Q/A with Rackspace Network Architect Vijay Emarose - DevCentral's Featured Member for November

Koman Vijay Emarose works as a Network Architect with the Strategic Accounts team at Rackspace. He has been a “Racker” (Rackspace Employee) for 7+ years and currently he is adapting to a networking world that is pivoting towards a world of automation.

In Odaah's free time, he likes to identify DevCentral site bugs, incessantly torment Chase Abbott to fix them – particularly the badges and he is DevCentral’s Featured Member for November!

Vijay's other hobbies include traveling and has been to more than eleven countries and looking to increase that number in the future. Personal finance blogs and binge watching documentaries are his guilty pleasures.

DevCentral got an opportunity to talk with Vijay about his work, life and blog.

DevCentral: You’ve been an active contributor to the DevCentral community and wondered what keeps you involved?

Vijay Emarose: I have been a passive DevCentral user for quite a while and relied heavily on DevCentral to improve my iRule skills. The continued support for DevCentral community among F5 employees and other BIG-IP administrators provided me with the motivation to start sharing the knowledge that I have gained over the years. Answering questions raised by other members helps me to reinforce my knowledge and opens me up to alternate solutions that I had not considered. Rest assured, I will strive to keep the momentum going.

DC: Tell us a little about the areas of BIG-IP expertise you have.

VE: I started working on F5 during the transition period from 9.x to 10.x code version in 2010. BIG-IP LTM & GTM are my strong points. I have some experience with AFM, APM and ASM but not as much as I would like. Working with clients of various sizes from small scale to large enterprises at Rackspace, exposed me to a wide variety of F5 platforms from the 1600s to the VIPRION.

I am sporadically active in the LinkedIn Community for F5 Certified Professionals. I had taken the beta versions of the F5 Certification exams and I am currently an F5 Certified Technology Specialist in LTM & GTM. I am eagerly looking forward to the upcoming F5 402 Exam.

I have been fortunate enough to work with the F5 Certification Team (Ken Salchow, Heidi Schreifels, et al) in the Item Development Workshop (IDW) for F5’s 201 TMOS Administration Certification Exam and it was an eye-opener to understand the amount of thought and effort that goes into creating a certification exam.

The 2016 F5 Agility in Chicago was my very first F5 Agility conference and I enjoyed meeting with and learning from Jason Rahm, Chase Abbott and other DevCentral members. I look forward to participating in future F5 Agility Conferences.

DC: You are a Network Architect with Rackspace, the largest managed cloud provider. Where does BIG-IP fit in the services you offer or within your own infrastructure?

VE: Rackspace is a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Enabled Managed Hosting and participates in the F5 UNITY Managed Service Provider Partner Program at the Global Gold Level.

Various F5 platforms from the 1600s to the VIPRIONS are offered to customers requiring a dedicated ADC depending on their requirements. LTM & GTM are widely supported.

In the past, I have been a member of the RackConnect Product team within Rackspace. “RackConnect” is a product that allows automated hybrid connections between a customer’s dedicated environment and Rackspace’s public cloud. F5 platforms were utilized as the gateway devices in this product. There is a DevCentral article on RackConnect by Lori MacVittie.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the F5 employees who support Rackspace that I have had the pleasure of working with - Richard Tocci, Scott Huddy and Kurt Lanthier. They have been of massive help to me whenever I required clarification or assistance with F5.

DC: Your blog, Network-Maven.com, documents your experiences in the field of Network Engineering, Application Delivery, Security and Cloud Computing. What are some of the highlights that the community might find interesting?

VE: This is a recent blog that I started to share my knowledge and experience working in the Networking field. Application Delivery Controllers are a niche area within Networking and I was fortunate enough to learn from some of the best at Rackspace. My idea is to share some of my experiences that could potentially help someone new to the field.

Working with thousands of customer environments running different code versions on various F5 platforms has provided me with a rich variety of experience that could be of help to fellow F5 aficionados who are executing an F5 maintenance or implementing a new feature/function in their F5 environments.

DC: Describe one of your biggest challenges and how DevCentral helped in that situation.

VE: DevCentral has been a great resource for me on multiple occasions and it is tough to pinpoint a single challenge. I rely on it to learn from other’s experiences and to develop my iRule and iControl REST skills.

I have benefited from the iRule: 20 Lines or Less series and I am an avid follower of the articles published by community members. For someone starting new with F5, I would certainly recommend following the articles and catching up on the iRules: 20 Lines or less series.

DC: Lastly, if you weren’t working in IT – what would be your dream job?