About

Hi, I’m Ishmam Ahmed. I work in networking and infrastructure support, and I use this site as a public lab notebook and portfolio.

I have over 3 years of experience as a Technical Sales & Support Engineer specializing in industrial Ethernet networking, Out-of-Band Management (OOBM), and connectivity solutions. 

I’m currently an Associate Product Support Technical Engineer at Perle Systems (Markham, ON), where I support and help design solutions across industrial Ethernet switches, LTE edge routers, console/terminal servers, serial-to-Ethernet gateways, and fiber media converters. 

A big part of my work is troubleshooting and reproducing real-world issues in lab environments—using tools like Wireshark/tcpdump, and working with technologies such as VLANs, OSPF, STP/MSTP/RSTP, VRRP, LACP, NAT/DHCP, SNMP/Syslog, plus security fundamentals like AAA (TACACS+/RADIUS), PKI/certificates, 802.1X, MFA, and VPNs (OpenVPN/WireGuard/IPsec). 

I’m CCNA and CompTIA Security+ certified, and I’m currently working toward CCNP Enterprise. I also hold a Postgraduate Certificate in Wireless Networking and a BSc in Electrical & Electronics Engineering.

On this blog, I publish:

• Networking and security labs
• Deep dives 
• How-to guides 
• Troubleshooting write-ups and lessons learned
• Practical notes I wish I had when I was learning
• CCNP study notes and labs