As you might have heard, last week HPE and Juniper told the world, that HPE will be acquiring Juniper.

Nothing more, nothing less.
And yet, for some folks this was a clear sign, that ravens would flood the earth, Jehovah was coming and the world would end… Again: without knowing even a single detail of what will happen. It was just the headline “HPE will acquire Juniper”. I was (and probably still am) one of the very very few folks who genuinely believe that competitors should start to shit their pants right now because this new company will probably be the next leader in every space, taking a LOT of customers away from them. Unlike the “A&C Deathbringers” spreading a lot of misinformation already (probably because they are really really scared) I think this new company will shine in the networking space. Imagine a HUGE portfolio, fully AI-powered, covering EVERY field of networking and with access to not only network but compute and storage as well: M-I-N-D-B-L-O-W-I-N-G!
Both companies have a successful portfolio and both benefit from the other’s expertise. Will we see some products vanish? Who knows because exactly: It’s still to freakin early to tell…
We will probably see some new (AI)products, solving problems that we think are unsolvable today.

A lot of you reached out to me, asking me how I feel about the situation, asking If I am okay (that was really sweet – thanks) asking if I will continue my Journey towards my “All JNCIE” and most importantly:
Does it still make sense to get certified for any JNCI-A-S-P-E? (Got that question SO MANY TIMES)

Well: Getting JNCIS-MistAI-Wired certified earlier today (a really solid exam by the way – GREAT Job Folks) and signing up for my next JNCIE-ENT attempt hopefully shows my point of view.
Nothing has changed!

DAMN RIGHT I’m still following this goal – and why shouldn’t I?
And why should you stop getting your Juniper Certification?
Has anything changed? Not really
So why should I / should you worry about unlaid eggs?
Why should anyone think about every possibility that might happen, wasting our precious lifetime with scenarios that probably will never even become reality?
Folks – just breathe 😀

Let’s just wait for what will happen. Even if something happens in 2-3 years – can we change that?
Not really – so why waste energy on that (now)?

Even if your JNCI-A-S-P-E or your beloved device gets “cut” – do you lose the knowledge about the protocols?
The knowledge about the mechanisms of networking?

Not really. Remember: Juniper certifications are one of the most valuable in the entire networking community for a reason: because they are veeeeeery close to the daily work and the tech itself. As you can see in most blueprints, the exams all focus a LOT on the actual gears running behind the protocols and don’t just ask you “How does Juniper do this, that, these, those” – sure there are some questions about JunOS, the cli or a certain Juniper based GUI in some exams – but the concepts, the tech, the protocols are the same for Juniper, for Cisco, for Aruba, for Arista and what not.

Put me in front of ANY Device (assuming feature parity):
Sure It will take longer for me to check how the syntax is applied but without sounding cocky I bet every nickel that I have that once I’m finished, your device will do exactly what I want it to do – just like any EX or QFX 😉

Why that is you ask? BIG-Surprise:
Same tech, same RFCs, same protocols (vendor lock-in protocols aside as nobody should use them in 2024 anyway to avoid a vendor lock-in)

It’s mindblowing how many “Analysts”, “NextGen-Network-Experts” and “Enterpreneurs” suddenly pop up like Trolls leaving their caves after a long winter to report that this is a bad thing just to grasp on that sweet sweet social click that “fear” creates. Do you know so little about networking? Do you really know what a Router does? I beg to differ if I read some articles even coming from big tech portals in our Industry – makes me question if the folks who actually knew stuff have already retired…

I have one clear piece of advice for anyone getting nervous at this stage of the acquisition:
Why don’t you just sit back, stop telling everybody (including yourself) that the world ends, take a sip of tea, and enjoy the ride – you might be surprised what’s coming =)

For me, the last week was already better than any movie I’ve seen so far.
I already filled my Popcorn up because I bet that new dystopian articles will follow 😀 😀 😀