DevCentral's Featured Member for November - Mohamed Salah
Our Featured Member series is a way for us to show appreciation and highlight active contributors in our community. Communities thrive on interaction and ourFeatured Seriesgives you some insight on some of our most engaged folks. F5 Community Member Mohamed Salahis our DevCentral Featured Member for November! He's been helping many other members with some great tips so let's catch up with Mohamed!DevCentral's Featured Member for May - Rodolfo Nützmann
Our Featured Member series is a way for us to show appreciation and highlight active contributors in our community. Communities thrive on interaction and ourFeatured Seriesgives you some insight on some of our most engaged folks. DevCentral Member and 2022 MVPRodolfo Nützmannis our Featured Member for May! Let's catch up with Rodolfo!DevCentral's Featured Member for January - Daniel Wolf
Our Featured Member series is a way for us to show appreciation and highlight active contributors in our community. Communities thrive on interaction and ourFeatured Seriesgives you some insight on some of our most engaged folks. DevCentral Member and newly minted MVPDaniel Wolf is our Featured Member to kick off 2022! Let's catch up with Daniel! DevCentral: First, please explain to the DC community a little about yourself, what you do and why it is important. Daniel: I’m an enthusiast. When I was younger, I was a passionate handball player. Later I also became a passionate handball coach for children. Recently I became an avid cook. Almost ten years ago I moved to the Balkans, to the city of Skopje. I fell in love with the region, the people, and the Balkan way of life. I even found my wife there. Almost three years ago my family and I moved back to my hometown, a small city close to Frankfurt in Germany. And I have always been a tech enthusiast. DevCentral: You’ve continued to be an active contributor in the DevCentral community.What keeps you involved? Daniel: I find it interesting to read what challenges others from the community are facing. In case I know an answer to their question, I will reply. In case I don’t know the answer, but I think I can figure it out with a reasonable effort, I will try to. It helps me to broaden my knowledge but even more important to share the answers with others. DevCentral: Tell us a little about the technical expertise you have. Daniel: First time I touched a computer was an Intel 286 with DOS 5.0. After a couple of weeks, I deleted a couple of seemingly useless file to install Monkey Island. Since then, I became pretty good at solving computer problems. Nowadays they are called projects and the problems are often much more complex. The last technology I was responsible before I decided to become an F5 consultant was Microsoft SharePoint and other .NET web apps. Roughly 7 years ago, there was a project to protect an online banking application with a WAF. So, unlike many other F5 specialists, I am not a network specialist but a web server dude. DevCentral: You are a Senior Network Professional at Controlware GmbH. Can you describe your typical workday, how you manage work/life balance and the strong support of F5 solutions? How has the pandemic impacted your work? Daniel: I appreciate that there is not a typical workday. I enjoy a challenging mix between projects, presales activities and occasional L3 support. Most fun for me are projects where I can help my customers to protect their apps and APIs. In the past two years we also had a lot of projects building, improving, or scaling out identity-aware access solutions. So, on a typical day, I’d say I am still solving computer problems. The pandemic has improved my work/life balance, I don’t have to drive to the office anymore and I can have a walk in the field during lunchtime or enjoy a coffee with my wife (she’s also working from home). DevCentral: Do you have any F5 Certifications? If so, why are these important to you and how have they helped with your career? Daniel: I have the 401 since last year. The 401 was a very good exam, passing it required an understanding of many F5 solutions but also of broader security concepts. My employer is promoting to get certified and allowed me to prepare during working hours. DevCentral: Describe one of your biggest Customer challenges and how the community helped in that situation. Daniel:I’d say that this is one of my current projects. We are migrating from an end-of-life proxy platform to BIG-IP and we are building a lot of the content switching and rewrite features with iRules. Devcentral is a goldmine if you are looking for iRule documentation and code snippets. DevCentral: Lastly, if you weren’t doing what you’re doing – what would be your dream career? Like, when you were a kid – what did you want to be when you grew up? Daniel: I always wanted to be some sort of IT guy. I think I am fine where I am now, I enjoy my work. If I was granted a wish, carpenter would be an alternative. I like the idea that, at the end of each day, you can see what you have built with your own hands. The things I build, they are meaningful as long as there is a browser available. ---Thanks Dan!We really appreciate your willingness to share with the DevCentral Community. Stay connected with Daniel and Controlware on social media: Controlware GmbH on LinkedIn Daniel on LinkedIn Controlware GmbH on the WebDevCentral's Featured Member for June - Aubrey King
Our Featured Member series is a way for us to show appreciation and highlight active contributors in our community. Communities thrive on interaction and ourFeatured Seriesgives you some insight on some of our most engaged folks. This month, for only the second time, we're featuring an F5er! Why? Because Aubrey just joined the DevCentral Team and we are excited to have him!! F5 DevCentral Solution ArchitectAubrey Kingis our Featured Member for June!Let's catch up with Aubrey!DevCentral's Featured Member for December - Mohamed Kansoh
Our Featured Member series is a way for us to show appreciation and highlight active contributors in our community. Communities thrive on interaction and ourFeatured Seriesgives you some insight on some of our most engaged folks. F5 Community MemberMohamed Kansohis our DevCentral Featured Member for December! He's been helping many other members with some great tips so let's catch up with Mohamed! First, please explain to the DC community a little about yourself, what you do and why it is important. Mohamed: Well Firstly, thanks for this appreciation. This is Mohamed Kansoh, I’m Egyptian and I’m 26 years old, I’ve earned my bachelor’s degree in “Communications and Electronics” from Faculty of Engineering Menufia University since 2019. After that I worked on myself by taking more online trainings in networks and security field to be more qualified in Labor market. I started my career at the beginning of 2020 at BARQ Systems Company where was my first time to deal with F5 Products and other security Solutions. I started working with Firewalls then F5 Technologies such as BIG-IP LTM and ASM which I have found it more interesting and powerful to know and work with Specially with troubleshooting in network and security issues. At BARQ SYSTEMS I implement new F5 projects from Scratch and support our customers in their technical issues until resolved. DevCentral: You’ve been an active contributor in the DevCentral community. What keeps you involved? Mohamed: Yes, I see that F5 Community as a third hand for anyone who works with F5 technologies. When I get stuck with issues with F5, implement a new service or have any concern, I used to search for an adequate workaround, I find the clue or ideal solution at F5 Community. Also, it’s not fair to see F5 users need help or have technical concerns and I know a proper solution for them and do not reply, indeed! it’s a disappointment to see issues or technical concerns with no answer or reply even if a reply as a matter of thinking out loud. F5 Community expands my scope of knowledge, I learn much from it specially iRules and technical Articles, F5 Community adds to me every day and it keeps me updated. F5 is the closest network solution to my heart and I hope to reach the expert level with All of F5 Technologies one day! I value it and its role in networking, especially with troubleshooting, Also F5 gives you a clear vision throughout your whole network. My word to our customers “if you want a rich, secured and a high-quality network, you must implement F5 to offload your applications.“ DevCentral: Tell us a little about the technical expertise you have. Mohamed: After almost 3 years of working experience in network and Security Field, I have got experience with: Routing, switching and network design. Multiple Vendor Firewall Solutions such as: Juniper SRX Firewall. Palo-alto Firewall. Fortigate firewall. General knowledge with Forcepoint. General Knowledge with Cisco FTD. Web Applications Firewall (F5 ASM). Application Delivery controller (ADC F5 LTM). General Knowledge with Global load balancing (F5 GTM). General Knowledge with Infoblox (DNS, DHCP, IPAM) “DDIP Certified”. General knowledge with Symantec ProxySG. (Forward Proxy). DevCentral: You are a Network and Application Security at Barq Systems. Can you describe your typical workday, how you manage work/life balance and the strong support of F5 solutions? How has the recent pandemic impacted your work? Mohamed: In normal days, I engage with our customers who require to implement new services, have an issue, and need troubleshooting until it solved, start new projects from scratch (implementing, Configuring F5 appliances) till Lunching the targeted production services. Nowadays, I engage with “Telecom Egypt “Company one of the biggest ISPs Companies in Egypt, I support them in a project related to F5 Advanced WAF, I have finished the implementation and Configuration of F5 appliances and now it serves production services. In my free time outside of my work, I pass this time with my wife and my laptop beside me to check the DevCentral Community periodically. I want to see if anyone has inquiries or technical concerns and my wife sees what I do and how I’m happy when I help someone. She becomes thrilled when someone accepts my solution and she loves the right marks ✔! 😄 She encourages me so much to help others. If there are no technical concerns in the community, I study to complete my F5 certification path or reading more technical Articles. I used to play Football when I was a child, but I have given up playing football at college ☹ but still enjoy watching football matches till now. Due to Covid-19 pandemic I have worked much more from home, maybe pandemic does not affect so badly with persons who works in IT field because they can proceed in their work tasks remotely. But it impacts badly with people in other fields which they do all of their work tasks physically with their hands. I hope safety for each one and hope the world to be cleaned from this Covid-19 pandemic. DevCentral: Do you have any F5 Certifications? If so, why are these important to you and how have they helped with your career? Mohamed: Yes, I’m a certified technology specialist in Advanced WAF, I passed F5 (101, 201, 303) exams, and now I am preparing for the rest of 3xx exams specially (F5 301a and 301b). Then I target to start studying F5 GTM, APM, AFM and BigIQ. Really, it’s a disappointment to see questions in F5 Community and I can’t reply or give any solutions related to (APM, GTM or BIGIQ), I still need to be more qualified in other F5 modules. To be honest, F5 Certification improves my understanding, knowledge and self-confidence, there is a noticeable difference in my quality before and after studying and taking exams. I do not think you can support strongly F5 without reading, studying, taking notes, working alone, searching, and organizing yourself in general. Certification has made a difference in my technical personality and self-confidence when dealing with our customers, even in my work promotions! I appreciate the certifications very much and my hope is achieving the expert level of certification path one day. “Sometimes technical certificates speak instead of you and give a very good impression about you!“ DevCentral: Describe one of your biggest Customer challenges and how the community helped in that situation. (Does not necessarily have to be DevCentral) Mohamed: I do not remember a specific challenge because DevCentral Community has helped me many times, but my biggest challenges were with iRules. With navigating Devcentral community, I can say that my level in writing codes has been improved by detecting my errors in them and solve them quickly. Sometimes you don’t find your technical needs in F5 articles, and you find it easily with DevCentral so I am grateful to this community which includes helpful people. DevCentral: If you weren’t doing what you’re doing – what would be your dream career? Or better, when you were a kid – what did you want to be when you grew up? Mohamed: I aimed to be an engineer and I’m lucky to achieve my childhood dream which became my destiny, so I think that I am on the right way in my career and doing my best rather than thinking of another one. DevCentral: What are You a Force For? Mohamed:I am a force for my wife. I’m grateful to her and my parents as well. I am a force for rejecting racism and I believe in a decent life for all. ---Thanks Mohamed! The DevCentral Community really appreciate your willingness to share with our Members. Connect and Follow on Social: Mohamed on LinkedIn BARQ Systems on Twitter BARQ SYSTEMS on LinkedIn BARQ Systems WebsiteDevCentral's Featured Member for July - Sebastián Sierra Domínguez
Our Featured Member series is a way for us to show appreciation and highlight active contributors in our community. Communities thrive on interaction and ourFeatured Seriesgives you some insight on some of our most engaged folks. DevCentral Member Sebastián Sierra Domínguezis our Featured Member for July! He's been on a tear lately with helping other members so let's catch up with Sebastián! DevCentral: First, please explain to the DC community a little about yourself, what you do and why it is important. Sebastián: Good morning, Good Afternoon, and Good Evening to everyone, my name is Sebastián Sierra Domínguez I am a system engineer in love with F5 technologies. I live in Spain but I´m originally from Colombia, I packed my baggage more than 3 years ago and decide to leave my life in Colombia and start a new life in Spain one of the most remarkable decisions in my life. I started with F5 solutions since 2015 and from this day I never stopped learning new things and expanding my knowledge. In my free time, I like going to work out, cycling, jogging, playing basketball, roller skating, and other things that represent a good lifestyle, because we keep many times seated for a lot of hours working. DevCentral: You’ve been an active contributor in the DevCentral community. What keeps you involved? Sebastián: Well, DevCentral for me was always one of the best free communities with difference from other vendors, and I decided to keep involved because when you help other people, at the same time you are reinforcing your knowledge and creating new "a win to win", in many times I have to turn on an F5 device to test a feature and found a solution to help the community. and absolutely because this community around the years provided me always support and I think that this type of platform must keep working always and with the help of everyone we can make it's possible. DevCentral: Tell us a little about the technical expertise you have. Sebastián: For the last 8 years, I have been working dedicated to F5 deployments with all the different modules in F5, BIG-IP LTM, ASM, GTM-LC, APM, AFM,BIG-IQ, and Advanced Protocols, but life was not beautiful always, I had a lot of works as technical support, SW and FW administrator, Linux operator, probably the best base to be a humble person who always listens to fist the customer and try to meet all their requirements. DevCentral: You are a Security Specialist atLogicalis Spain. Can you describe your typical workday, how you manage work/life balance and the strong support of F5 solutions? How has the pandemic impacted your work? Sebastián: At Logicalis I help our clients to develop and deploy F5 products to meet technology necessities, government requirements, security improvement, and many other use cases. I start my day with a good coffee from Colombia, I read my emails and prepare all the necessary meetings with my customers for the different projects that I have to meet, I deploy many labs, test a lot of configurations and probably this is one of the reasons that makes me participate constantly in the DevCentral community, I'm always looking to extend and improve the deployments with my customer to give the best customer service, one of my personal focus in each project. Covid-19 changed my life absolutely, before pandemic I always woke up early and prepare for going to the office, and now everything is different, work remotely is an amazing benefit, but trying to keep a good lifestyle when you are all day in the home is fundamental, balance your work and time for your self is not always easy but is important keep always in mind because personal time and family time is one of the most important things in life. DevCentral: Do you have any F5 Certifications? If so, why are these important to you and how have they helped with your career? Sebastián: I'm 401-CSE security and 402-CSE cloud around 4 years ago and I always re-certify my exams, it is important for my company for many customer processes, and of course, it is important for me because it helps you to differentiate from other candidates in interviews for example, and this was the key point that helps me to move to Spain with a work permit, so yes, it helps me to improve my life and my career opportunities and I only can to thank the incredible work from the Dr. KJ (Ken) Salchow and their amazing certification team. DevCentral: Describe one of your biggest Customer challenges and how the community helped in that situation. Sebastián: Well, I think that is difficult to determine what is the biggest customer challenge that the community helps me to solve. because I continue using the public F5 resources such as AskF5 and Devcentral to improve and solve many issues that I found in my customers day to day. and of course, I have to mention the technical support that provides F5, probably one of the best of all vendors, I always call F5 support when I have a critical issue, and in 80% of the cases I solving the issue with their help. DevCentral: Lastly, if you weren’t doing what you’re doing – what would be your dream career? Or better yet, when you were a kid – what did you want to be when you grew up? Sebastián: Becoming a system engineer was my second plan in life, I always liked machine function and mechanical engineering was my first plan but unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity to study this career. And today I think that my knowledge allows me to use all the F5 modules to develop solutions that help to improve the security and functionality of my customer's applications, and in other perspectives, this is like building a machine taking pieces of software that makes a specific function. ---Thanks Sebastián! The DC Community really appreciate your willingness to share with the DevCentral Community. Stay connected with Sebastián on social media: Sebastián on LinkedIn Logicalis on Twitter Logicalis on LinkedInDevCentral's Featured Member for March - Nikolay Dimitrov
Our Featured Member series is a way for us to show appreciation and highlight active contributors in our community. Communities thrive on interaction and ourFeatured Seriesgives you some insight on some of our most engaged folks. DevCentral Member and 2022 MVPNikolay Dimitrovis our Featured Member for March! Let's catch up with Nikolay Dimitrov! DevCentral: First, please explain to the DC community a little about yourself, what you do and why it is important. Nikolay:10 years ago I started working as a Network Engineer and after some time I also got involved in Network Security and after that Cyber Security. I am happy that I was first a network engineer as in this way I had a good foundation with technologies that work between Layer 1 – 4 of the OSI model and after that I learned some web programming languages like PHP, Javascript. This helped me to start working with the F5 Big-IP Application Delivery Controllers devices as for the F5 systems a person needs a good foundation at all the layers of the OSI model and some basic understanding in web scripting. DevCentral: You’ve continued to be an active contributor in the DevCentral community. What keeps you involved? Nikolay:I believe in teaching others and not just giving them direct answers to their questions and the F5 community gives me the ability to do so. This is the way I answer questions in the F5 community by providing information and even F5 official articles that have the answer. DevCentral: Tell us a little about the technical expertise you have. Nikolay:I worked with many technologies like DLP, Web Proxy, Endpoint Protection, Next Generation Firewalls, NDR/EDR, CDN, Bot Protections, Web Application Firewalls, DDOS system testing, Web Scanner testing, Ansible/Terraform automations and many others but my biggest experience is working with F5 systems like most of the modules of the F5 Big-IP ADC, BIG-IQ and irule scripts. DevCentral: You currently are a consultant in the field of Cyber Security/Network Security. Can you describe your typical workday, how you manage work/life balance and the strong support of F5 solutions? How has the recent pandemic impacted your work? Nikolay:Recently I decided to move on and I left the last company that I worked for as I want to be directly invloved in managing IT projects, related to the F5 technologies and NGFW. Because F5 has lab licenses, I have my own virtual IT lab on my computer that helps me to reserch and prepare for any F5 related IT projects and because I like F5, working with F5 does not stress me out. In my free time I go to the mountains, as in my country Bulgaria there are many mountains. DevCentral: Do you have any F5 Certifications? If so, why are these important to you and how have they helped with your career? Nikolay:I have the highest level of the F5 Certifications the F5 401 and 402 Security and Cloud Expert Certifications. DevCentral: Describe one of your biggest Customer challenges and how the community helped in that situation. Nikolay:My biggest challenge was getting into scripting and working with iRules and F5 EAV External monitor bash scripts but the F5 community had many examples of iRules and bash scripts and I could have always asked a question and someone would help me. DevCentral: Lastly, if you weren’t doing what you’re doing – what would be your dream career? Or better, when you were a kid – what did you want to be when you grew up? Nikolay:When I was kid I wanted to be an astrophysicist or space commander that has his own space ship, somethink like in Star Trek.I still want my own Space Ship, so I can travel between the Stars but in the mean time till I get my space ship I am also happy working with the F5 systems as every F5 project makes me think and learn new things. ---ThanksNikolay!We really appreciate your willingness to share with the DevCentral Community. Stay connected with Niokolayon social media: Nikolayon LinkedInDevCentral's Featured Member for February - Byungkuk Kim
Our Featured Member series is a way for us to show appreciation and highlight active contributors in our community. Communities thrive on interaction and ourFeatured Seriesgives you some insight on some of our most engaged folks. DevCentral Member and 2022 MVPByungkuk Kimis our Featured Member for February! English is his second language so, let's catch up with Byungkuk Kim! DevCentral: First, please explain to the DC community a little about yourself, what you do and why it is important. Byungkuk: This site is so helpful for me. When I started as an F5 network engineer, I always found correct information on here. So, now I want to be give help who need help for things related to F5 devices. DevCentral: You’ve continued to be an active contributor in the DevCentral community. What keeps you involved? Byungkuk: I found things that I didn't know about problems when I visited DC site. So, I tested that and it works well! This is reason why I continue to visit the DC site. DevCentral: Tell us a little about the technical expertise you have. Byungkuk: I deal with BIG-IP LTM, GTM, SSL Fssl/Rssl. It's awkward to say I'm an expert, butI've created some iRules to solve problems or change the network environment to get the best network performance. I always try to my best! DevCentral:You are a Network Engineer at Secuwave. Can you describe your typical workday, how you manage work/life balance and the strong support of F5 solutions? How has the recent pandemic impacted your work? Byungkuk: When I started this company. I got a book called "Why I Work?" from my boss. This book made me work hard and realize why I work. I think my life changed when I focused on worked hard. DevCentral: Do you have any F5 Certifications? If so, why are these important to you and how have they helped with your career? Byungkuk: I have 6 certifications relate to Networking, two of them are F5 Certifications. I'm trying to get to 301 certification. F5 certifications have taught me how to make progress on F5 technical open cases and teaches me how F5 devices handle traffic. And one of my certifications is related to AWS - my company is preparing for the recently updated network environment. DevCentral: Describe one of your biggest Customer challenges and how the community helped in that situation. (Does not necessarily have to be devcentral) Byungkuk: The DevCentral Community was helpful for me when I got stuck making an iRule for a tiny branch point. First, I searched areas related to my problem and then I collected an iRule to make new things! I posted my updated iRule with an explaination about my environment. I really want to thank the DC community members for helping solving my problem! DevCentral: Lastly, if you weren’t doing what you’re doing – what would be your dream career? Or better, when you were a kid – what did you want to be when you grew up? Byungkuk: When I was young, I thought I would be farmer because I grew up in the country. But as I grew older, my dream changed to become an Engineer when I was attending high school. Now I want to be the best member of my company and the F5 Community! ---Thanks Byungkuk!We really appreciate your willingness to share with the DevCentral Community. Stay connected with Byungkukand Controlware on social media: Byungkuk on LinkedIn Byungkukon LinkedIn Secuwaveon the WebDevCentral's Featured Member for May - Andy McGrath
Our Featured Member series is a way for us to show appreciation and highlight active contributors in our community. Communities thrive on interaction and ourFeatured Seriesgives you some insight on some of our most engaged folks. DevCentral MVPAndy McGrathis our Featured Member for May! Let's catch up with Andy! DevCentral: Please explain to the DC community a little about yourself, what you do and why it is important. Andy: I'm an old school techie (at least I feel like it), starting my involvement with the world of computers back in the mid-90s. Today, I'm a Cloud Platform Engineer working in a small team for a property tech start-up in the UK Boomin. I love what I do and feel like we build the foundation for the broader engineering team ensuring the services they are writing have a place to run and are healthy and stable. I also love learning and playing with new stuff, and so in a world of Kubernetes, Helm, Terraform, CI/CD, and all the other technologies, I always have something to tinker with. Additionally, I have been learning and working with .Net (C# and toying with F#) and Go, which I love writing code in. DevCentral: You’re an active contributor in the DevCentral community.What keeps you involved? Andy: Generally, I love to share my knowledge and experience. I was lucky enough to have several people and communities, one of them being DevCentral, do this when I was younger,so happy and willing to give back where I can. F5 has done with DevCentral to create the feeling of a small intimate community while not having a huge barrier to get involved. May other technical communities feel like you either contribute knowledge or consume knowledge. However, DevCentral is a community where people with little experience with F5 technologies can and do still contribute alongside those oldies like me. DevCentral: Tell us a little about the technical expertise you have. Andy: I started my career wanted to be a game developer and learnt to code by making games and building mods for games like Quake 2 and Half-life. However, somehow I ended up as a systems engineer for a consultancy company. I tend to get bored working with technologies, so I have always pushed myself into different disciplines and tech. I was lucky enough to work with a manager and a company that allowed me to do just that and would often throw new stuff at me. I ended up doing networking, security, storage, virtualization, server migrations and more with them. In 2004 I was asked to learn F5 BIG-IP, running F5 TMOS 9.0.1, with the support of an excellent F5 SE and some second-hand training. Later Juniper and F5 became the leading vendor technologies I worked with for a long time. Additionally, I have always written code and scripts, generally for myself, as I hate to do anything more than a couple of times before automating it. I did loved Python but now find I favour the likes of Go and JavaScript (Node.js). Several years ago, I landed a contract position at Lloyds Banking Group, working on a team dedicated to writing and maintaining iRules (and later iRuleLX). This changed my world from very infrastructure-focused to development-focused and got thrown into the deep end with DevOps. DevCentral: You are a Cloud Platform Engineer at Boomin. Can you describe your typical workday, how you manage work/life balance and the strong support of F5 solutions? How has the recent pandemic impacted your work? Andy: Boomin is a start-up that I was, fortunately, able to join early on before they launched. My workdays are highly varied. Last week, we worked on a redesign of our Kubernetes cluster build pipelines and Infrastructure as Code, which involved many Terraform, Helm and Azure DevOps pipeline updates. Next week might be a security review or updating the code for our Distributed Tracing solution. It's a role that included many different technologies and so one that can be taxing at times, but I find it really enjoyable, engaging and I am always learning something new. Our team is very focused on Infrastructure as Code, automation, and always looking to improve, no technology is sacred, so if we find something to do a better job, we will consider it or put it on the backlog to look at when we have time. As for work/life balance, I now work 100% from home (in part thanks to the pandemic) in a small log cabin office at the end of my garden right on the edge of the English countryside. So I'm at home with the family and our dogs which is fantastic, but I don't think I could do it without my own dedicated space for work. I find I work more hours, but I can also turn off from work when needed and just get away from it for a short time, something you struggle to do in an office. DevCentral: Do you have any F5 Certifications? If so, why are these important to you and how have they helped with your career? Andy: I have had several, from the early days of certs based on v9, v10 and v11 which was useful to me at the time. However, sorry to say they have all expired now, and as I don't need them directly, I have no plans to regain any at the moment. I recommend people who want to learn more about F5 getting on some of the courses. They are a great way to learn and gain insight into the F5 tech and people. DevCentral: Describe one of your biggest Customer challenges and how the community helped in that situation. Andy: I think almost all my big projects have been helped in some way by the communities. But have to say working at Lloyds Banking Group, writing and maintaining iRules, DevCentral and some smaller communities (mostly on Github) became like a second home. I learnt a lot about how to do proper development as part of a team and CI/CD. That role and the communities I was involded in definitely changed my career for the better. DevCentral: Lastly, if you weren’t doing what you’re doing – what would be your dream career? Or better yet, when you were a kid – what did you want to be when you grew up? Andy: As a kid, I had a new career in mind every other week until I got my first proper computer, a 486 DX2 running DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1. From that point, working with computers was it, but I really wanted to become a games developer and think if I had stuck with it, I might be doing that now. Other than that, I did a short stint as a Juniper Instructor, which I loved, and so think when I'm done with keeping up with all the new tech, I might just find my self a well-paid job teaching computing. ---Thanks Andy!We really appreciate your willingness to share with the DevCentral Community. Stay connected with Andy and Boomin on social media: Andyon LinkedIn Boomin on the Web Boomin on Twitter Boomin on LinkedInDevCentral's Featured Member for August - Tim Riker
Our Featured Member series is a way for us to show appreciation and highlight active contributors in our community. Communities thrive on interaction and ourFeatured Seriesgives you some insight on some of our most engaged folks. DevCentral MVP Tim Rikeris our Featured Member for August! Let's catch up with Tim! DevCentral: First, please explain to the DC community a little about yourself, what you do and why it is important. Tim: I have been doing software development and systems administration for many years. I’ve spent many years doing Linux development from embedded systems using BusyBox and ucLinux to large computing clusters. DevCentral: You’ve continued to be an active contributor in the DevCentral community.What keeps you involved? Tim: When I started in my current position, there were 34 different BIG-IP nodes to administer and no central tool to view all of them. BigIPReport was a great solution for this. On report view that includes all the virtual servers, pools, nodes, data groups, etc. all searchable in one interface. DevCentral has helped to find solid answers to real world issues. This has saved time and increased flexibility of our solutions. DevCentral: Tell us a little about the technical expertise you have. Tim: I have a deep understanding of networking, systems, and software development. Development in everything from Linux kernel development in C, Android apps in Java, to web apps in PHP. I have also been a Linux user and proponent for almost 30 years. DevCentral: How is the DevCentral MVP experience? Tim: The contact with peers has been great. I’ve enjoyed working with Patrik and others in the DevCentral community. The wealth of information from the community on DevCentral has made working with F5 systems easier and more productive. DevCentral: You are a Sr. Software Engineer and Linux Technologist. Can you describe your typical workday, how you manage work/life balance and how has the recent pandemic impacted your work? Tim: As most of the systems I administer are remote anyway I am blessed in that my work has not been drastically impacted by the pandemic. I work remotely from home now instead of remotely from the office. Video conferencing tools have been very helpful in team communication. Agilitybeing all online was somewhat of a disappointment last year, but the online sessions have been great. DevCentral: Do you have any F5 Certifications? If so, why are these important to you and how have they helped with your career? Tim: I don’t have any F5 Certifications, but I have attended F5 technical training in person and online. DevCentral: Describe one of your biggest Customer challenges and how the community helped in that situation. Tim: We have many different teams utilizing the F5s in our organization. Each of them has their own customers and needs. Granting such a large group read/write/admin access was difficult to manage. Using BigIPReport to expose current configuration and status to a large group has worked well. This has allowed us to limit read/write access and make change tickets more specific to the current configuration. *Tim has written a central http logging rule in use across the organization that tracks usage as well as performance data. It is availableathttps://www.devcentral.f5.com/s/articles/logging-irule-1180 DevCentral: Lastly, if you weren’t doing what you’re doing – what would be your dream career? Or better, when you were a kid – what did you want to be when you grew up? Tim: I love solving problems and fixing things. There are so many opportunities to build solutions, and so little time. However, if money were not an issue, I’d be hiking, camping, boating, and other outdoor activities with family and friends, instead of spending as much time working with technology. ---Thanks Tim!We really appreciate your willingness to share with the DevCentral Community. Stay connected with Tim on social media: Tim on LinkedIn Tim on Twitter Tim's Website
