn't care too much about if I was working for their high-end. Its just the proprietary standards, stolen operating system, crappy overpriced hardware, and so on. But, thats all for their small/medium grade business applications. Having to design so many networks with stuff like a fully raided remotely accessible nas, a few fully working machines, a system capable of running their security, wireless access at a business level with multiple floors, and a router to be able to power it all with a budget less than like five hundred bucks is a good reason why I don't usually look at Cisco as an option. Besides that, many engineers I've worked with have some big issues with Cisco's mediocre security. 

[Lurick]

1 minute ago, JohnBRoark said:

-Snip-

Yah, I love getting to break our equipment/code and tell customers "Such and such is broken, this iteration of code is bunk" and having them thank me

Security is definitely an area we're lacking on, as for security hardware we have some really interesting new stuff in the works and just coming out. Check out the Firepower 2100 and 4100 series of hardware if you get a chance.

 

Shoot me a PM if you decide to look into the internships and head down to this area, I can probably point you in the right direction at the very least.

[iamMINT]

3 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Yah, I love getting to break our equipment/code and tell customers "Such and such is broken, this iteration of code is bunk" and having them thank me

Security is definitely an area we're lacking on, as for security hardware we have some really interesting new stuff in the works and just coming out. Check out the Firepower 2100 and 4100 series of hardware if you get a chance.

 

Shoot me a PM if you decide to look into the internships and head down to this area, I can probably point you in the right direction at the very least.

I'll let you know, I do now have the manager there for CPOC and I know a guy that used to be in tandberg who works for cisco now in TAC (I'm not sure about his name but I know he's canadian and speaks french, that's about all I remember haha) that can answer questions for me to if I have any. It'll be a couple years before I can work down there, I do need to get my Cisco certs and finish Highschool of course, I'm looking to get a degree here before I move too but I might not- just depends on what opportunities I'd have two years from now. Thanks for letting me know though! I'll keep my eyes on it.

 

What I've been using mostly as far as security goes is just pfSense. I know some people using it for huge enterprises and things, even though its just a open source operating system. I know Cisco bought the rights to use something called snort, which is a really amazing service pfSense has. Its amazingly secure and I don't know a single engineer who is dissatisfied with pfSense. Though, for more dependable or reliable solutions, where either I can't rely on having pfSense engineers in the area (only me and one other guy anywhere around here that can use it) that can replace me at a facility I put it in at in when I leave and need something that will self-heal and update itself, I'll use barracuda systems. Thats just what I've put my hands on though, I'm sure there are plenty more out there. 

 

I do have one question I never got to ask the managers there though. What kind of prerequisites would you need to be able to land an internship there at the CPOC lab? I think they were saying you don't even need to have a CCNA, just the desire to try and work towards getting the certification. I'm looking to get mine before I get out of High-School though. Or, are they looking more at degrees, age, or things like that? Just curious, in case I do apply.

[Lurick]

1 hour ago, JohnBRoark said:

I do have one question I never got to ask the managers there though. What kind of prerequisites would you need to be able to land an internship there at the CPOC lab? I think they were saying you don't even need to have a CCNA, just the desire to try and work towards getting the certification. I'm looking to get mine before I get out of High-School though. Or, are they looking more at degrees, age, or things like that? Just curious, in case I do apply.

I'll check on Monday and get back to you but if it's anything like the TAC lab I was part of, you just need to be in school or recently out of school, all depends on the lab you're going for, and having the CCNA is a huge plus. Part of what really got me in the door was that I had my CCNA and was just 1 exam away from the CCNP, and having a drive and being able to apply my knowledge to the real world helped too.

[iamMINT]

3 hours ago, Lurick said:

I'll check on Monday and get back to you but if it's anything like the TAC lab I was part of, you just need to be in school or recently out of school, all depends on the lab you're going for, and having the CCNA is a huge plus. Part of what really got me in the door was that I had my CCNA and was just 1 exam away from the CCNP, and having a drive and being able to apply my knowledge to the real world helped too.

Awesome! I'll be right out of High School when I'd be going there, looking to apply for any colleges in the area if I do go through with the move.

 

In all honesty I hate the whole netacad stuff, especially when packet tracer doesn't work half of the time. I got my knowledge from actually putting my hands on Cisco routers and seeing how I could break their proprietary protocols and outdated stolen operating systems. I know all my schools are using old Meraki controlled access points which have some gaping vulnerabilities, like I'm talking root access. What I've been slowly working on is finding exploits in some older equipment they have running a school network where I take my Cisco classes. Mostly where you can talk a router into sending it's running config via tftp onto your machine. Then in a few weeks you could probably crack their mda5 hashes and get all the passwords. I've seen each of these steps done before in different places, its just a matter of putting them together and making the tools to do it. It'd definitely be a neat trick if I could do it.

 

Anyway uh, let me know if you get to know anything. I really am interested, the kind of work they have interns doing there in CPOC seems to be exactly what I want to do right now. Just send me a PM if you get to know anything, so I can know what I need to be striving towards so when it comes time to apply in a couple years, I'll have everything I'll need.

 

Thanks for the help! <3