White Box? APIs? Run away, run away!!!

In the early days of my career I got a rush out of visiting the wiring closets at work. There was stuff in there I enjoyed touching, breaking, fixing, and getting to know. As my career grew I was faced with changes; Ethernet vs. Token Ring for example and DOS (many flavors) vs. Windows. As things moved on in my career in IT, started back in 1974, I was delighted at the many inventive discoveries that turned data into a commodity. 43 years later I am still amazed at the pace of change and time spent ruminating over what’s old made new and what’s new made obsolete.

Networking is my love, my passion, and the way it has shaped our technology universe is astounding. The world today networks more devices than people, a threshold I was made aware of at Cisco Live 2017, when Chuck Robins spoke at the opening keynote address. Unthinkable are the numbers, yet true, so much of our daily lives are already maintained, monitored, and managed by devices on the internet. That day, one I knew was coming, yup, that day has arrived.

Lives made better?

I am not really sure. Because devices are now manipulating people; the eye is a vastly sought commodity. You’re both consumer and on the menu in 2017 a time when sound bites and manipulation of the facts cause markets to shift. Make eyes shift, make thinking pause, make reaction times measurable by many markets.

My affair with the wiring closet has now faded as surely as puppy love in grade school. In any number of conversations we have heard of “As A Service” offerings and suddenly we are all a service, in the networking world. From Walmart greeters to Wall Street greeters, ignorant Politicians to Pundits, Rich to Poor, we are all As A Service product and consumer.

LOOK MA, NO HANDS!

No Box, no brains; you might have heard this in any number of ways from network professionals scared of empty racks in closets. There is a lot to be said for this shift and if we don’t mess up the planet it just might push us back to agriculture and other pursuits. Where once family farms lost their young to the big city jobs, them big city ways could drive them back to weeding gardens and plowing fields. Making craft beer instead of installing a firewall is just one example.

APIs and IPAs (DevNet and my friend Silvia Spiva made me aware of this) was an event at a couple recent geek gatherings. Some of the inspiration in what I am now sharing came from this as it gave me an ahh ha moment. The concept that APIs could push people into other career options because of their impact on the technology world, yeah it’s happening. Movement away from technological career tracks by folks, who have moved away from engineering, is happening and benefiting other sectors of our lives. Geology, Healthcare, Education, and Agricultural Sciences are benefiting from the new era in information technology.

So you receive a white box solution for your enterprise, and you have no idea who the manufacturer of the hardware is. Should you care? Does it matter that now you are controlling yours over the phone instead of a keyboard? That’s how everyone at higher pay grades than the IT department have done it for years.

LOOK MA NO JOB?

The end is nigh! Ha, no it’s not, it’s doing an end around and circling an uncertain globe at the moment. What is certain is your career has many outlets and options. You have to adjust, the land of the giants will become many scattered islands of skills, and you will become a whole member of one of these atoll ‘As A Service’ providers if you are smart. You will keep your nose clean, stick your nose in the right books, and learn how to manipulate code. 

APIs are the new black.

I hate coding, yes way back in Dallas after my 4 years in the US Navy on mainframes the size of Trump’s ego, I was forced to take programing languages to prepare me for a career I actually already had in IT. But, what I soon learned was to respect the color of the punch card and that JCL (Job Control Language)was cooler, shorter, and I could enter these commands at the console and disappear for lunch. What was old is new again.

Get ready, White Box is here to stay! Scripting, ask any UNIX, Linux, Solaris, or other CLI slave, is life. Live it to the fullest.

Flex your APIs and Rock the Box y’all!