Uber Geek setup!

I've never seen a 6500 go for less than $10,000, even on eBay.

Of course, I'm sure having multiple CCIE certs must pay at least $150k a year, so I bet he can afford it.
 
Scott Morris is one of the most sought after Cisco engineers around. I believe he's one only a few people in the entire world (6?) to have quad-CCIEs.

He does a little blurb for TCPmag.com's e-newsletter, which I highly recommend. There's also a Q&A on their site that more or less mimics the stuff he does in the newsletter.
 
Fint said:
Of course, I'm sure having multiple CCIE certs must pay at least $150k a year, so I bet he can afford it.
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I would guess way more than that. 1 CCIE in the right part of the country can get you that.
 
Hmm... define irony.... Ubergeek with a website that doesn't seem to work.


**Edit**
His site is really, REALLY, slow right now. Quite possibly from all the attention he's getting from us.
 
BobSutan said:
Hmm... define irony.... Ubergeek with a website that doesn't seem to work.


**Edit**
His site is really, REALLY, slow right now. Quite possibly from all the attention he's getting from us.
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Although it shouldn't be, he's got bandwidth to spare...did you happen to read the specs...wow...
 
rayman2k2 said:
call me stupid, but what does he do?
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He's a networking consultant and super-Cisco geek. He is one of only 7 people in the world to have 4 CCIE certifications (and one of 2 that doesn't actually work for Cisco).
 
Ridiculously, mother-of-God awesome, but the cable management is really, really bad.
 
Damn, take some time off getting all of those certs and clean up those wires. impressive setup, but lord, fugly++!

still, mad respect for having all of those certs. and all that equipment. that is alot of money and hard work and study
 
wow thats a lot of wires but i still don't get it, do you have that many computers in your house to have all that equipment?? or is it just for fun and leisure??
 
Artluo100 said:
wow thats a lot of wires but i still don't get it, do you have that many computers in your house to have all that equipment?? or is it just for fun and leisure??
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I take it you didn't read his site, nor know who Scott is. He's one of the most elite network engineers in the US, maybe even the world. He has all that stuff for testing projects for contract jobs, training, etc.
 
damn, that is a sickly insane setup right there. I wonder when he started with the Cisco stuff. Gives me something to aim for one day =]
 
with that kinda cash, you would think he could afford to get propper length cables, and some cable management stuff
eek.gif
 
fifthgear said:
with that kinda cash, you would think he could afford to get propper length cables, and some cable management stuff
eek.gif
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I agree, If I would of cabled the NOC I work in like that I would of been fired! Gotta love the setup though and I gotta give a nod to the Atlas 800 (Ive worked with one for the last 5 years). Hot damm, quad CCIE......the money alone spent in training......geesh! God I gotta go back to school, now if I only worked for a company that paid for that sort of thing...oh wait I do! I got to really do something about that laziness!

-Rikus
 
SiathLinux said:
Although it shouldn't be, he's got bandwidth to spare...did you happen to read the specs...wow...
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He's only got a T1--not exactly beefy in this day and age. I mean, yeah his site is basically all text with a few images but still...enough people could give him bandwidth issues :p
 
Kinda looked like my basement.


Not too much impressive, the wiring is a real big turndown... so is his desk :p


He needs to go in there tile out the floor, cover up that roof (fiberglass and computer fans dont mix), and give it the real server room feel and functionality. Also, if he really wants to be unique, he should get a cable way or some form of wiring management system... even velcro ties!!
 
His wiring may look messy, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's constantly re-wiring some of that stuff for new configurations, not really possible to ever keep clean without spending countless hours making it pretty. Besides he's one of the smartest networking guys in the world, and people who acheive such a high level of brains tend to not be the most organized people, like the guy who owns the IT company I work for, he has a Ph.D in chemistry, but can't organize his own desk and tools and is constantly loosing and forgetting things :p

Not to mention with such numerous certs and experience, he probably knows more than the engineers who built the equipment, and he can write his own paychecks with his skills.
 
his network equipment ain't got nothin againsn't mine :rolleyes:



:cool:
 
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There is one guy who has 5. One guy also has 6. Both of those folks work for Cisco though.
Fortunately, there are only two of us who have 4 and don't work for Cisco, so we're more fun that way !

As for the cable management in my equipment, things change all the time and frequently equipment moves around. So it doesn't lend itself to "pretty".

And there really wasn't any training to get the various certs. I'm one of those guys who has to play with it anyway, and screw it up a few times to learn it. I don't deal well with training 'cause I generally either know more than the instructor or ask too many detailed questions that nobody else cares about. :) I AM a trainer though, so that's part of why I need to know it all.

All that, and I have a social life too. (Well, it's smaller now that I have two kids, but it's still there)

And for those who were interested, having four CCIEs doesn't exactly make your salary four times as much. Although that would be pretty cool. Market rate is still pretty much market rate. Although it allows me to have more variety in the jobs/gigs I can get. It's also great when it comes to competitive situations. ;)

I never knew I generated such wide breadth of interest though! I'm still just a regular guy.

Scott

PS. The network here is not inefficient. My provider, despite their size, has occasional bandwidth blips with one of their upstreams. Not much I can do about that. Networking karma. :)
 
Wow pretty crazy Scott posted.

Trust me, if you do alot of testing, adding and subtracting your racks should look like Scotts! I know mine sure as hell does. Constantly moving fiber, adding more. Taking switches down, putting more in.. adding routers and other Network appliances.

I think I can safely say I've played with every peice of Cisco Equipment Scott has in his racks :)
 
WesM63 said:
I think I can safely say I've played with every peice of Cisco Equipment Scott has in his racks :)
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It's all about the toys. Well.... It's all about knowing how to use the toys too... but it's all about the toys. :)

:cool:
 
I agree whole heartedly about the toys, im still really new to the industry and i acquire anything i can even if its just to borrow and play...VoIP is the thing im really pushing myself to learn right now...trying to get this asterisk box to my bosses liking. Id really love to get the cisco certs for voip though

any specific thing you see as becoming the "next big thing"?
 
Kaos said:
Any specific thing you see as becoming the "next big thing"?
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There are always "next big things" in the works... But a lot of it depends on what industry you're in and what interests you.

VoIP stuff is not going away, it'll expand quite a bit. Video Conferencing is always catching on and being added in there.

Storage Networking is a huge area, but for larger enterprise and data-center environments.

The Cable Networking (cable modems, VoD, etc.) is going to be huge with Cisco purchasing Scientific-Atlanta recently.

Application-oriented networking is a large push as people try to figure out how to optimize what they already have. Cisco's AON push is evidence of this.

So there are many "next big things". The object is to be poised knowing enough that no matter which way you want to go you know more than the next guy does. :)

Cheers,

Scott
 
awesome setup, i would probably pass out if I ever saw your basement in real life ;)
 
heh.. by playing I ment i've configured or install them ;)

IF you want to learn cisco VoIP start and don't give up. I'm learning it now, but taking a diffrent approach than most people do. I'm learning Call Manager Express (IPTX Specialist). which is 100% diffrent than Call Manager. If you want to learn Call Manager.. wow.. take alot of time. CCME isn't bad and which I prefer, not quite as versitile as CCM, but definatly worth it for the type of Converged VoIP networks I setup. BTW, QoS is a PITA, but prolly the most important part of VoIP or Streaming Video. (learn this well too)

but anyway, good luck to anyone thats learning VoIP. Thanks again steve for posting, you'll be a great asset to the site :)
 
there is no way to keep a test lab wired clean, those of you that think so have never tried it ;)

its intention is not to look pretty for managers walking by, it's for learning and a coiled up wire hanging somewhere is hardly the last thing you worry about.
 
tdg said:
His wiring may look messy, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's constantly re-wiring some of that stuff for new configurations, not really possible to ever keep clean without spending countless hours making it pretty. Besides he's one of the smartest networking guys in the world, and people who acheive such a high level of brains tend to not be the most organized people, like the guy who owns the IT company I work for, he has a Ph.D in chemistry, but can't organize his own desk and tools and is constantly loosing and forgetting things :p

Not to mention with such numerous certs and experience, he probably knows more than the engineers who built the equipment, and he can write his own paychecks with his skills.
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very very true, that is what I was going to say! I imagine weekly he moves routers around in confirguration for testing purposes. I bet he often sets up an indentical network to a client, makes necessary changes, and makes sure it all works fine for uninterupted changes in the field. Will save downtime, his time, and make the clients happy :)

tnanks for posting this... at first, I was like WTF does anyone need that many routers for in a house, and no computers :D but now I get it :D
 
fifthgear said:
with that kinda cash, you would think he could afford to get propper length cables, and some cable management stuff
eek.gif
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thats just wouldnt be mad scientist fun now would it
 
WesM63 said:
I think I can safely say I've played with every peice of Cisco Equipment Scott has in his racks :)
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I know this is probably going to make me sound like an ass but I have to go outside and raise the BS flag on this one.

From your profile it looks like your 20 or 21. How is gods name have you had the time to play with EVERYTHING CISCO that he has in his racks. How long have you been working with enterprise class networks? :confused:

Like I said, I really don't want to sound like an ass but I know that I can't be the only person questioniong your statement after considering your age.

If all is true and you have used all of that hardware I say that your 100% the luckiest kid I have ever heard of at your ago in the IT field. Im 22 now and I have probably used maybe 50-60% of the cisco stuff Scott has in his racks.
 
xphil3 said:
I know this is probably going to make me sound like an ass but I have to go outside and raise the BS flag on this one.

From your profile it looks like your 20 or 21. How is gods name have you had the time to play with EVERYTHING CISCO that he has in his racks. How long have you been working with enterprise class networks? :confused:

Like I said, I really don't want to sound like an ass but I know that I can't be the only person questioniong your statement after considering your age.

If all is true and you have used all of that hardware I say that your 100% the luckiest kid I have ever heard of at your ago in the IT field. Im 22 now and I have probably used maybe 50-60% of the cisco stuff Scott has in his racks.
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I just turned 21, I've been in the field professionally since I was 17. Worked on my high schools old 2900xl's at 15. I'm a Network Engineer for a computer store in NW Ohio called Data Eclipse (www.dataeclipse.com), we have a large range of customers in various sizes with various setups and my boss spares no expense in training us. (So what i havn't personally installed myself, i've used in a cisco traning class.)

I just took some pictures of one of my offices as i promised someone here at [H]ard|ocp I would. I'll post them tomorrow as they are at the office.
 
so I would assume that you are alteast CCNP then..

I also have been in the field since age 17, but never took any cisco training courses. You don't see much of the stuff that Scott has in his racks in smaller to mid size companies.

and like I said before you were very luck to have had a school that let you work with that stuff, especially on a production network.

I would love to see the pics though :)
 
Im 20, professionally in the field for less than 6 months and ive messed with some really crazy stuff, a few items in there, but not much.

most common thing we see out and about are cisco routers, one of the verizon CO's we worked in had a juniper setup in the colo portion in the basement.

cat6500 impressed me the first time i saw it...and i still love seeing new tech.

who cares what youve seen or played with, its all interesting to me which, correct me if im wrong, is the thing that drives most techies.
 
xphil3,
Actually to most peoples suprise, i do not have any certifications. I don't have time to study and take them.

Kaos said:
who cares what youve seen or played with, its all interesting to me which, correct me if im wrong, is the thing that drives most techies
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Agreed. I love networks, thats why I do what I do.
 
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