u/Eagle_1990

Hi, I am not going to promote anything or name any websites, I just want to get the community opinion on something.

There has been recently some posts about advertsing new websites that offer labs but in reality is just a mock CLI that relies on some AI or something like that.

I am currently working on something different and want to see if it makes sense to keep working on that since I already put months of work but it is not ready.

The whole idea is to emulate a Cisco router or switch in a container without using cisco software. It will run on linux and have full routing/switching capabilities. The best part that since it is a container it only uses a 100-300MB per instance so you can run big labs without the need for lots of RAM.

And since it is a router/switch, you can just configure whatever you want, not what the website tells you.

I have a POC where I can run full Cisco BGP and OSPF commands (with tab auto-complete, pipe for "include/exculde, etc" and ? for help).

I am doing this as a personal project and I am deciding what to do with it, if there is no interest in the community, I might put it as an opensource project and let other website use it.

I did some research and I could not find a full linux container that runs network protocols using a Cisco CLI. Do you think this is interesting or not?

Hi all, I have been following the Cisco subreddits for years and I always noticed the same posts, specially now with the AI boom:
"Job market is screwed" "Can the CCNA get me a job?" etc..

I just want to say that nothing major changed in the past 10 years, CCNA is still valid, networking skills are still valid and we still need network engineers.

I started my journey like many of you, I got my CCNA and started working in a NOC. I quit university and focused on learning things on my own. After the working a few years at the NOC, I was able to jump to a help-desk job and after that to a Junior network engineer role.
I am from south america, and after a few years of working there I was able to find a senior network engineer role in Europe. They paid me for my relocation and gave me a visa.

And here comes the important part
In my new job in europe, we hired people from all over the world, and we were looking for network engineers. I did multiple interviews, and it was incredible how people DO NOT KNOW networking! They come to the interviews and they cannot answer simple troubleshooting questions.

Basically what I am trying to say is that if you lab a lot, if you know your fundamentals and if you can defend yourself in an interview, there are still open roles.
Netowrking is a very niche field, there are very few people in the world that can properly understand networking, and for those people there are opportunities.

So just hang in there, do your certs but most imporatanly, learn the stuff. If you know what you are talking about, you will do good.