Orhan Ergun is a networking professional and entrepreneur and is the founder of Orhanergun.net, an IT services and training portal for networking and other technical professionals.
Orhanergun.net is the publisher of the first online training program to feature IP Infusion OcNOS: Open Compute Network Operating System. This latest addition to their training portal helps to round out a product portfolio that already encompasses the market leaders in networking such as Juniper, Cisco and Arista.
Orhan Ergun IT Training is a training partner of IP Infusion. This training, with more than 40 hours of video recording, hundreds of pages of workbooks, and dozens of practical hands-on labs will help anyone understand OCNOS in depth and can be used as a deployment guide.
The complete program is available today at the Orhan Ergun training portal.
We had the opportunity to ask Mr. Ergun 20 questions via email and his answers are reprinted here with minimal edits.
Question 1: Can we get a few words about Orhanergun.net? What was the genesis of the business?
OrhanErgun.Net started around 11 years ago, providing only Cisco’s most advanced certification exam training, CCDE. It was so successful because it was accessible to many people.
It was accessible because the previous CCDE Training provider charged a high price for Instructor-Led training, which was only available on-site in the US. Not everyone could afford such a cost.
I provided CCDE Training over Webex, which was affordable, yet I provided many more materials and CCDE scenarios for the same money.
Also, my job was Network Consultancy in Enterprise and SP Networks, so I could provide real-life information that could help candidates in their careers and at their companies, not just for the exam.
Question 2: What products and companies do you currently support?
At the moment, we provide over 200 courses from Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert levels, not just Cisco, Juniper, AWS, Palo Alto, Fortinet, IP Infusion, Red Hat, and many other vendors, from more than 30 instructors and increasing.
Question 3: How has 2024 been for Orhanergun.net?
The number of courses, instructors, and products increases annually. For example, in 2024, we added a Team Training/ Business All-Access Pass subscription.
With this product, we are offering companies subscriptions to the entire library. Employees of a particular company can access all our courses, videos, hands-on labs, and workbooks, and their managers/directors can track their progress. Thus, they can measure ROI on the website.
Question 4: What’s been the biggest surprise in the networking industry this year for you?
Everything is changing very fast. I think the impact of AI and how it transforms and helps our networking industry, should be closely followed.
Question 5: Are there any vendors or technologies that have caught your eye and may currently be overlooked by the public? It doesn’t necessarily have to be networking technologies—this is a general technology question.
Still, networking companies don’t understand the power of AI. For example, sometimes learners ask for subtitles or better English accents from some of the instructors. Every training provider requires this as they have instructors that the students have difficulty understanding.
We started to provide Video translation, so the same voice, with Native accents in multiple languages, and with the same instructor’s teaching style, and students loved it. AI will grow more, help us, and change lives, too.
Question 6: What area of networking is most exciting to you?
For myself, most of the time it is Service Provider networking. I love working on their design, joining architectural discussions of some of our Network Consultancy customers (www.networkconsultancy.net) usually from SP side.
However, as an OE platform, this year, open networking and security were interesting areas. We added multiple courses from those topics, and students want more!
Question 7: What’s been disappointing you the most this past year, either in networking or tech in general?
Juniper acquisition. I hope it goes well.
Question 8: What is your opinion on the open networking market? Do you think it’s growing, slowing down, stagnant, etc?
It is not growing as fast as it should be. Because it can reduce the cost and provide many more benefits, such as faster time to bring some capabilities/functionalities to the Network Operating System, better CAPEX, and OPEX most of the time, you are not tied to a single vendor for Hardware, Software, Transceiver, etc. You can choose from multiple options, and this also brings many benefits.
But, as I said, it is not fast enough; we can/should do something about it, and I am ready to collaborate with the companies and will be happy if I can even help a little.
Question 9: Is open networking a viable competitor to established companies like Cisco and Juniper?
Definitely. But, unfortunately, as I can see, the market share of the existing and even the new deployments is much bigger in traditional companies.
There may be a lack of awareness among Engineers, politics in the companies, and many other reasons.
I don’t think established companies like Cisco are worried about Open Networking. Still, when large-scale networking projects continue to be chosen for green-field and brown-field networking projects from Open Networking companies, the game will change!
Question 10: What do you think software vendors such as IP Infusion need to do to be successful in this marketplace today?
Much more marketing. I think awareness will increase the number of deployments.
Question 11: How do you feel about IPv6?
We will continue seeing IPv4 for many more years.
Interestingly, as OrhanErgun consultancy this year, we participated in a v6 project for the Enterprise network that is having problems finding IPv4 private addresses. Yes, I am talking about RFC 1918.
There is always a reason, not just for the service providers but even for the enterprises, but it doesn’t mean there is an IPv6 business driver for every single company.
Question 12: What podcasts do you listen to?
I usually either watch or read. But if I listen only, I think Packetpushers is one of the best, and of course, I listen to Russ White’s podcasts, too.
Question 13: What do you do to keep yourself mentally sharp?
Actually, I travel often with my family, especially with my wife. I share the job stress with her, so at least I can clear my mind a bit. But mostly, because she is more clever than me, she can even find better solutions to my problems most of the time.
I am not too mentally sharp, but I am at least trying to keep myself sane this way. 😁
Question 14: Favorite hobby?
Those who know me know that I am in love with sports cars. I like traveling with my family, usually in crowded places, but maybe when I get older, I will search for silence.
These days, I find silence boring, so I prefer a nice crowd and good people surrounding me. But again, my biggest hobby is seeing my family happy, so I prefer to do most of my activities with them!
Question 15: What is one movie everyone in this audience should watch today?
The Godfather.
Question 16: Do you have a favorite part of the world?
I just came from Italy on vacation; I liked it too. Barcelona, South Africa, Orlando, Singapore, Dubai, and, of course, Istanbul. I have probably seen over 50 countries and hundreds of cities, but if I would choose one place to live forever, it would be Istanbul.
Question 17: If you had a time machine, where would you go and why?
1453. When Fatih Sultan Mehmet conquered Istanbul.
That day, I would love to be with him. I wonder what others think. By the way, this was a very interesting question. 😁
Question 18: If you were driving across America on a road trip, what kind of car would you be in?
As I said, I love sports cars. There could be many of them: GTR, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bugatti, etc. I love not luxury cars but sports ones!
Question 19: What can we expect from Orhanergun.net for the rest of this year, and beyond?
We will definitely be adding many more courses that can help the networking industry a lot.
Network Design, Security, Infrastructure, Cloud Networking, Automation, AI Networking, Networking Basics, and everything else related to networking, from beginner to advanced level.
Many more people will get benefit from OE courses and hope we will more democratize the Network Training industry so that many more people can access these courses.
We did it before for the CCDE Training, hope we will do it this time for the entire website, for the hundreds of courses.
Question 20: If we had to know the single most important thing about Orhan Ergun, what would it be?
It is all about Networking. Network Video-On-Demand Courses, Instructor-Led Trainings, Network Consultancy for the Enterprise, SP, and DCs, and last but not least, Networking Lab Rentals. Whatever you need for your Networks, please check www.orhanergun.net and talk to our guys.