Is it really almost April?
I know it's been a bit quiet around here, but I've been pretty swamped at work with projects. And while this is a "personal" blog, I also don't believe in the "rise and grind work stuff every day" mentality anymore. While I certainly understand that some folks have a need for this, especially early on in their career, I'm no longer in that place. Don't get me wrong, I've done the 80-hour weeks, the weekend skill advancement, and lab every hour you can. I just no longer have that need, and in fact, I think that the push for this in IT is highly problematic for people's overall health long term. And potentially even worse for family life. As a person who was relatively absent from my kids' lives due to work when they were young (heck, they used to say I worked for McDonald's in Japan when asked because that's what they saw me doing at home), I know my family life was affected. So now I promote a more balanced look at things. It doesn't mean I don't still have weekend work time or travel. But it's drastically less, and they ALWAYS come first. Anyways, off of my soapbox....
So what have I been doing the last 6+ months? Well, a lot of the same stuff as before. Working on client projects, some speaking engagements, etc. I've been busy enough that my Lab has fallen into a bit of disrepair, so since I'm finishing up some projects and getting a little calendar time back, look for some upcoming articles around Apstra 6, Mist Campus Fabric, Mist WAN Assurance via the SRX, and probably a couple more things. For today, though, I'm hitting up a tried and true "first article of the year" template. It's my "Looking Forward to 2026" article.
Certifications and Higher Education Disclaimer
So, before I climb back up on my soapbox, take a look at last year's article and the segment about why I think certifications and higher ed are important, etc. That view hasn't changed, and it saves me climbing up on that box again.
2025 Certification Recap
So last year, I had some plans for certifications. Some of them worked out, others not so much. I passed my last JNCIA (DevOps) and the JNCIS-DC. But that's where the plans went sideways (per usual). I didn't even get a chance to study for the CWNA or look at the Palo Cybersecurity Practitioner. Oh well, there's always this year... With HPE's acquisition of Juniper finalized, I was asked to earn an HPE certification for partner status. Then things got super busy, and certs were the last thing on my mind. On the negative side, my Fortinet certifications apparently expired (whoops, missed that), so I may need to pick those up again. Luckily, they were "extra" ones. So, I'll still call last year a successful cert year.
2026 Certification "Goals"
So last year is done, what's the plan for this year, you ask? Well, I updated the graphic from last year, so let's show that first:
First thing you'll notice is the JNCIP-DC is on there as planned. Last year, it was a stretch goal, but this year, as my last non-Expert Juniper cert, I'm definitely knocking it out. I took a cold run of the test last week at HPE Tech Jam, and came a lot closer than I expected. Blind Luck? Maybe. But a lot of the content was familiar and understood. So now I just need to brush up on the content for that one and knock it out. Once that's done the question is, do I start a run at an "E"? That will definitely require me to do extra labbing, spend some time on the weekends, etc. It will also require some pretty significant focus, which is always a challenge as a VAR engineer. We don't usually get the luxury of just looking at a single vendor's technology, let alone a realm in that technology, so we'll see.
You'll also see I've gone ahead and added some more HPE certs. These are specific to Aruba technology, and it's mostly because I expect that as they combine the 2 partner programs into next year, we'll be required to hold some of these certs. It's funny because I held most of these previously, or their predecessors, but let them expire a couple of years ago. Sigh. Oh well, at least my HPE Networking All Access Training Pass will get some more use this year.
Finally, you'll see I've left the 2 planned certs from last year on there. While there's no additional hair loss required for Jeremy, I still really want to get into the CWNP certifications. I just have the A on there for now, but I'm hoping to dig past that. It will all depend on how much time I get to spend outside of required certs.
Hit me up on LinkedIn and let me know what you think. Is there a cert I should look at adding? Am I completely off base (it's been known to happen)?
