Author: grace_jaegersandruck

Yesterday I spent the day preparing for my pitch presentation. During our work experience, we were tasked with giving a pitch presentation about one of the different Cisco architectures. We were to act as if we were a sales rep for Cisco, and we were selling our chosen architecture to Cary Academy.

I chose Collaboration with a specific focus on Webex. I explained how we used a combination of Teams and Zoom, and it often time is confusing when and on what virtual platform we are using. I, then, went on to explain how using Cisco would simplify this process, and allow everything to be found in one place. I used a combination of personal stories and theoretical experiences if we had used Webex, to show the benefits of using Webex over Zoom/Teams.

The attached file is a copy of my PowerPoint that I used for my pitch.

CARY ACADEMY X CISCO COLLABORATION

-Grace

My favorite thing I learned about today was the CSAP program. CSAP is a program at Cisco for new employees who have had less than 2 years of experience out in the workforce before coming to Cisco. The program pays them to learn and study the different architectures, so that when they go into their engineering or sales jobs that they are able to intelligently talk technically about the different architectures to their customers. They are 2 main parts the sales side and the engineering and sales side of the CSAP program. On the engineering side, they also complete a number of certificates during their time in the CSAP program.

From the many personal experiences shared by our speakers, we could only being to understand how the CSAP program has impacted the lives of all the participants. It builds and strengths the Cisco community.

-Grace

My favorite meeting we attended on Thursday was about how your brand and network matter. We learned about how your brand is not only the activities/organizations you participate in but your general character and personality. We also learned about the importance of networking; it allows you to make connections and build relationships that can help you later on during your career.

Another session I found interesting was our session about Collaboration or more specifically Webex. I learned about the different ways one can use Webex to easily communicate with others. We were also able to see how someone who works at Cisco uses Webex on a daily basis. They are able to easily message other people who work at Cisco if their customer has a question about a given product and they don’t have the answer, for example. Based on my understanding, Webex appears to be a combination of Teams and Zoom in one platform.

Here is a picture of the Webex app format:

-Grace

My favorite meeting we attended today was our first meeting where we talked about Cisco’s Umbrella. Umbrella was a company that Cisco bought relatively recently. We attended a demo of the program where we were able to learn about how different companies, businesses, or schools might implement Umbrella in order to provide more security/ protection of their data.

Umbrella is unlike a lot of other security brands because instead of blocking a source after loading the website/email attachment, Umbrella blocks the threat based on the categories that the given threat fits under; some examples include newly seen domains, malware, cryptomining, etc. This prevents the virus or malicous code from even entering the comptuer and then traveling throughout the network.

In our second session, we learned about how buissnesses/companies can use Secure X (a dashboard that holds all things security) in combination with Umbrella and other secuirity products. These products do not just have to come from Cisco; there is a growing number of three party products that are constantly being added to the Secure X platform. Secure X simplifies and condesnses everything the average IT person would need to know all in one place.

This is a screenshot from our meeting about Secure X. It shows what a possible Secure X dashboard could look like.

-Grace

Today we attended 3 sessions each about different architectures: Meraki, Data Center, and AppDynamics. For the first session about Meraki, we learned about the creation and applications of the program/company. Meraki allows the admin to make edits to the code of one Data Center and then push all the updates to every Data Center connected to the given network without having to go to each one individually.  Meraki allows businesses, using their advanced camera system, to be able to track traffic inside their stores, count the number of people entering or exiting their store, and even determine whether customers are wearing masks and social distancing or not. The third session we attended was about AppDynamics; AppDynamics allows the admin users to be able to better understand when the app crashes, where is the problem located and who is responsible for the crash. It helps to pinpoint a specific problem which significantly reduces the time it takes to eliminate a given problem. In general, we learned about how all of Cisco’s architectures are meant to streamline the process for business owners and companies by creating simple and straightforward layouts and designs.

Here is a picture of what the Meraki dashboard looks like:

Link: https://meraki.cisco.com/form/demo

Here is a picture of what the AppDymanics dashboard looks like:

Link: https://www.appdynamics.com/solutions/cisco/cisco-workload-optimization-manager

– Grace

For our first day working at Cisco, we started by meeting Ms. Sandifer in which she gave us a general overview of what to expect throughout the program in addition to general details about Cisco. We also attended several other meetings throughout the day. In the first, we talked about Cisco’s culture. We learned that in the sales department, specifically, they thrive in a competitive yet community-oriented environment. They find a balance between competition and collaboration; they celebrate each other’s accomplish and work together when they need help, but also find motivation in competing.

In another of our meetings, we also talked about the pitch project that we are going to be working on throughout this week and next week. In summary, we are going to be acting as if we are salespersons who work at Cisco and are trying to sell one of Cisco’s architectures to Cary Academy. We are going to have to research our chosen architecture and then determine ways that it can be beneficial to the Cary Academy community. The architectures include Meraki, Data Center, AppDymanics, Umbrella, and Collaboration.

Finally, each member of the Cisco WEP was assigned a mentor. We were able to talk to our mentors about their experiences working at Cisco as well as recommendations for our pitch presentation from a technical perspective. My mentor shared experiences about building systems from the ground up: she worked with creating routers, switches, etc.

Here is a picture of me with my mentor: Ms. Rswaragoundan.

-Grace