Tarique Shakil

Tarique Shakil, CCIE No. 37319 (Service Provider, Data Center, and Security), CCSI #32545, CISSP (ISC2), CCSP (ISC2), VCP-DCV, is an Architect with the Cisco Customer Experience (CX) Data Center New Product Management team, specializing in softwaredefined networking (SDN) and cloud technologies. His previous experience with Cisco includes working as a high touch technical support engineer supporting Cisco premium customers for enterprise routing and service provider technologies. In his current role, Tarique leads the incubation of the latest SDN and cloud solutions, which includes working closely with engineering. Tarique has been involved in products such as Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), Data Center Network Manager, and Virtual Topology Systems (VTS). He was also part of a startup, Candid Systems, that brought the Network Assurance Engine (NAE) to market. His areas of interest and expertise include data center virtualization, programmable fabric, network assurance, cloud data center security, and SDN. He holds a bachelor’s degree in telecommunications engineering. Tarique can be found on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/tarique-shakil-cisco.


Vinit Jain, CCIE No. 22854 (R&S, Service Provider, Security, and Data Center), is a technical leader with the Cisco Customer Experience (CX), supporting customers and TAC teams around the world. For the past 10 years, Vinit has worked for the Cisco TAC and High Touch Technical Support (HTTS) organizations, supporting several customers in enterprise, service provider, and data center environments. Vinit has been a speaker at various global networking forums, including Cisco Live events. Vinit has also authored other Cisco Press books, including Troubleshooting BGP and Troubleshooting Cisco Nexus Switches and NX-OS, and he has worked on the NX-OS and BGP Troubleshooting Live Lesson series. Prior to Joining Cisco, Vinit worked as a CCIE trainer and as a network consultant. In addition to his CCIEs, Vinit holds multiple certifications related to programming and databases. Vinit studied mathematics at Delhi University and received a master’s in information technology from Kuvempu University in India. Vinit can be found on Twitter at @VinuGenie.


Yves Louis attended the Control Data Institute in Paris (Diplôme d’Ingénieur), where he majored in computing. Yves is a pre-sales engineer covering data center networking as a technical solution architect at Cisco Systems. Yves focuses on fabric design and the architecture of modern data center network–based VXLAN EVPN transport and the Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) technology. Yves also supports the Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) software framework for the next generation of data centers that rely on VXLAN EVPN for visibility, control, and fabric automation, including VXLAN EVPN Multi-site infrastructures. He also works with the Network Assurance Engine (NAE) solution, deployed in conjunction with the ACI architecture. Yves is an expert on data center interconnection solutions and has written several public technical articles at Cisco and in his personal blog related to business continuity which you can find at, http://yves-louis.com/DCI/.