Overview
What this challenge is about.
Receive the backbone topology (12 routers across 4 PoPs, mix of Cisco IOS XR + Juniper Junos), the current SNMP-based monitoring stack, and 4 weeks of customer-complaint tickets. Design a streaming-telemetry pipeline: gNMI subscriptions on the routers (per-interface counters at 1-second resolution, queue depths, BGP session state), a Kafka cluster ingesting telemetry, and downstream consumers writing to a time-series database (InfluxDB or VictoriaMetrics). Define 5 SLO signals (e.g., per-port microburst rate, BGP convergence time, customer-PoP latency), build the Grafana dashboard, set alert thresholds. Demo the pipeline detecting a synthetic microburst inside 5 seconds. Deliver the deployment scripts, dashboard JSON, SLO definitions document, and an 8-page operations handover for the NOC.
The Brief
What you'll do, and what you'll demonstrate.
Replace SNMP-only monitoring with a streaming-telemetry pipeline that detects microbursts and BGP issues in seconds, not minutes.
Earning criteria — what you'll demonstrate
- Deploy gNMI streaming telemetry against heterogeneous router platforms
- Design SLO signals that map to real customer-experience problems
- Build NOC-grade dashboards that don't drown operators in noise
- Hand a working observability pipeline to a 24x7 operations team
Program Fit
Where this fits in your program.
Sharpens the same skills your degree expects you to demonstrate.
Skills
Skills you'll demonstrate.
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Careers
Roles this prepares you for.
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