I have been doing this blog now for the past year, admittedly with varying intervals between posts. Reflecting on everything I have written is becomes apparent how my interest and focus has wandered around during the last year. Everything from traditional routing on Cisco platforms and MPLS, to building CI/CD pipelines and deploying applications to the cloud.
There are a few posts that I feel have been especially important this past year. The post about PMTUD was very interesting to write and the knowledge I gained from researching the PMTUD process has proved valuable both in the homelab and at work.
I have also learned a lot more about MPLS and the IP services running on top of MPLS. This is a topic I would like to explore more in the future, especially the L2VPN topic, since I have note managed to get VPLS to run smoothly. I think the complexity of having a different ASN at each site, makes it especially complicated since VPLS across multiple Inter AS peerings is not super common.
Lastly, learning more about the cloud and deploying applications to there has been very interesting. I have a new project, that I am working on right now, which will combine MP-BGP and the cloud, to open source, linux-based, routing in the cloud. This will also allow me to refine my “x-as-Code” skills even further. More posts will come on this topic in the near future. ;)
Running parallel with this has been my CCNP-studies. I have about a year left before my existing certifications expire, so I need to achieve the next certification level ASAP. My employer is also supporting these efforts as much as they can, so I may be able to do a few full-day studying sessions in the coming weeks.
To sum things up, I have grown a lot this past year. Especially on the network automation side. And I continue to explore the world of service-provider routing techniques, while heavily focusing on the automation of such technology.
Looking forward to the blogging year 2025.