Networking - and the entire global economy - needs networkers. New and old, trad and modern, formally-schooled and hard knocks-schooled. Everything today depends on the network, and that need for networkers is only growing.
There has never been a better time to get into Networking as a career. Let me tell you why…
I came into networking in the 1990’s and it totally captured my attention. I loved learning all the tech that allowed you to connect across an office LAN, to the data center across the street, to the backup data center 300 miles away, and to every other carrier and service provider across the world.
That global Internet led to the emergence of the Cloud. The foundation provided by the Internet, combined with Cloud infrastructure and operational models, critical advances in networking for AI, and a host of other learnings and tech developments, are now driving a whole new set of requirements and technologies for the most robust network infrastructure we’ve ever seen.
The AI boom takes up lots of oxygen in the room, and for good reason. The drive for mega-scale GPU clusters for LLM training is driving innovation in Ethernet and other parts of the AI ecosystem. There is an older networking technology called Infiniband that has seen wide deployment, and that’s not going away soon. There’s tons to learn right here alone.
But we’ll need more GPUs in more places for AI inference, and they won’t all go into mega-scale AI data centers or neoclouds. They’ll go into smaller data centers, maybe even in the back of retail stores, in mobile network base stations, in your homes, and in space.
All those potential locations need NETWORKS. We might need to adapt ethernet for AI processing for scale-across between these locations. In the mobile network, we’ll need to make sure the capacity and latency characteristics can carry traffic to the right AI workloads. The same goes for homes connected over PON/FTTH, cable network infrastructure, fixed wireless access, and satellite internet; and emerging wireless technologies and free-space optics (FSO) for ground-satellite and satellite-satellite comms will be needed. Work is already going on in the Interplanetary Internet (IPNSIG) for Internet expansion beyond the Earth. These are even more places where we’ll need to learn, innovate, and have networkers build out this infrastructure and operate it.
TL;DR: the “more mature” people like me are retiring. I love my career in networking, but 10 years from now, I’m going to be increasingly focused on other things in life. Well, maybe ☺
The numbers add up. This is a real trend and we need more networkers.
We’ve never been in such an information-rich environment. So much networking material to learn with, from many great educators making curated networking training content available, along with YouTube and many collaborative forums - like USNUA, NAF, Packet Pushers, NGNE, and more - where you can ask questions and learn learn learn at very low cost.
In addition to the abundance of networking content, you have a new tool: AI as a patient tutor. You can ask it the same question 17 times and it will never berate you for not getting it. You can ask it to explain something yet another way and eventually get to an analogy or explanation that clicks for you.
There’s one other thing special to point out here regarding networking: you get to - and you must - know a little bit about everything in the whole IT stack to be an effective networker. Hosts connect to the network. Applications interact with users and each other over the network. Knowing how it all works together, especially for those AI training mega-clusters, really matters. Networking can help launch you into any other field in IT, whether you are simply curious or want to add skills in other areas and become even more valuable.
You might say, isn’t AI going to take over all tech fields, especially networking?
No. But it will change how we execute in these fields. Network automation, along with AI for Automation, can reduce toil and tedious work, and free you up to think more like an architect.
In this AI Era, there is an opportunity for you to adopt a very Automation-first, AI-forward approach to networking. You can be the next generation that gets things done at speed and scale with reliability through automation-first approaches that your predecessors were not able to accomplish.
I was captivated by all the work going into building out the global Internet. All these new developments still have my attention today - here I am writing to you about it to share my raw excitement about networking! We’re on the brink of a next wave of network infrastructure build-out that is already moving forward aggressively.
Networking Needs Networkers.
If you’re in high school, Networking needs you.
If you’re in college and are looking for something enduring, Networking needs you.
If you’re looking for a change, Networking needs you.
The learning environment lets anyone with curiosity about networking come in and find a starting point. Your background really doesn’t matter.
If this has persuaded you, or even just stirred up your interest, let’s talk. Reach out to me (scott@solutional.com) or Jason Gintert (jgintert@usnua.com). We have some ideas that can help you get started.
Nothing is stopping you. Bring your curiosity and motivation and be a Networker!