DevCentral's Featured Member for April - Mihai Cziraki
Our Featured Member series is a way for us to show appreciation and highlight active contributors in our community. Communities thrive on interaction and our Featured Series gives you some insight on some of our most engaged folks. DevCentral MVP Mihai Cziraki is our Featured Member for April 2023! He's been helping lots of other members with some great tips so let's catch up with Mihai!
DevCentral: First, please explain to the DevCentral Community a little about yourself, what you do and why it is important.
Mihai: I am a Data Center Network Senior Design Engineer working for _VOIS – Vodafone Intelligent Solutions. I have been working with load-balancing/ADC for the last 8 years (with some gaps).
I started my career 15 years ago as a Network Support Engineer. At some point, I started working with F5 LTM and really enjoyed it. Since then, this has been my favorite part of my job. At some point, I wish this would be all I do, ‘playing’ with these types of devices and technologies. The other part that I discovered in the last years is Automation (Ansible,Python).
In my free time, I like spending time with my family(I have 2 kids), traveling, and cycling (Road and MTB)
DevCentral: You’ve been an active contributor in the DevCentral community. What keeps you involved?
Mihai: I really like helping people. One, because when I started working with F5 BIG-IP LTM, I found help in this forum, and Second, because I feel I need to pass on the things I've learned.
It also helps me reminding things that I have not used for some time.
DevCentral: Tell us a little about your technical expertise.
Mihai: I started as Support Network Engineer focusing and on routing/switching, then moved to firewalls and load-balancing/ADC. I’ve worked with BIG-IP LTM (no other modules unfortunately) and then moved to Citrix Netscaler. I really like working on deploying new applications/services using these devices. Next, I was(still am) into Network Automation. I started with Bash, then Ansible, and now Python. Now I am working in DC Network Design and sometimes this involves BIG-IP LTM devices.
DevCentral: You are a Senior Design Engineer at _VOIS. Can you describe your typical workday, how you manage work/life balance and the strong support of F5 solutions? How has the pandemic impacted your work?
Mihai: Since the pandemic, I’ve been working only remotely and I’ve started to like it. It gives me more time by not having to travel to the office.
For almost 2 years I have been working at _VOIS – Vodafone Intelligent Solutions. “_VOIS is a global, multi-functional organisation, a Centre of Excellence for Intelligent Solutions focused on adding value and delivering business outcomes for Vodafone. “
On a normal day, the first thing I do is getting my daughter to school. When I get back, I start working. I am involved in multiple projects, so I am checking every day what I can do for each project. Sometimes I work on only one project for days, other times I can do small bits on multiple projects. When I have time I check the DevCentral forum to see what issues have 0 answers. If I know how to help or have an idea, I test it in the lab environment I have at home. (I have an Intel NUC with Vmware ESXI installed and an Eve-ng VM where I have an LTM with 2 web servers in the backend.) I check the forum several times per day. Sometimes I find interesting problems that someone has already answered and that I don't know how to solve, but I'm learning from them.
Working in Network Design, sometimes I get a network design that involves an F5 device usually, but we also have other vendors. These are my favorites. Usually, they are about the topology and what features they can use for the solution or an app. So I have more of a consultant role. I don’t do implementations or operations anymore. I miss working with irules/profiles, setting up virtual servers for challenging web applications, securing an app etc. (But I have my lab for this)
After my job schedule ends, I pick up my son or my daughter from school/kindergarten and spend some time with both of them.
DevCentral: Do you have any F5 Certifications? If so, why are these important to you and how have they helped with your career?
Mihai: After 7 years of working with load-balancing technologies, last year I decided to give it a try and get a certification. So I got F5-CA, BIG-IP.
I did it because I had time and I wanted to remind myself of some things I have forgotten by not using them.
I believe that experience with a technology beats a certification. That’s why I was not keen to have one. Even now I feel that I have to take the next level certification because the current one does not reflect my experience with these technologies.
DevCentral: Describe one of your biggest Customer challenges and how the Community helped in that situation. (Does not necessarily have to be DevCentral)
Mihai: It is not a Customer challenge but more an internal request to upgrade to a new OS version. It was back in 2015 when I was struggling to convert HTTP classes back to irules, because HTTP classes were getting deprecated. Doing it manually would have taken me quite a lot of time. So I opened my first DevCentral request. One of the members helped me with a regex command to convert a file of HTTP classes to an irule.
Here it is : https://community.f5.com/t5/technical-forum/http-class-to-irule-conversion/td-p/242504
The DevCentral MVP member is: StephanManthey Thanks again! 🙂
DevCentral: Lastly, if you weren’t doing what you’re doing – what would be your dream career? Or better, when you were a kid – what did you want to be when you grew up?
Mihai: I really love what I am doing and I am happy that I have a job that I like. But if I really have to choose something else probably it would be something about cycling. Maybe a bike shop/service or a bicycle travel agency.
---Thanks Mihai! The DevCentral Community really appreciates your willingness to share with our Members.
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