What got you started on this book?
We were working with Cathy Gadecki and she just finished the first Day One book and once we saw it we were really jacked about it, too. She signed us up even before we said yes. Next thing you know we got handed templates and a Day One author kit and turned loose. At first we were apprehensive but after awhile because adjusted to it. We actually learned a lot just by writing it all down.
At first I want to say Junos newbies, and it is, but you'd be surprised how many experienced Junos engineers have read this book. Emails come in all the time saying, I forgot about this... It's a perfect book for those coming from Cisco IOS or from an IOS shop that just installed its first J box.
After reading this book, what will the reader learn or know?
How to get your Junos device up and running. Plain and simple. We don't go into every possible, of course, it's only 80 pages, but it's what you can do in one day.
What do you recommend as the next item to read after this book? What are your plans for more?
After you do this, I'd say one of those big, fat Junos books from O'Reilly. Junos Enterprise Routing or Junos High Availability, even the Junos Cookbook.
What was your inspiration?
Cathy Gadecki getting off our back. ; )
What's your favorite bit/part in the book?
Chapter 1. Odd but it's where you go around and write stuff down in the margins of the printed book or in comments in the PDF. Looked at it on a iPad recently and discovered the iPad, er iBooks app, has a bookmark and comment function. I tried it and it worked. Everywhere in the paper book you were supposed to write something down, you could put a digital sticky on the iBook file. Cool.
How hard was it to write? Tell us how and when you wrote it?
It was the hardest thing either of us every had to write. It's scary when you know it's going to get published and people are going to assume you're a practicing author or something. Basically we got real lazy until our Editor, Patrick Ames, emailed us querying what we were doing. Every time we got an email from him we knew we were behind schedule and we caught up. He's a great pest.
Did you create a test bed for the book? How much set up did it take?
We use several labs here at Juniper and tied it all together. The hard part was finding access time. We travel a lot and the lab's available x to x time, and often the two didn't meet.
Who tech reviewed your book?
David Nguyen, who just wrote the EX Day One book. Jerish Parapurath, Jennifer Pulsifer, and Brad Woodberg, who just finished co-authoring the big Junos Security book from O'Reilly.
Who would you like to thank?
Our editors. They turned our mush into sensible English. Cathy Gadecki was essential.
