Placebo

JNCIE #16

2011-10-12T11:25:00.004+02:00

Hi All,

I got something nice in my post yesterday.

It always fun to get something like this.

How i prepared myself for JNCIE-SEC

2011-09-13T09:30:00.002+02:00

Hi All,

How I prepared myself for the JNCIE-SEC Beta lab Exams.

Intro/background:

I have been working with ScreenOs from 1999, so I know the security features and flow very well. Which is a plus, because they re use a lot of these in Junos for security.
2 a 3 years ago I started to play with Junos because they released a special version Junos-es (enhanced services) for the J-series routers that had some of the security features there.
Then they came with the EX devices and SRX devices and worked more with Junos then ScreenOs.

From then on I wanted to know as much as I can about this OS and all there features (EX/SRX/MX/etc).

In the beginning of my career I did Cisco and worked up to CCNP and almost started to do the CCIE, but never went there because a move from switching/routing to Security.

That day I stated “whenever there is a netscreen CCIE like certificate I want to get it”

And this certificate is there now (not on ScreenOs, but on Junos) JNCIE-SEC.

What I want to tell with above information is that you first need extensive practical experience to start with the JNCIE-SEC journey.

Preparation:

To prepare myself for the lab I first did all the other written exams (JNCIS-SEC/JNCIP-SEC). The first was no problem, but the JNCIP-Sec wasn’t that easy, my first attempt I didn’t pass (I didn’t study for it because I was pretty sure I would pass based on my hands-on experience. (Which wasn’t the fact)

There was a topic that I never heard of …. Group vpn!
The second time I order the 2 juniper courses to prepare myself. After reading them I did it again and passed. (courses: Advanced Junos Security (AJSEC) ,Junos Intrusion Prevention System Functionality (JIPS) )

So this exam was good to see which topics I never did in real life and needed to do in lab environment.

Lab setup:

Then I build a lab setup, where I could test most of the topic that were listed in the lab topic:

• Complex policy implementations, including anti-virus scanning, and URL filtering
• IPS, IPSec VPNs, including PKI, hub-and-spoke, transparent mode, dynamic, and overlapping address designs;
• HA
• Troubleshooting of policy, routing, and IPSec VPNs
• Traffic management
• Advanced management configurations
• VLANs
• Aggregated Ethernet.

This is the lab schema:

2 x SRX100: (HA, IPS, UTM, VPN, OSPF)
1 x SRX100: Remote Sites (VPN, OSPF)

With this setup I tested the following things:

• Complex policy implementations, including anti-virus scanning, and URL filtering
• IPS, IPSec VPNs, hub-and-spoke, dynamic, and overlapping address designs.
• HA
• Troubleshooting of policy, routing, and IPSec VPNs
• Traffic management

I didn’t test following things:

• PKI, transparent mode
• Advanced management configurations
• VLANs
• Aggregated Ethernet

I didn’t test these because i know how these work (hands-on experience)

Be aware: this doesn’t mean it is not in the lab exams!

To give some more details on the things I tested:

With the srx100 we made a cluster. This device did all the IPS and UTM stuff.

We connected 2 srx100 with vpn(one fixed ip and one with a dynamic ip (so we both had dynamic and static vpn peer). We enabled OSPF between the 2 devices.

We also tested the “Group VPN”, because we never did this before and wanted to see what I could do and how you needed to build it.

One of the last tests was to ask a college of mine to change some stuff and try to find what the problem was. (Test some advanced troubleshooting )

The day before I did my exams I also configure some Dynamic VPN (remote ipsec client feature) on the srx. (This was in the bar of my hotel, with I nice beer)

Tips:

- Read all your questions in the beginning and make a L3 drawing of the setup
- Know your configuration commands (you don’t have much time)
- The whole exam is in CLI (no web or nsm)
- Be sure you can configure all the topics that are in the exam description!

That’s all good luck all.

Passed the JNCIE-SEC lab exam!

2011-08-03T11:21:00.002+02:00

Hi,

I am very proud to tell you all that i passed my JNCIE-SEC lab exams.

Later this week i will make a post on how i prepared myself for this exams.

GreetZ,
Frac

Juniper EMEA partner of the year

2011-05-24T08:55:00.001+02:00

Hi all,

I am very proud to announce that Securelink won the "EMEA partner of the year" for Juniper Networks.

The last 2 years we won the "Juniper Partner of the Year for Northern Europe"

Greetz,
Frac

IF-MAP Juniper

2009-11-04T19:18:00.002+01:00

Hi all,

Been a while i did some posts, but i am very busy with several projects.

i been working with SRX devices, did some UAC projects with 802.1X, but also with IF-MAP implementation.

I did the IF-MAP with SA + SRX + SSG + IC appliances. I will do some more tests and implementations, when all this is done i will post some detail information

Hope see you all soon again,
Frac

Deploy SRX Cluster Across Layer 2 Network

2009-09-29T10:49:00.002+02:00

Hi,

The SRX3400/3600 and the SRX5600/5800 can be deployed over a layer2 network. For this there is a nice guide line available by juniper. (SRX Series Services Gateways Cluster Deployment Acrosss Layer 2 Networks)

I did this with srx3400 on a layer2 cisco network and had some problems. The cisco l3 switches seem to check l3 traffic even if there are in a layer2 deployment. There the jsrp uses ip header for there traffic, these switches can block this traffic.

This means your jsrp will not work.

Here the commands you have to do, to disable these layer3 checks on cisco.

On a Cat 6500

- no mls verify ip checksum
- no mls verify ip length
- no mls verify ip same-address

For other cisco switches it seems the following command:

- no ip verify header vlan all

Kind Regards,
Frac

Check if i can make the screenos to junos click if i want

2009-08-26T11:31:00.003+02:00

Hi all,

Because junos is spreading rappedly over the world, because of the launch of the SRX devices. I had to make the switch also.

As mentioned before, i worked/work a lot with ScreenOS, and must say i don't mind to make the switch to JUNOS if needed.

JUNOS is a ritch and nice OS, the more you work with it the more you will love it. It has nice advanced features, which you would love to have in ScreenOS (but sadly never will ...)

So because of this switch i wanted to check if i understand the junos security solution and did the exames JNCIS-ES.

I passed and have a other Certificate I can hang on the wall (well put in one of the schelfs with the other ...)

If you want to go the JUNOS way. I suggest you look at the fasttrack.

Fasttrack

Greetz,
Frac

back from holiday, ready for some SRX love

2009-08-19T10:42:00.002+02:00

Hi all,

I am back from some holiday. hope you all got some time off also.

For now i am doing some SRX projects (SRX3400), and will post some stuff about this when i finished them.

cu all around.
Frac

Use a ScreenOS device to run JUNOS

2009-06-10T14:39:00.003+02:00

Hi All,

Because of the nice coming SRX devices for the Branch, more and more people will need to learn JUNOS. Because most of use are used to work with ScreenOS, we also have more ScreenOS devices then JUNOS ones (SSG320/SSG350/SSG520/SSG550 instead of the J-series).

Well here is a how to, that explains how you can make a usb stick ready to run JUNOS and use this one on a device that is running ScreenOS.

First we need 1 device that runs JUNOS (j-series), on this device we will plug in the USB stick and create a copy of the OS.

root@router>request system snapshot as-primary partition media usb
Clearing current label...
Partitioning usb media (da0) ...
Partitions on snapshot:

Partition Mountpoint Size Snapshot argument
a / 1024MB root-size
e /config 196MB config-size
g /data 701MB data-size
Running newfs (1024MB) on usb media / partition (da0s1a)...
Running newfs (196MB) on usb media /config partition (da0s1e)...
Running newfs (701MB) on usb media /data partition (da0s1g)...
Copying '/dev/ad0s1a' to '/dev/da0s1a' .. (this may take a few minutes)
Copying '/dev/ad0s1e' to '/dev/da0s1e' .. (this may take a few minutes)
The following filesystems were archived: / /config

After this we can use this USB stick to use in a ScreenOS device (or in a JUNOS device)

IF you want to use this USB stick on a JUNOS device do the following:

root@router> request system reboot media usb

This will make the router reboot and boot from USB stick (you can use this to test upgrades for example)

IF you want to use this USB stick on a ScreenOS device do the following:

SSG350M-> System change state to Active(1)

SSG350M->
SSG350M-> set boot junos usb
Boot device has been set to USB
SSG350M->reset
Configuration modified, save? [y]/n n
System reset, are you sure? y/[n] y
In reset ...

After this you will boot in JUNOS (so you are running JUNOS on a ScreenOS device).

When you do a "request system reboot", he will boot back from Compact Flash and will ofcourse run ScreenOS again.

I use this to have a lot of JUNOS devices, because we have a lot of SSG in our lab running ScreenOS. (Most deployed devices at customers are ScreenOS, But this can/will change now with the SRX Branch devices.

GreetZ,
Frac

SecureLink is Juniper Networks Partner of the Year

2009-05-15T13:21:00.002+02:00

Hi All,

I am very proud to announce that Securelink is Juniper Networks Partner of the Year.

During the 7th annual Partner Conference in Alicante Juniper Networks announced the appointment of SecureLink as Partner of the Year for Northern Europe. Out of hundreds of European partners SecureLink was rewarded for its constant focus and efforts for Juniper Networks products in Belgium and The Netherlands.

Click here to read more

The Branch SRX

2009-05-04T20:07:00.003+02:00

Juniper networks has release the branch SRX firewalls/IDP's.

These SRX (210/240/650) scale from 750 Mbps to 8 Gbps firewalling, 80 Mbps to 900 Mbps IDP, 75 Mbps to 1,5 Gbps VPN and 30 Mbps to 350 Mbps antivirus.

These are crazy figures again. And this isn't the only nice thing, they also support switching PIM's, etc.

Read more about them at here

Redundante VPN tunnels

2009-04-17T15:57:00.003+02:00

I made a other movie explaining how redundante vpn's work on juniper firewalls.

hope you enjoy it.

Things I keep struggling with

2009-04-09T10:39:00.004+02:00

I love to teach people, give sales people technical updates, presales and do all the architect stuff.

But I always say that you can't do the above stuff if you don’t do all the Technical stuff yourself. This means you also need to do implementations, go into the lab and test new features, etc.

For me this isn’t a real problem, because I love to do the technical stuff. But the biggest problem with this is that most of the time I don’t have the time to do it all.

Also if I want to grow to a higher function (technical manager, service manager, etc). I will have to release some of these tasks. But then again I am convinced you need the technical stuff to be able to do the presales, architect tasks,And I have it very hard to release the deep technical experience.

So the question is …., is there a function where you can still be deep technical and convince people to buy some products, because you believe in them. (If I believe in something (and this mostly based on technical features), I will be a big evangelist of this product.

So the perfect job for me would be something where I can combine these task (deep technical, train people, convince customers (presales), play with the newest features, etc.

The big question is………., those this job exist? (Product marketing engineer, …..)

Let me know what you thing about the above.

GreetZ,
Frac

Movie about Vrouters juniper firewall

2009-02-12T17:20:00.008+01:00

Hi All,

I made some movies explaining some features of juniper firewalls. The first one will explain what you can do with "Vrouters" on juniper firewalls. Hope you understand it a bit more after this movie.

set arp nat-dst

2009-01-06T09:35:00.004+01:00

Hey all,

happy new year to you all!

Some weeks ago i had a strange problem with a customer where he told me that Juniper firewall doesn't see a unix cluster failover.

I ofc was like, this can't be true, i have thousands of installations and noone ever complained!

The customer and me did some debuging (debug arp all, debug arp task) to see if this unix cluster sends out Gratuitous arps.

We saw that this was the case but that juniper firewall cluster didn't refresh the arp entry for this ip. (one ip and no virtual mac, so he needed to update this).

After some more debugs and working with Advanced JTAC we saw that the problem was related to the command "set arp nat-dst", this command make sure that the juniper firewall does proxy arp for policy based dst-nat. (see previous post).

if this command is in the config the juniper firewall will only refresh entry if he receives a G-arp response. (not to a g-arp request).

He must do it for both! if you remove command, he response to both.

This is a bug (and very hard one to find).

GreetZ,
Frac

ScreenOS vs JUNOS

2008-11-18T19:45:00.004+01:00

Hi all,

You all know i am a big fan of the Juniper FW/VPN appliances (Old Netscreen firewalls/vpn). This was because of the very powerfull ScreenOS. it is a very easy and power full OS, which had unbelievable debug features.

But 2 years ago i came in contact with a even more nice and powerfull OS: JUNOS.

This was like a new world that had been opened for me ...

The first years of my career i have been working with IOS and after 1,5 year i saw the netscreen products and was sure this is one of the finest OS's out there. But this was because i never saw JUNOS before.

Some examples of what JUNOS has and ScreenOS doesn't:

Cons ScreenOS:

- bindings (objects are bind to eachother so you can't edit or change them)
> This is something i really hate about screenOS
- working directly in running config.
>this is also a big pain of IOS.
- only one active and one saved config.

Pro's ScreenOS:

- Debugging
> this is one of the best debugging engines i have ever seen.
- Vrouters/SBR/SIBR/PBR
- Route based VPN's

Con's JUNOS:

This is really a hard one.
- Debugging (and this is because i still find the screenOS based debugging engine the best i worked with. BUT Juniper is putting a lot of effort in this, and the last release 9.2 was almost the same then the screenos debug output)

Pro's JUNOS:

- Candidate config.
> When you change the config, you work in a candidate config. This is copy of the active config, which means when i change something in this config it isn't active yet.
- commit confirm
> this command will activate your changes, but will ask you to confirm it after a given time. If you don't confirm, he will do a automatic rollback to the previous config version. AND this without a reboot!!
- rename
> you are able to change a config from one interface to other with one one command (just rename the interface name for example.
- macro's
> you are able to make your own macro's. one example is: if your company has a config policy (like always place discription when configuring a interface / when you do a save of a config you need to give comments / etc...). this is all possible with JUNOS.

Because of all these nice features, i can only say one thing.... I love JUNOS!!

For all engineers out there, just try this OS and you will see how powerfull it is.

I will try to give some example later on.

Cu all later

IVE 6.2

2008-09-23T08:23:00.001+02:00

Hi all,

I just wanted to warn you all that from version 6.2 of the juniper SSL appliance software, the juniper installer service has been changed!

This means that you will need to install the new one on all the PC that don't have Admin rigths!!

If you don't do that, the clients that doesn't have admin rigths will not be able to install the new SAM/NC/ETC!

GreetZ,
Frac

How To Documents

2008-09-17T10:44:00.003+02:00

Hi,

I have implemented a new feature on this blog!

How To Documents

this is located on the right of this blog. You will be able to look/download these documents. These are documents that explain how to do certain configurations.

Hope you enjoy them.

Speed Ahead

2008-09-16T11:46:00.007+02:00

Hey all,

Probably you saw or heard the news that juniper has build (Again) the fastest firewall of the world.

This with the SRX5600 and SRX5800. (60 Gbps fw and 15 Gbps IDP // 120 Gbps fw and 30 Gbps IDP)

If you want to know more about these monsters, look at:

GreetZ,
Frac

Holiday in Austria

2008-09-11T12:12:00.006+02:00

Hi All,

I have been on non active status regarding my blog :). This is because i went on holiday.

Like in real life i like to go very deep and beyond my boundries. So I went to Austria (again :p), and climbed some mountains and visited some huts.

This year my litle son was with us, so we did some smaller huts and mountains.

Like: Wormser Hütte 2307 m, lindaur Hütte, etc.

3 years ago we also did higher mountain:

Vallula mountain:

There was still snow (was in july 2005)

On top of Vallula 2813m high

Now back to work :).

Juniper Networks WXC Project

2008-08-02T13:07:00.007+02:00

Hey all,

sorry that i didn't post a lot the last month, but i was traveling for work and had some holiday.

Some post ago i talked about a project with WXC, now i want to show you some figures about the preformance of these devices in real network.

This is from a office to hq in the same country (so no latency problems).

This image clearly show that they don't use object caching, but Molecular Sequence Reduction™ (MSR™) compression and Network Sequence Caching technologies. the first one is in memory, the second on harddisks (MSR can be done by WX, but only NSC can be done by WXC)

why do i say you clearly see it doesn't use object caching? Because when you see the image you see that at 10/07/08 someone is asking a file with a size of +/- 4.5 gig and is compressed by almost 95% (so out of cache), this can also be done by object caching, BUT then someone needs to ask the same file before (which will need to pass the line 1 time compleetly). This is not the case here (you see clearly see in the image that never before there has been a request for a file larger then 500MB.).

Some other figures:

Compression Summary

Peak Data Compression	98,00%
Total Data Compression	86,10%
Total Bytes Into Compression	17,7 GB
Total Bytes Compressed	15,3 GB
Total Bytes Out of Compression	2,5 GB
Effective WAN Capacity	7,20 X

Wow, isn't this nice ! this means that from the 17,7 GB that is asked to pass the line only 2,5 GB Really crossed the line. and i can even say that from that 2,5 GB only 1.4 GB needed to pass the line, because 1.1 GB was bypassed because of license issues! (see below)

Passthrough Data
Category Bytes Packets
No Remote WX 79.253.312
By Filter Rule 675.185.052
Overflow 68.746.046
No Local Reducer 8.299
Non-IP 210.496
License Violation 1.135.001.661

But hey which traffic includes this figures?

Now you have a idea about which traffic it is. OK, i need to be clear about one thing, this is the best figure i have of all my sites :). BUT, still it is real traffic.

Juniper Master of Systems Engineering

2008-06-06T19:42:00.006+02:00

Hey All,

I am pretty proud to tell you all I have been rewarded with the Title: Master of System Engineering of Juniper Networks

This reward is given to people that do innovating projects with juniper products.

From left to right: Nico Siebelink, Juniper Systems Engineering Manager & Wim De Smet, SecureLink Consultant

Proxy arp

2008-04-23T10:38:00.002+02:00

Hi all,

Proxy arp is something that not all people understand well. Some devices are able to do it, other not, and other do it automatic (sometimes), etc....

Here i will give a brief overview of how juniper firewalls handle proxy arp:

As most of you know there are 5 solutions to do NATTING in juniper firewalls:

MIP: one to one (bi-directional)
DIP: many to one (uni-directional)
VIP: one to many (uni-directional)
Destination NAT (policy): one to one, one to many (uni-directional)
Source NAT (policy): many to one, one to one (uni-directional)

So this is a overview of the natting, know when will the firewall to proxy arp for these NAT addresses?

Yes:

-MIP
-VIP

No:

-Dest nat

So you see that when using Destination nat you will have problem. Solution to solve this problem, ... place a static arp entry on higher level router, or when not in same network has the interface ... place a route to cluster ip of the juniper firewall.

Sometimes this isn't a solution, because the upstream router isn't managed by yourself. This means you need to be able to do proxy arp on firewall for these NAT addresses.

Well there is a hidden command "set arp nat-dst", which will do proxy arp for NAT addresses in a certain situation!!

When will he do it or not:

• The Destination NAT policy must be configured using the same source and
destination Layer 3 security zone. However, traffic that matches the policy
can then be sent to any Layer 3 security zone.

• The device does not respond to an ARP request if the Destination NAT IP is
in the same incoming subnet as a secondary IP address.
• In an HA environment, the device only supports the Destination NAT ARP
capability if using NSRP Active/Passive on interfaces that reside in VSD ID
0.
• In ScreenOS 5.0r7 and below, the device does not respond to an ARP request
for a Destination NAT IP that is in the same subnet as the incoming
interface for a Destination NAT policy.

Hope this helps you all.

NSM Error ( Failed during updating License info)

2008-04-16T21:20:00.003+02:00

Hi,

While playing a bit with NSM (Netscreen Security Manager), i found a nice bug!

you can't use some chars in the name of the firewall members:

for example: _ and [ or ], possible there are more!

the error you will see when trying to do a update is:

Error Code:

Error Text:
Exception caught during Update Device:

Failed during updating License info

Error Details:
Failed to process the database query. No record matched the query and nothing has been done.

Hope this help some of you!

Comparing WAN Accelleration Products (Juniper WXC vs Riverbed vs Bluecoat)

2008-03-01T16:08:00.002+01:00

Hey All,

For some weeks now i am busy with a project that includes Juniper Firewalls (with VPN's), Bluecoat (WAN ACC), Juniper WXC (WAN ACC), Juniper NSM (Management station), Juniper CMS (WAN Management station).

The Firewall/VPN part was difficult, because at HQ they had 2 ISP, but also at the remote side they had 2 ISP. The customer asked full redundancy (so we needed to create 4 VPN tunnel from remote to HQ). This i did before so wasn't to hard! (just play around with Vrouters and everything is up and running).

The real hard part was which WAN Accellerator will they take! So the customer start testing together with me.

Products we tested:

Bluecoat
Juniper WXC
Riverbed

We provider the tests for Bluecoat and Juniper, After these test we saw that on a satelite link bluecoat wasn't doing well (especially when using http!)

Personal i had the feeling that bluecoats proxy kicked in here and didn't do alot of WAN Accell. We also called bluecoat and they came over to do some tweaking, and saw that the customer his webpages wheren't cacheable (and this is the reason it didn't work that well)

After the bluecoat test, they tested Riverbed (which wasn't that bad, and better then Bluecoat).
The last test we came again with Juniper WXC and it seems that this was the fastes solution.

So because of the outstanding Juniper FW/VPN concept (vrouter and routing based vpn's) and the good performance of Juniper WXC, the customer choosed us to build there international Network.

JNCIS-FWV (Juniper Firewall/VPN products and ScreenOS software)

2008-02-18T14:00:00.000+01:00

Hi All,

I did my JNCIS-FWV exam today (this shouldn't be to hard, because i work for more then 8 years with these Firewall.)

Passed the exame with 92%.

We needed this exam for the Partner level again. Hope i can get some time now to prepare for the JNCIE-ER (and maybe will do some other exams in between (what do you think about the M/T track :))

Juniper Partner Level Exams

2008-01-14T09:43:00.000+01:00

hey all,

So it has been a long time you heared from me... Been busy with some big projects. I also needed to do all those partner exams again for our Partner Level.

Here the list of exams i did: (there pretty easy if you have worked with those products)

JNSS (Pre-Sales) and JNSA (Sales)

Juniper Networks Enterprise Routing Sales Associate – JNSA-R
Juniper Networks Enterprise Routing Sales Specialist – JNSS-R
Juniper Networks Advanced Security Sales Associate 2007 - JNSA-S
Juniper Networks Advanced Security Sales Specialist 2007 - JNSS-S
Juniper Networks Data Center Acceleration Sales Specialist – JNSS-DX
Juniper Networks Access Control Sales Specialist 2007 - JNSS-AC
Juniper Networks Access Control Sales Associate 2007 - JNSA-AC

JNCIS-ER (Juniper Networks Certified Internet Specialist)

2007-09-28T16:30:00.001+02:00

Hi All,

So we did the JNCIS-ER exams today, and ...... YES we passed again.

This was the first exam I was afraid of, all this because I didn't have real life practical experience. (only in a lab).

But the score was fantastic (96%)

Now i will prepare myself for the JNCIE-ER exam (this will take some time, because i need to do some other exams also (To keep the company there Partner level: JNCIS-FWV, all the Sales and Presales exams (JNSS/JNSA for all products).

Will keep you all up to date!

Preparing for JNCIS-ER

2007-09-24T09:27:00.001+02:00

Hi All,

So i passed the first Certification for the Enterprise Routing Track of juniper. The next step is to get the JNCIS-ER certification so i can do the JNCIE-ER Lab exams.

Because i passed the JNCIA-ER, i got a extra Free Voucher. For this exam i will study the Advanced Juniper Networks Routing in the Enterprise student courseware and lab guides.

Today i booked the exam (will be 28/09/07 at 11:00 AM)

JNCIA-ER (Juniper Networks Certified Internet Associate)

2007-08-09T15:19:00.000+02:00

Hey all,

Today i toked my JNCIA-ER exames!!

And i passed, so i am one step closer to the JNCIE-ER (which is one of my goals).

JUNOS Enterprise Routing Fast Track Certification Program

2007-06-27T09:09:00.002+02:00

Hi All,

Because i worked with ScreenOS for years now, and i know that JunOS will be very important for the old Netscreen (now Juniper security devices) devices. I decided to start learning this new OS.

Nice thing was that juniper created this Fast Track Program, where people with for example Cisco IOS knowledge can easy learn JunOS. Because i had done my CCNP (in july 2001) and didn't forget everything yet :). i started this Program.

First i followed the JUNOS as a Second Language eLearning course, which compared the IOS commands with the JunOS ones.

After that i learned the Operating Juniper Networks Routers in the Enterprise student courseware and lab guides. (Got a J series router at work, and build a olive).

Then i was ready for the JNCIA-ER preassessment exam. (i passed this one, so i got a voucher to take the real exame)

welcome to Securelink

2007-05-01T08:54:00.000+02:00

1 may 2007, i left Telindus (Telindus) and joined Securelink. They are a small company specialist in juniper products (WX/WXC/FW/VPN/SSL/IDP/Switching/Routing), Nortel, Bluecoat, Ironport, Trapeze, Imprivata, etc.

My daily tasks are making designs, implementation, support, but also technical sales support (often called Pre-sales). Beside that i also coordinate the technical people and there projects.

My Life At Work

2007-04-01T11:22:00.000+02:00

Competence Domain Captain Secure Converged Networks

At this stage Belgacom bought Telindus, and after some months there where some things that where changing...

Once again a headhunter contacted me for a job at JUNIPER (which has bought netscreen), i thougth my old dream would maybe come out now...
But once again, they stopped interviewing me at last stage (meeting with person of juniper) when juniper saw i was working for Telindus.

Then a litle company called Securelink asked a friend of mine if he wanted to join them. (This friend was Tim Carlens).They are a company specialised in all the Juniper product, bluecoat, nortel, etc.

He also asked if they needed someone else to. this was the case, so they talked to me.

Couple of months later we both joined Securelink.

Technical Security Consultant

Well i think Telindus was sure i wasn't a youngster anymore and decided i could leave the Junior title.

Because Security group was getting bigger, with alot of new people starting (new people from school), they needed someone that could train and guide thess young people. At this time there where 3 big groups

- Application and System security
- Emerging Technoligies
- Secure Converged Network

They wanted a person for each group, that would be technical trained of that group, define the futher of this group and decide what will be important.

I was intrested to pick up that task for the last group. But, i wasn't the only one (15 candidates). After some interviews, they decided i was the best person for this task and became...

Interview with Headhunter (For Netscreen)

BUT, BUT, BUT, my succes was also my pain .... :(, I was loving this product more and more! And my new dream was to work for this company. Then the real pain started ..., Because Telindus was a Big partner of Netscreen. After some interviews via Headhunters, they always needed to stop the interview because i was working for Telindus....

Started at Telindus (System Engineer)

After the 6 months of training (basic network training (See my CV for which courses i had)) i started at the Switching and Routing section of Telindus. Then i decided i was gona study the Cisco stuff (strange isn't it :), i choosed to work for Telindus instead of Cisco, but i still wanted to know there products))

After 7 months i finished my CCNP (while working).

In this periode, Security was getting my attention more and more, so i decided for myself this was the way to go. Security at Telindus was just started up (5 persons), i did some more studing and passed CCNA (Checkpoint), NSA (Nokia) which where the products they did most.

Then there was a litle firewall company who called themself "Netscreen", who only had 3 model ns5, ns10 and ns100. There Checkpoint and Cisco Pix where the most used firewalls at Telindus, this netscreen device was new, i thought i give it a try.

Then things went fast! I was surprised by the box and believed that this would become very important firewall in the market. I followed there courses and did the exams: Passed NCSA and NCSP.

Product Captain Netscreen

After some time i became responseble for Netscreen product within Telindus, this is when i gave myself the task to make it product number 1 at telindus!

After 2-3 Years, We (Me and my close buddy "Tim Carlens") succided with this plan .... Netscreen is product number one at Telindus.

First Job

When i finished school i wanted to know more about Networks. Because of this i have send a letter to 2 companies.

One of them was Cisco. They called me up and did a interview via my mobile phone, once for a plain interview and one time for a technical interview. After some hours they called me back to tell me i was in, and could come to there office is Belgium (Diegem).

But, i also had send a letter to Telindus, which is a company that does designs, installations, etc of a lot of products (Cisco, Checkpoint, Nortel, Juniper, Bluecoat, etc). Before the call of Cisco i went already for one interview to telindus, and they wanted me be a part of a group of people who would get 6 months of training.

The day after Cisco told me on the phone that i could work for them, i had a 2 interview with Telindus, which was technical. After this interview, someone from HR showed me the training plan (6 months) and what they would pay me and which car i would get. Me just finishing school, this was like a dream (new car, 6 months training and after this the best people could choose what they wanted to do)

So i couldn't resist this offer.

I called Cisco and explained that i wasn't gona join them, because i joined Telindus.