It all started with a thirst for knowledge and a will to learn new thing every single day!
While I started into networking and security I was always curious about breaking stuffs. I always wanted to learn more and more about this fascinating networks, how we communicate inside the network and of course the security thing. Untill now, I was just aware of the upper part of the iceberg but I never thought that there was such a huge amount of knowledgeable material deep down there.
To say the truth, I only knew about these type of community driven NOG's some months back. After finding out about them, I scratched the web, saw the past contents, presentation slides, learning materials provided by them and really thought that I had missed a lot. Long story short, I found about the fellowship programs, applied for it, got selected, went for these NOG's and now here I am sharing my experience.
So, basically Network Operators Groups (NOG’s) are usually an informal and more of open idea exchange platform. It is either country or region based where network operators come under a same roof to discuss topics of mutual interest and exchange their ideas as well as express their viewpoints for the betterment of operational, robust, secure and stable network. Usually these type of forums have their supporting members from Internet Service Provider (ISP), Internet Exchange Point (IXP), Regional Internet Registry (RIR), Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) operators, Domain Name System (DNS) and root zone operators, operational security communities and other network operations communities and discussion among these members are truly an influential one.
npNOG2 started (on 15th of June 2017) with three days of workshop on three different tracks which included: IPv4/6 Routing, Network Management and Monitoring and Optical Fiber Network and ended with a one day conference just after the three days of workshop. I attended the three days workshop on IPv4/IPv6 routing. The workshop gave an insight of IPv6, routing protocols like OSPF and BGP where we had intensive three days of hands on lab exercises. Apart from breaking the lab (Hint: Route Leak!) on the last day, everything went just fine! In fact, I was so curious that I simulated the lab environment and even tried some twists and tricks after getting back from the program. The four days journey was a knowledgeable one! Overall, it was truly a marvelous opportunity to become a part of the second edition of the npNOG (Nepal Network Operators Group), such a brilliant and knowledgeable folks in the community with great instructors. It was really a great learning and networking opportunity.
SANOG-XXX started (on 10th of July 2017) with two days of conference, two days tutorials and five days of workshop on three different tracks which included: IPv4/6 Routing, Network Security and DevOps 101 for Network Engineers. The talks on conference and tutorials were interesting and knowledgeable. I was actually thinking to attend IPv4/6 Routing since, this time it would cover IS-IS (The routing protocol!), BGP, multi-homing, traffic engineering and other cool stuffs but later I decided to attend Network Security.
Why Network Security? Well, Security stuffs got me on that! I thought, Why not utilize some of my Network Security knowledge and expand more knowledge on security stuffs too! So then I decided to attend Network Security. Indeed! Network Security Workshop was fun, Well! at least for me and I hope others surely enjoyed it too. The workshop contained topics such as: Cryptography, Cryptographic applications such as SSH, VPN's, SSL/TLS, PGP and also DNS, DNSSEC, Network/Server hardening best practices and other cool stuffs. The instructors were truly amazing. Everything went fine this time, apart from some random hacks for fun and for knowledge of course! Such a knowledgeable and talented participants.
Overall, both the NOG's were great and knowledgeable one. All the Fellows were great! We had such a memorable, knowledgeable and great time with sharing of knowledge and ideas.
Final words
These kind of knowledge sharing communities are growing and should definitely keep on growing so that the experienced folks could share and transfer their knowledge, experiences and ideas to new startup engineers, students and networking enthusiast so that the new generation could benefit more.
I would highly recommend anyone working on Networking or Security domain to participate actively among such communities and share their ideas and experiences. Organizations working on these domains should also highly motivate, encourage and truly support their staff members to participate and contribute to such communities.
Finally, I would like to thank all the Instructors, Sponsors, my fellow Friends, Seniors and all the folks who were in touch with me on the event. Thanks to all the team, for making my first NOG's knowledgeable and amazing one! I hope that I would also get an opportunity to share some of my ideas and knowledge to the community in near future.
A note to remember: "Do not read books, read RFC's! That's where the beauty of a true knowledge is."
While I started into networking and security I was always curious about breaking stuffs. I always wanted to learn more and more about this fascinating networks, how we communicate inside the network and of course the security thing. Untill now, I was just aware of the upper part of the iceberg but I never thought that there was such a huge amount of knowledgeable material deep down there.
To say the truth, I only knew about these type of community driven NOG's some months back. After finding out about them, I scratched the web, saw the past contents, presentation slides, learning materials provided by them and really thought that I had missed a lot. Long story short, I found about the fellowship programs, applied for it, got selected, went for these NOG's and now here I am sharing my experience.
So, basically Network Operators Groups (NOG’s) are usually an informal and more of open idea exchange platform. It is either country or region based where network operators come under a same roof to discuss topics of mutual interest and exchange their ideas as well as express their viewpoints for the betterment of operational, robust, secure and stable network. Usually these type of forums have their supporting members from Internet Service Provider (ISP), Internet Exchange Point (IXP), Regional Internet Registry (RIR), Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) operators, Domain Name System (DNS) and root zone operators, operational security communities and other network operations communities and discussion among these members are truly an influential one.
npNOG2 started (on 15th of June 2017) with three days of workshop on three different tracks which included: IPv4/6 Routing, Network Management and Monitoring and Optical Fiber Network and ended with a one day conference just after the three days of workshop. I attended the three days workshop on IPv4/IPv6 routing. The workshop gave an insight of IPv6, routing protocols like OSPF and BGP where we had intensive three days of hands on lab exercises. Apart from breaking the lab (Hint: Route Leak!) on the last day, everything went just fine! In fact, I was so curious that I simulated the lab environment and even tried some twists and tricks after getting back from the program. The four days journey was a knowledgeable one! Overall, it was truly a marvelous opportunity to become a part of the second edition of the npNOG (Nepal Network Operators Group), such a brilliant and knowledgeable folks in the community with great instructors. It was really a great learning and networking opportunity.
SANOG-XXX started (on 10th of July 2017) with two days of conference, two days tutorials and five days of workshop on three different tracks which included: IPv4/6 Routing, Network Security and DevOps 101 for Network Engineers. The talks on conference and tutorials were interesting and knowledgeable. I was actually thinking to attend IPv4/6 Routing since, this time it would cover IS-IS (The routing protocol!), BGP, multi-homing, traffic engineering and other cool stuffs but later I decided to attend Network Security.
Why Network Security? Well, Security stuffs got me on that! I thought, Why not utilize some of my Network Security knowledge and expand more knowledge on security stuffs too! So then I decided to attend Network Security. Indeed! Network Security Workshop was fun, Well! at least for me and I hope others surely enjoyed it too. The workshop contained topics such as: Cryptography, Cryptographic applications such as SSH, VPN's, SSL/TLS, PGP and also DNS, DNSSEC, Network/Server hardening best practices and other cool stuffs. The instructors were truly amazing. Everything went fine this time, apart from some random hacks for fun and for knowledge of course! Such a knowledgeable and talented participants.
Overall, both the NOG's were great and knowledgeable one. All the Fellows were great! We had such a memorable, knowledgeable and great time with sharing of knowledge and ideas.
Final words
These kind of knowledge sharing communities are growing and should definitely keep on growing so that the experienced folks could share and transfer their knowledge, experiences and ideas to new startup engineers, students and networking enthusiast so that the new generation could benefit more.
I would highly recommend anyone working on Networking or Security domain to participate actively among such communities and share their ideas and experiences. Organizations working on these domains should also highly motivate, encourage and truly support their staff members to participate and contribute to such communities.
Finally, I would like to thank all the Instructors, Sponsors, my fellow Friends, Seniors and all the folks who were in touch with me on the event. Thanks to all the team, for making my first NOG's knowledgeable and amazing one! I hope that I would also get an opportunity to share some of my ideas and knowledge to the community in near future.
A note to remember: "Do not read books, read RFC's! That's where the beauty of a true knowledge is."