Q&A with Jeff Duke, Senior Customer Solution Architect

Q. Before we dive in, can you share a little bit about yourself on the personal front?

A. I’m blessed to have an amazing wife, whom I met while working for the State of Indiana more than two decades ago. We have six children and four grandchildren. We’re an adventurous and busy bunch, never letting the moss grow beneath our feet. We have two sons in college studying CIS and cybersecurity; a son in high school who plays the saxophone in the marching band one season and hits the mat during wrestling season; and the three oldest are busy working full-time jobs and raising their children.
 

When I’m not working, you can find me spending time with my family, attending music events (I love all music – especially rock and roll), camping, fishing, growing hot peppers, attending to my bird named J-Bird who has become my work companion, riding my motorcycle, and adding to my vast collection of meaningful tattoos—my favorite being a pirate ship battling a gigantic octopus on the tempestuous high seas, with a lighthouse in the distance to guide the way. It depicts the story of my life.

Q. You’ve been in enterprise networking for nearly 30 years. In the early 1990’s and early to mid-2000’s, most businesses had on-premises data centers and cloud was more revolutionary at that time. How did you learn cloud networking over your career to secure the level of expertise in cloud/multicloud networking that you now possess?

A. It’s been a long and adventurous career train ride with the latest stop being cloud networking and security. In 2014, I worked as Senior Network Engineer at Republic Airways, one of the largest regional airlines in the U.S. It was there that I learned the ins and outs of cloud service provider (CSP) Amazon Web Services (AWS) as we were developing an application for our pilots and flight attendants; and shortly thereafter, I learned CSP Microsoft Azure. At that time, Republic Airways was incredibly futuristic in harnessing the benefits of the cloud. I learned AWS and Azure through hands-on experience and attending continuous training tracks for AWS and Azure networking and security.

Q. While at Republic Airways, how did you learn about Aviatrix and why did you select the company’s secure cloud networking solution?

A. We needed to simplify advanced networking, security, and operational visibility for our AWS and Azure environments. As the lead architect for both on-prem and cloud networking, I conducted extensive research on multicloud networking solutions that included firewall inspection in the cloud. Hands down, Aviatrix had the best solution to route and inspect traffic in the cloud and in my opinion, it continues to be head and shoulders above others in the market. CoPilot was the icing on the cake. It armed me and my team with centralized visibility to help manage and monitor our multicloud infrastructure as well as day two operational capabilities.

Q. What made you want to shift gears and move from being a customer of Aviatrix to working as a Senior Customer Solution Architect?

A. Throughout my career, I’ve taken the time to step back to evaluate where I am and where I want to be. Over the last several years, I observed more businesses making investments to become a cloud-first company, creating a need for cloud architects and cloud networking talent. It was a no brainer for me at that time that this would be my next career move, but it was only a question of where I wanted to land—AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), etc. I didn’t want to be locked into one CSP as I enjoy working in multicloud environments. I did not take me long to realize that Aviatrix would be an ideal career move given my extensive experience with the secure cloud networking solution, the Aviatrix team, and my knowledge of numerous CSPs. I’m incredibly thankful to have been given an opportunity to work at such an amazing company.

Q. You are a certified Aviatrix Certified Engineer (ACE). Did you obtain certification while at Republic Airlines or when you joined Aviatrix? How important is getting certified in various CSPs, and what certifications do you feel are most useful in sustaining a successful career path in enterprise networking today?

A. In early 2020, while a customer of Aviatrix at Republic Airlines, I attended the first ACE Professional training for customers. I’m proud to say that I’m the 187th ACE member to earn certification. To date, there are nearly 20,000 ACE members—ACEs. I can’t stress enough on how impactful the program has been in helping me to advance my career and I’ve seen others reap the benefits, too. Obtaining CSP certification from today’s most popular CSPs—AWS, Azure, GCP and OCI—increases your knowledge and awareness of the all the various nuances each CSP possesses. Already well-versed in AWS and Azure and seeing an increase in customers adding OCI to their cloud environments, I decided to get OCI certified in August 2023. If you’re looking to uplevel your cloud skills and knowledge, I’d recommend learning from the CSP you’re working with or looking to work with and attend in-person or online training. There are also plenty of online resources—from books/eBooks, whitepapers, videos, communities like The Cloud Network, etc. to help you understand the ever-evolving world of the cloud. Never stop learning. Always be curious.

Q. In your role, you often work with the ACE Program team to provide enterprise customers with ongoing comprehensive training, specialized courses, and best practices to help them build, operate, automate, scale, and secure cloud networks across all CSPs. Can you share more about your involvement?

A. In my role, it is paramount that customers receive proper training. I help the ACE team train customers in the ACE Professional track several times a month. Over the past few years, I’ve watched the ACE Program explode into a global phenomenon with tens of thousands of cloud architects, infrastructure architects, and network architects becoming ACE certified. The program is key to understanding how to leverage cloud networking and security in every major CSP. I recently had the pleasure of organizing and working with the ACE team for an in-person training at one of our largest customers, training more than 50 engineers. The attendance, participation, and attention to detail was outstanding. Our ACE team is comprised of the best cloud instructors in the world and our customers are equally talented.

Q. What has been your proudest accomplishment at Aviatrix to date?

A. I came to Aviatrix to do great things. I’m surrounded by people that are the best in the business. I’ve had the fortune of being able to work with some of the largest Aviatrix customers at the highest level of global multicloud architectural design. I look at my success as Aviatrix’s success as we are all in this together.

Q. Aviatrix CEO Doug Merritt has inspired leaders across all functions of the company to think like a team. A great team understands that to deliver the best results, everyone must know exactly what their teammates’ respective roles are in the game. Can you share an example of teamwork that has delivered something truly special for a customer. 

A. In my nearly 30 years of experience, I have yet to see anything that compares to the level of teamwork here at Aviatrix. It’s unmatched in the industry. Unlike many other companies, we have the capacity to be able to tap special talent from various teams to jump in and help solve very complex situations and use cases. One use case that comes to the forefront is when we designed an ingress solution for one of our large global customers that required massive scale and design considerations. We were able to tackle this head on by engaging our field engineering teams (CSAs, SAs, SEs), software engineering teams (QA and Dev), support teams, as well as the product development teams. Every group rolled up their sleeves and got involved when and where needed and this valiant team effort resulted in a very successful application migration of more than 30,000 remote user accounts from on-prem to the cloud in only a few weeks’ time. Designs this large in scale usually take several months to develop. That speaks volumes.

Prior to joining Aviatrix, Jeff spent more than seven years at Republic Airways as Senior Network Engineer where he spearheaded the company’s move to the cloud. Throughout his career, he has served as Senior Network Engineer spanning various industries, including the State Government, Healthcare, Entertainment, CDNs, VARs, and several others. In August 2023, he was named a Top Customer Solution Architect by Aviatrix’s leadership team and was part of the early ACE certified community—the 187th member. Today, there are nearly 20,000 members. Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn. View the Careers page for the latest Aviatrix job openings. Learn more about the Aviatrix Certified Engineer Program.