Happy New Year 0111 1110 0000

This is the last post of this year which has been intense, stressful and accelerated sometimes and quiet and relaxed other times but it has always been funny and gratifying. This year has had 365 days which is a lot of time to do whatever we want like working, reading, studying and enjoying with friends, family, partners and workmates. I'm going to do a review of this 2015 to try to improve for the next 2016.

In this year, once again, I have seen that relationships is the best tool to improve ourself if we get a team with the same ideas and the same strength to work together toward the same goal which is live, learn and enjoy. Thanks that I participate in many projects during the year I can meet a lot of engineers and know how they work with their limitations, problems and advantages to try to improve their IT infrastructure and therefore their business. For this reason, my wishes to leave the cave, meet other people and interacting with them, improve my English language and contribute with the society have done that I went to Russia this summer for one month to make presentations about Spain, organize English and Spanish lessons for children and help to organize different educational, cultural and sport activities during the camp. Very interesting and delighted.

With regard to certifications and learning about Security and Networking, I got the FCNSP (Fortinet Certified Network Security Professional) certification at the beginning of the year and I also applied for the Second Challenge of ISACA, which I was the winner with the first award. For this award I had to read lots of papers about dynamic reputation systems and learning how attackers evade security controls to develop my own DGA malware, which is a new and innovate technique that it is used for malwares like cryptolocker. This was my opportunity for learning about Information Security Management because the award included an online course and exam about CISM (Certified Information Security Manager), that I took it last month and I'm waiting for the results. On the other hand, I finished my studies in English language and I got the C1 level, and this is the reason why I have begun to write in English language in the blog because I don't want to forget what I learned. In addition, I got an ethical hacking course to improve my technical security skills.

Speaking about projects, I have taught about OSPF and PIM (Protocol Independent Multicast) protocols under Alcatel-Lucent technology to the AENA Company and I have also taught about Cisco Firewall ASA to the Government of Spain. Moreover, I have had the luck to advise, install, configure and support load balancer solutions under F5 Networks and Radware that along with projects about Firewalls and Antispam I have reinforced my knowledge in network and security. Like the last year, I have also had the opportunity to participate in an installation about Open Nebula with HP, Cisco and NetApp equipment. I have not only participated in technical projects but I have also written a lot of documents about policies and procedures to make Disaster Recovery Plans (DRP) and adapt infrastructures to the PCI-DSS Compliance, which is a requirement if you want to work with the card industry like Visa, Mastercard or American Express. In the meantime, I have helped to deliver, support and maintain the Ariolo Cloud Services, I have also installed probes and SIEM systems, and helping to companies with security and networking audit to know how to improve their processes and infrastructures. Last but not less important, this year to keep my CISA certification I have had to give speeches about security, therefore I have given four speeches in EAP, Mérida, CUM and EPCC.

For the next year, I want to renovate my CCNP certification and maybe to begin to learn a new language, will see. Of course I want to keep my CISA certification and improve my English skills but what I want the most is to think big and meet with big professionals to share experiences and knowledge.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.