Giuseppe Larosa
Giuseppe Larosa is a senior network engineer in Italy. He says. "I can usually guess which Top Contributor is going to answer a particular question because we know each other's experience and specialties."
Background
Q: How did you get involved in the networking industry?
A: I earned my degree in Electronics Engineering in 1993. In 1997 I began my networking career as a consultant for Telecom Italia. I worked in the research center on projects such as evaluating DSL broadband access, implementing an IP MPLS international network, and validating the GPRS network elements for mobile data access.
Q:Where are you working currently?
A: Currently I work for Italtel S.p.A., a Cisco Gold Certified Partner. Since July 2007 I've been working in the Network Operations Center for our client RAI, which is a broadcasting company. We use Cisco technology for routing and switching, security, unified communications, and wireless. We won a prize at Cisco Networkers 2009 in Barcelona for best unified communications project in the broadcasting industry.
Q.What is your greatest accomplishment to date in your networking career?
A: I'm proud to have earned my CCIE Service Provider in June 2005. I also have two patents for analyzing Internet peering between providers.
Challenge
Q: What business challenges influenced you to use the Cisco Support Community?
A: I was having a problem with database replication and found a link to the Support Community on cisco.com. The information in the discussion solved the issue.
Q: How do you use the Cisco Support Community?
A: I visit the forums regularly, especially WAN Routing and Switching, LAN Routing and Switching, and MPLS. I participated in the forums to help prepare for the CCIE recertification in May 2009 and I'm finding participation helpful now as I start the Certified Voice Professional path. I also like visiting to find out other member's first impressions of new products. For example, I've been very interested in my fellow community members' experiences with the new ASR 1000 Series Aggregation Services Routers.
Q: What led you to start contributing to the Cisco Support Community?
A: As I read answers, I started thinking, "I would have given the same answer." That inspired me to start responding to questions that I am qualified to answer. Now I generally visit every day to look for interesting questions, especially in the Routing and Switching forums.
Q: What was the toughest issue you resolved on the Cisco Support Community?
A: The toughest issue involved disaster recovery. My client wanted to replicate information between sites, and my fellow community members validated my belief that the distance was too great. As a result of the discussion, I convinced my client that synchronous mirroring was not appropriate, and we took another approach.
Q: What is your overall impression of the community?
A: The Cisco Support Community is a friendly environment that encourages collaboration. I can usually guess which top contributor is going to answer a particular question because we know each other's experience and specialties. But if that person is not available because of time zone differences, another member will often answer.
Q: Which feature do you find the most helpful?
A: The search feature is very helpful because you can usually find past discussions about the same problem, and find your answer right away.
Q: Do you have any suggestions for possible changes to the site?
A: I would like to have a tool that shows recent ratings for my posts.
Q: Do you have a message for your fellow Support Community users?
A: I have two messages. The first is to search for your issue before posting a question. If you receive too many results, try again with a more specific query. Secondly, please provide feedback after you receive a response. Remember that other members will be reading the discussion in the future. Your feedback lets them know whether the story has a happy or a sad ending!
