Cisco

Driving innovation in UCS networking for the next generation of smart connectivity and optimization.

Engineering Product Manager

Andromedary Instinct

The Andromedary Instinct is a weekend shop for weekend people, just a few blocks from downtown Sunnyvale, California, and a few electrons from marketplaces like eBay, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and even Poshmark. 

We sell computers, components, electronics, and the occasional odd surprise, from the 20+ year collection of Robert Novak. We also coordinate technology consulting services for select customers, with a focus on Linux, networking, virtualization, and best practices.

Proprietor/Consultant

Indyramp Consulting

Internet communication consulting and hosting/presence services. Web, mail, shell, and mailing list services on various UNIX platforms. List hosting for various computer and music interests.

Owner/Consultant

Flexpool.io

I provided technical and process guidance to users of Flexpool's Chia, Ironfish, Ethereum Classic, Zilliqa, and Ethereum cryptocurrency pools. I also created and refined  support policies and procedures, trained new support staff, and tested internal and external software for the pool. I wrote most of the public ongoing "official" documentation for pool events and transitions. 

From getting started with farming and mining, to handling transactions and optimizing environments, I created documentation; communicated status and solutions through Reddit, Discord, Telegram, and Zendesk; helped with troubleshooting, provided interactive and queued support; and brought a healthy dose of snark and proportion to over 100,000 crypto miners and farmers worldwide.

Flexpool.io ceased operations on November 1, 2023.

Support Manager

Supermicro

I lead people and drive process improvement for a Fortune 1000 company that's pivoting into more than just selling boxes. 

- Driving product management for three flagship infrastructure management platforms (composable disaggregated infrastructure, cluster software orchestration, and mobile/multi edge IOT) and a legacy suite of management products from individual server command line to web UI scaling to 10k servers
- Leading a team of product engineers, supporting them and encouraging them to develop from a workload heavily weighted toward clerical work to productive and impactful projects. 
- Delivering industry/market and domain knowledge to high level management products, helping to position competitively while meeting customer and partner needs
- Championing a model shift for software products to enable 800-1000% revenue growth in two years
- Building forecasting models for enhanced sales practices to improve customer satisfaction and 50% license revenue growth

Manager, Software Product Management

WEST COAST KAPPA CAR CLUB

Brought the oldest Kappa car club in the world back from hibernation in 2018. 

Secretary (2018-2022), President (2019-2022), and member of the Board of Directors of the West Coast Kappa Car Club, an organization that provides connections and events for owners of the Saturn Sky and Pontiac Solstice roadsters. 

Managing and encouraging communication to and between club members as well as promoting and organizing club runs and events. 

Handed the reins over to other officers in spring 2022.

'09 Sky Redline

President and Secretary

After nearly 15 years in big data (on both sides of the vendor relationship), I've been focusing for 2 1/2 years on enabling national channel partners around Cisco datacenter technologies. Telling stories, putting pieces together, helping partner engineers do the same, with humor and context and proportion in healthy volumes along the way. 

Drove nine figure sales even into the midst of worldwide turmoil.

Datacenter Technical Solutions Architect

Technical Solutions Architect (2017-present, Consulting Systems Engineer 2014-2017) in Software and Solutions Innovation - Americas Partner Organization 

For four years I empowered ISV partners in big data to navigate and take advantage of the Cisco ecosystem, speaking at customer and partner events, bringing my own decade of hands-on big data and analytics experience in hardware and software to customers alongside our mutual sales teams, and clearing the path within Cisco for partners like Splunk, MapR, and Platfora to make the most of their relationship with Cisco's datacenter organization and related businesses.

I wear the Big Data hat. 

I evangelize and develop big data opportunities around software partner products and Cisco technologies. Working with channel partners, independent software vendors, and our own Cisco sales force, I'm here to help enhance Cisco's big data story for the benefit of our customers and the rest of the world.

Focused on ISV partners (MapR, Platfora, Splunk, IBM Big Insights), Cisco's channel and sales partners, and the internal Cisco teams who sell and support Cisco UCS and the big data ecosystem. As of fall 2017 I focus on Splunk and the US Central region, and beyond.

Big Data Partners Technical Solutions Architect

BayLISA

BayLISA is the premiere San Francisco Bay Area/Silicon Valley group for professional system administrators. As a member of the board of directors, I am actively involved in promoting the organization and its events, finding speakers and benefits, and working with other organizations with similar/parallel/congruous purposes and pursuits. 

As Secretary (as of March 2011), I am responsible for keeping documentation, keeping track of board actions, and further promoting the organization's activities. 

As President and Secretary (as of November 2011), I'm borderline insane but working to improve the public face and internal consistency of the organization.

President, Board of Directors

Disney Interactive

Current: Senior sysadmin for BI platforms at Disney Interactive. 

Primary platform expert for ~700 server 5-domain Cisco UCS C-Series integrated environment. Hardware and infrastructure deployment, troubleshooting, upgrades, and cross-training. 

Project and daily support for Cloudera Hadoop clusters (~200 nodes, ~2PB). Support and troubleshooting for HP Vertica and other analytics software from the bare metal up. 

Originally hired as Senior SA in infrastructure services, system and service scaling, personality balancing, and lunch. Worked with Linux Containers process isolation (lxc), VMware ESXi 4, some puppet, some cobbler.

Later: Sole front-line/infrastructure/architecture admin for Disney Interactive (formerly DIMG/Playdom) BI systems from spring 2012 to summer 2013.

Senior System Engineer

Playdom

See Disney Interactive listing. Playdom was acquired just before I joined, but my first business cards featured the Playdom social games.

Senior Linux System Administrator

I'm a server and infrastructure guy with a penchant for the big picture and a lifelong love of technology.

I'm not looking for new opportunities at this time.

Ask me about my homelab, and ignore the huge backlog of projects. I've redone my home networks for the end of my Meraki licenses. I've worked in networking and storage although it's been a little while. I was last a developer in 1993. I've never waited tables (even database tables) but respect those who do. I admit what I don't know and learn quickly. 

Today I'm an engineering product manager for UCS networking in the compute business at Cisco. 

From 2022-2023 I was product line manager for software management products at Supermicro. 

From 2018-2020 I focused on channel partner enablement, partner sales engineering, solutions engineering at Cisco. 

From 2014-2018 I played storyteller/matchmaker between big data ISVs, Cisco channel partners and internal sales teams, and occasionally a customer or 100. I've been doing big data since late 2003/early 2004 (really) and Hadoop since probably 2008 (CDH1). I presented at partner events and public conferences including Strata+Hadoop World (2x) and Cisco Live (4x, Distinguished Speaker). 

On the first day at Cisco (right after lunch), I pushed a half million dollar deal over the edge with my personal experience outweighing a competitor's positioning. From then on, I brought context and proportion to challenging situations, helping our customers succeed and our sales teams make money. I believe those two should not be mutually exclusive, and I consider it my mission to bring them together wherever I work. 

Before Cisco, I was a senior level Silicon Valley systems operations professional with nearly 20 years (different years, even) of production UNIX system administration in multiple varieties of UNIX (Solaris, Linux, BSD) as well as experience in other desktop and server platforms. I built a proven history of delivering enterprise class scalable server, network, and disaster recovery/business continuance environments within stringent budget and time restraints.

I blog at rsts11.com and rsts11travel.com. 

Specialties: Big data platforms, hardware, and education; system administration, hardware planning and management (even clouds need hardware), Hadoop, written English (documentation is our friend), UNIX-based email systems, coffee preparation & procurement, operations team building and sustaining. 

I'm not a developer or coder although I can read or tweak some code. I don't have an MBA or a PhD. 

I'm not looking for new opportunities at this time.

🚝Robert Novak

Linkedin won't notice this because I had that pandemic-inspired gap in my time here, but today I completed nine years of service at Cisco. 

I've written about "continuity" in tenure here. They have a concept where if you go away and come back, your "effective" date is moved forward. So while I first joined in June 2014, my "continuous service" date moved up to November 7, 2016. I'll hit three years back (and my first work laptop refresh this time around) in April 2026.

Went to Cisco HQ at Santana Row yesterday to catch up with a new coworker. ("New") Rob Rosen

Kinda sad that I'm extremely unlikely to run into Friea, Wissam, or Carl there anymore.

But I did see Buttercup on the third floor.

This one is especially for Stephen Foskett because of the former, not the latter.

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Halfway through Novel November 2025 – Need to take a break?

This post covers my third Novel November video. If you want the latest videos as they go up, subscribe to the Andromedary Instinct YouTube channel. This one features some time in my car and a late night recording in the home office/studio, with a mid-month success update and a tip on avoiding story burnout. See the other parts of this series here:...

Open article: Halfway through Novel November 2025 – Need to take a break? by rsts11.com

Halfway through Novel November 2025 – Need to take a break?

I had one interview over a decade ago where I told everyone I talked to that I'm a sysadmin, not a network admin. They put their network guy on with me to ask me about BGP and VRRP and who knows what else. 

I'd be okay with the basics, but if you're asking the sort of things I looked up and asked when I was interviewing a network architect, knowing I'm not one and I'm not trying to be one, that tells me how attentive you'll be if I work for you. 

There was another one where someone mixed up meeting invites and a security guy started interviewing me for a security position when I'd applied for a product management role. Yes, security is everyone's job, but if you're counting on your product managers to do pen testing and forensic testing, you're a little too small of a company or you don't know what you're doing. 

On the other hand, I had a great one, almost messianic, back in 2000. The VP I'd worked with at my then-current job who had gone on to be an exec at the new company walked me around to introduce me to directors and team leads. It was sort of this "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him." I got good feedback on my Styx tee shirt, and I got the job soon after. 

And the job before that, I'd been an agency contractor for almost a year, and my "client manager" (who I still consider my best manager of my career) called me into his office and said "we like what you're doing. We want you to keep doing it. Would you like to hire on permanent with a raise?" I did, and the agency I worked with increased their "ransom" by 3x after that.

Software Engineer / Architect with over 30 years of experience

I recently had a Python interview and expected deep technical questions — only two were actually about Python. The rest? Let’s say they were… creative.

Here are a few that I remember:
• 	Why is it called Amazon Elastic Container if it runs virtual machines?
• 	Why doesn’t Docker use Docker images?
• 	What are SVN’s weaknesses compared to Git?
• 	What will mypy say if a JUnit fixture is called from a neighboring module?
• 	What design patterns does mypy detect?
• 	How do SQLite and Postgres table locks differ when a foreign key is None?
• 	If a Postgres table has multiple indexes, what does the query planner show?
• 	What date and user appear in commits for merge, cherry-pick, and rebase?

I did my best to answer. Some were correct, some not.
But a few of the interviewer’s “correct” answers turned out to be… not so correct either (yes, I checked afterwards).

The JUnit-in-Python question really threw me. I said, “Isn’t JUnit a Java framework?” 
The reply: “No, it’s Python.”
That’s when I asked myself: Do I really want to work here?

I didn’t pass the interview. But I did gain a story.

What’s the strangest interview question you’ve ever received?

#PythonInterview #TechInterview #InterviewFails

Walk through my daily writing ritual with me for Novel November and beyond

Open article: Walk through my daily writing ritual with me for Novel November and beyond by rsts11.com

Back up! It’s 3-2-1 Contact! With Your November Novel

Open article: Back up! It’s 3-2-1 Contact! With Your November Novel by rsts11.com

Ultra Ethernet Consortium

The Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) brings together leading companies for industry-wide cooperation to build a complete Ethernet-based communication stack architecture for high-performance networking. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and High-Performance Computing (HPC) workloads are rapidly evolving and require best-in-class functionality, performance, interoperability and total cost of ownership, without sacrificing developer and end-user friendliness. The Ultra Ethernet solution stack will capitalize on Ethernet’s ubiquity and flexibility for handling a wide variety of workloads while being scalable and cost-effective.

Chair, Steering Committee

Coordinates strategy across AMD on various industry initiatives related to systems architecture, and determine technical engagements around emerging system technologies and companies.

Technical Director - Systems Design

SNIA

Chair of the Board of Directors for the Storage Networking Industry Association. Responsible for coordinating and facilitating the operation of the largest vendor-neutral storage organization in the world.

Chair Of The Board Of Directors

Member, Board of Directors

Rockport Networks Inc.

Technical field engineer dedicated to promoting new technology for semi-stealth startup.

Field CTO

During the tenure so far at Cisco, J has been a Product Manager as well as an R&D Engineer, working primarily in the realm of Data Center Storage. He's been on the Boards of Directors for several industry associations, developed several storage technologies, and is an award-winning speaker and presenter. He is also the author of more than 100 technical blogs and public presentations, and is considered a trusted source for storage technology.

R&D Engineer, Office of the CTO (S3G)

Product Manager & R&D Engineer

I have always been a huge proponent of the next-generation Data Center, of Unified Fabric, and this new role gives me an opportunity to expand upon my small role with Converged Networks and extrapolate up into making Unified Fabric stronger and even more powerful for our customers’ deployments. 

Like most technically-oriented people, I gravitate towards some of the wickedly cool things that get innovated. The work being done right now on Unified Fabric falls squarely in this category, as there are some mind-bogglingly beautiful concepts and ideas in the works. Granted, like everything else it may not be this year or even next year when they see the light of day, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t being worked on.

Strategic Product Manager, Storage and Unified Fabric

NVM Express

Member, Promoter's Board (Board of Directors)

Fibre Channel Industry Association

QLogic

Create product messaging and brand awareness for entire line of 20+ HP products through coordinating marketing campaigns, including trade shows, technical road shows, and video podcasts. Present training sessions to large groups of internal and external clients to ensure understanding of new solutions. Engage with product launch teams to form methods to bring new technologies to market.

Sr. Outbound Technical Marketing Manager

Evangelized and promoted bleeding-edge technology, delivering dozens of presentations to hundreds of people. Liaise between multiple departments, effectively providing support for sales, marketing, and customer support. Orchestrate on-site field tests of new equipment as well as install and configure new equipment.

Solutions Architect for Emerging Technologies

Apple

Interfaced with clients to determine best-fit solutions involving data centers, servers, and SANs. Conducted on-site implementation of solution, offering post-sales customer support. Responded to RFPs and offered pre-sales consulting to prospective clients. Created and delivered customized technical presentations to clients of all levels.

Systems Engineer

Communiweb Communications, Inc.

Directed company operations and day-to-day management of company. Established and maintained business relationships with partners, provided direct consultation to potential clients, presented materials in response to competitive bids, and implemented customer projects.

President

[Note: Please do not be offended if I do not accept your LI request. Too many requests simply wish to look for work (I don't recommend people I don't know) or seek to sell their services (I have no influence on this)]

J is Technical Director for Systems Design for AMD where he works to coordinate and lead strategy on various industry initiatives related to systems architecture. Recognized as a leading storage networking expert, J is an evangelist for all storage-related technology and has a unique ability to dissect and explain complex concepts and strategies. He is passionate about the innerworkings and application of emerging technologies.

J has previously held roles in both startup and Fortune 100 companies as a Field CTO,  R&D Engineer, Solutions Architect, and Systems Engineer. He has been a leader in several key industry standards groups, sitting on the Board of Directors for the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA), and Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe). A popular blogger and active on Twitter, his areas of expertise include NVMe, SANs, Fibre Channel, and computational storage.

J is an entertaining presenter and prolific writer. He has won multiple awards as a speaker and author, writing over 300 articles and giving presentations and webinars attended by over 10,000 people. He earned his PhD from the University of Georgia.


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🚝Robert Novak

J Metz

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The Battle

🚝Robert Novak

J Metz

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}🚝Robert Novak's LinkedIn Performance

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