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Wais Robleh
CST 300
September 12, 2018
Network Engineering

A network engineer has the responsibility of developing and maintaining network

systems both within and between organizations. A computer system which allows each end user

to share information is called a network. The study of how computers are linked in order to share

data is called computer networking. Connecting computers in a network was first explored by the

U.S. Department of Defense in order to link some computers around the country (UN Reno,

2018). Over 50 years since then the state of the enterprise networking industry is changing.

There is an underlying need for people to stay connected at all times. Cellular infrastructure

needs to be approved as ever more people rely on their mobile connections to receive data. The

increasing popularity of cloud computing services has led to an increase in data traffic. For

example, consumers increasingly using downloaded and streaming content over the internet.

Technologies such as these has many companies proceeding to operate within the enterprise

networking industry.

Major corporations in the general networking industry are Juniper, VMWare, and the

company of this topic's focus, Cisco Systems. Cisco is the leader in the enterprise networking

field in terms of the wide-range products and services that they provide. Cisco is a worldwide

corporation whose headquarters are located in San Jose. With more than 74,000 employees in

more than 70 countries, Cisco has a worldwide presence. Their size and market share allows

them to offer the most solutions in this particular industry (Gold, 2017).
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Cisco Systems was founded by married couple Leonard Bosack and Sandra Lerner. They

both studied and then worked at Stanford University in the early 1980's. While working at

Stanford, Bosack was part of a group that worked on a multi-purpose router that allowed various

computers with different protocols access to an early form of the internet. This multi-purpose

router was referred to the "Blue Box" as its case was colored blue (Carey, 2001). Some notable

individuals worked on the Blue Box. Andy Bechtolshein, who designed the box's computer

board, would go on to become a founder of Sun Microsystems. William Yeager wrote the box's

software while working as a staff research engineer at the medical school in Stanford. Kirk

Lougheed was a fellow staff member of Bosack's who would later join Cisco as one of its earliest

employees. The device would go on to become a success.

The router running Yeager's software became the standard at Stanford, with about two

dozen Blue Boxes scattered across campus. There was growing demand for more, from

not only Stanford but other universities. The staff struggled to keep up with demand

(Carey, 2001).

When Stanford decided to use a new Internet protocol standard the required an update for

the software in the box, Bosack was selected as part of a team to modify the software for

compatibility. While working on this project, Bosack realized that the router technology used by

the Blue Box can also be used as a product sold towards customers outside of the University

system. Yeager says that "Bosack and Lougheed were refining the product that Cisco ultimately

sold. They did this on Stanford time, and thus, debugged what were to be Cisco routers" (Carey,

2001). It is at this point that Bossack along with his wife Sandra Lerner would incorporate Cisco

Systems on December 1984. Cisco actually receives its name from the last five letters of the city
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of San Francisco. Cisco's logo design appears to be a series of vertical lines, but symbolically

represents the Golden Gate Bridge, a famous city landmark (Lewis, 2017).

In 1986, Bosack and Lougheed were forced to resign from Stanford over the product's

development. Stanford university considered filing criminal charges against Cisco over the theft

of its intellectual property. However in 1987, Stanford eventually agreed to license its router

software and hardware boards to Cisco for financial compensation. Cisco started with an

enormous potential to expand and would eventually go from achieving $250,000 in sales to over

$300 million by the end of the decade. With this growth also came tension from the earliest

board members and the new executives appointed by the venture capital firm. An executive and

Lerner would go on to have a serious disagreement over the direction of the company. Lerner

would go on to be fired by 1990 and Bosack soon followed (Lewis, 2017).

John Chambers is the chairman and former Chief Executive Officer of Cisco Systems. He

holds a B.S. in Business Administration, a J.D. degree from West Virginia University school of

law and a Finance Management MBA from Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. He

began his career in IBM for 5 years, where he moved on to Wang Labs located in Boston, MA.

In the 1980's Wang would have a period of financial losses, and after a serious of layoffs would

move to join Cisco in 1991. Chambers moved relatively quickly and would assume the CEO

within 4 years in 1995 (Calhoun, 2018).

Under John Chambers reign as CEO, Cisco grew to become the top-valued company in

the world. Cisco's market cap would go on to reach $500 billion in the year 2000. However, that

tally was not sustainable, since the stock was trading at nearly 240 times Cisco's earnings.

Fifteen years since its peak, Cisco has a market cap of just over $170 billion and trades at 18
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times its earnings. It was at this point in 2015 that Chambers stepped down from his CEO

position. He still retains his position as chairman presently (Calhoun, 2018).

Chuck Robbins is the current CEO of Cisco. He has been in this role since July 2015.

Robbins was born in Georgia and grew up in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. He later would

receive a B.S. in math at the University of North Carolina at Chappel Hill. Shortly after receiving

his degree he worked for five years as an application developer for North Carolina National.

Wellfleet Communications would later merge with SynOptics to form Bay Networks. Robbins

was then given the opportunity to move up to a management position. He would then accept a

short stint at Ascent Communications before finally joining Cisco in 1997. Robbins has since

spent over 20 years in various roles at Cisco (Cisco, 2018).

Cisco is well known for their enterprise networking products. With an assortment of

routers, switches and other network products; any potential customer would have the ability to

find the right solution for their problems. One of the current top products today is the CISCO

Integrated Services Router which provides multiple system services into a single platform. This

particular router does not need additional hardware to run and has a variety of software services

already downloaded. Some of these services are: able to host a virtualized network function,

configuration options for network automation and security settings embedded within the device

(Cisco, 2018)

Cisco's Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) products are a powerful tool in

communications within any type of organization. For employees, a network based phone system

is as easy to use as a landline while still offering more features than what can be found in a

traditional landline cord phone. Their hardware allows a user to send multiple simultaneous

phone calls over the same IP network. This can help improve communication between
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representatives of a company and their customers. This setup also allows wireless phones to

access the same communication network with a security protocol that only employees can

access. The flexibility provided allows this communication system to be available to employees

anywhere which aids in the current trend of employees working from home (Cisco, 2018).

With their supply of products one might ask where is the training offered to satisfactorily

operate it? Cisco offers a list of professional certifications for its products. Cisco certifications

are an important credential for a successful professional career in Networking. Companies

generally prefer Cisco's certifications over others because the majority use Cisco equipment. The

resources provide up to five levels of certification. Cisco provides training of these resources in

an online program called the Cisco Networking Academy. Cisco partners with qualifying schools

to become academy members. These schools can then offer the same program as Cisco in a local

institution (Rego, 2016).

Cisco has a reputation as not just a leader of its industry but also one of the founding

commercial members. Going by the numbers Cisco has a 60% market share in their core routing

and switching market. They are known as one of the leading recipients of network security-

related patents with a much larger portfolio than other companies in its field. Plenty of films and

television programs can be spotted to have Cisco's products somewhere. There are plenty of

companies that challenge Cisco in different aspects of networking technology. But only Cisco

has the technology base to offer strong and reliable solutions to any networking problem. This is

also shown with how they usually charge some of the highest prices in the industry (Gold, 2017).

Some of the top trends in this industry are planning for "next generation" infrastructure.

A research project at Carnegie Melon University would like to replace the Internet Protocol

system we use today with a new "4D network" that is more efficient and secure than its
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predecessor (Carnegie Mellon, 2018). Another group has a different method they would like to

be adapted called an "eXpressive Internet Architecture." On the topic of wireless

communications, researchers at the University of Washington would like to open new doors by

"backscattering" wireless signals (Hoff, 2015).

I am interested in the field of Enterprise Networking with a position as a Network

Engineer. Working as a Network Engineer can vary between places. An organization that has a

small number of staff in a single location, for example, would just need a configuration network

design. This would be considered an easy job due to the limited number of tasks required. But in

bigger companies, such as a university campus, an enormous complicated network could be

found with tiers of network engineers with varying levels of seniority responsible for a large

scope of an organization's information traffic. (Princeton Review, 2018). A junior level network

engineer needs to know how to use some basic network technologies such as "packet sniffers."

Packet sniffers are also known as Network Analyzers which allow users to capture the "packets"

of information that flow through a connection. Network Analyzers can help engineers uncover

network problems that need fixing. Hackers can also use Packet Sniffers in vulnerable systems to

gain access to sensitive information as well (Administrator, 2018).

In a typical entry-level job in this field, you will be required to configure small routers.

This is considered a basic, but also rewarding job because you will have time to experiment and

tinker. An upper-level engineer or management will help you by designing the system that you

will have to set up. Demand for network engineers is currently high due to the rise of tech

companies and the limited amount of graduated qualified enough to enter the networking

industry. Some of the technology that one might encounter could be so new that the only way to

have experience with it is to be part of the design team for the hardware (Shalon, 2017).
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Obtaining a degree in Computer Science (CS) will help me in finding a network engineer

position. Before applying to California State University, Monterrey Bay (CSUMB), I was taking

the pre-requisite general education and lower-division computer science courses at my

community college. The classes that I have taken before arriving at CSUMB have given me a

base skill set in programming and coding. The CS courses most integral to give me that base

knowledge would be the Intro to Computer Networks, Software Design and Network Security.

The computer networks course will provide the fundamentals of network technology such as

TCP/IP protocols, Wide-Area Network differentiation, and network security. The course will

also pursue advanced studies such as VOIP. More importantly the course serves as a "foundation

for students to pursue more advanced network studies"; even incorporating Cisco lab

components for further experience with the platform (CSUMB, 2018).

The software design course prepares students with the fundamental concepts of large-

scale software development. These classes can strengthen my programming skill set and design.

Projects in this course will require the use of fellow classmates in teams. Creating projects as a

team will allow me to develop better software documentation practices which can help when

reading other people's code. This also allows me to be better at writing re-usable code and being

understandable to everyone. Finally the network security course is valuable in providing the

practice and technologies for securing devices that operate on the network. This will be

accomplished by learning standard network security protocols like SSL/TLS and Kerberos. I will

also as a student learn about different hacking techniques and the methods used to defend against

them (CSUMB, 2018).

Receiving a CS degree does not automatically demonstrate someone as a capable

Network Engineer. But it does show potential employers a solid base to start off with. That is
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why I hope to receive further qualifications through certifications. One particular certification is

the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA). The information to receive the CCNA is already

taught in the intro to computer network course. The school also offers a virtual lab that simulates

a network that I will be able to practice on for the CCNA exam (CSUMB, 2018). Living in San

Jose, I can drive to take the exam at Cisco's headquarters. Potentially I can complete this while

still in CSUMB which will give me an early-start after graduation. I also plan on attaining an

internship opportunity in the Networking field next summer. I have started a LinkedIn account

and started applying for opportunities during the Summer of 2019.

Network engineering is part of an industry that is growing. I am lucky to have a flexible

job as a Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) technician. Although the operations I am part of are

more suited for an Electric Engineer, I was able to receive training on working with

communication devices that I can apply to my future studies. Maintaining connections with these

mentors and other peers will aid me in receiving employment in my field of choice after

graduation. Researching Cisco and its competitors gave me an opportunity to reaffirm the

knowledge I can apply to network engineering and the knowledge that I need to learn. CSUMB

offers classes and guidance that will help me become successful in the enterprise networking

field as an engineer.
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References

Administrator. (2018). The Importance of a Network Analyzer – Packet Sniffer. Retrieved from

http://www.firewall.cx/networking-topics/general-networking/1084-important-network-

analyzer-packet-sniffer-features.html

Carey, P. (2001, December 1). A start-up's true tale. Retrieved from

http://pdp10.nocrew.org/docs/cisco.html

Carnegie Mellon. (2018). Clean Slate Architectures for Network Management. Retrieved from

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~4D/

Cisco. (2018, March 2). Cisco Executives. Retrieved from

https://newsroom.cisco.com/exec-bios

Cisco. (2018, February 12). Why You Should Buy Voice over IP (VOIP) Hardware. Retrieved

from https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/small-business/resource-center/connect-

employees-offices/what-can-voip-do.html

CSUMB. (2018). Program Structure & Courses. Retrieved from https://csumb.edu/scd/program-

structure-courses

Gold, J. (2017, August 02). The 10 most powerful companies in enterprise networking. Retrieved

from https://www.networkworld.com/article/3211410/lan-wan/the-10-most-powerful-

companies-in-enterprise-networking.html

Hoff, A. (2015, February 17). The Future of Networking: 8 Amazing Technologies Being

Researched Right Now. Retrieved from https://www.auvik.com/media/blog/future-of-

networking/

Princeton Review. (2018). Network Engineer Careers. Retrieved from

https://www.princetonreview.com/careers/205/network-engineer
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Rego, M. (2016, March 19). Cisco's 3 Most Profitable Lines of Business (CSCO). Retrieved from

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/031916/ciscos-3-most-profitable-lines-

business-csco.asp

Shalon, N. (2017, December 17). Is Networking Becoming Cool Again? Predicting the Future of

Networking in 2018. Retrieved from https://cloudify.co/2017/12/31/networking-

becoming-cool-predicting-future-networking-2018/

UN Reno. (2018). What is Computer Networking. Retrieved from

https://www.unr.edu/cse/prospective-students/what-is-networking