Somit Maloo, CCIE No. 28603, CCDE No. 20170002, is a content architect from the data center team in the Learning & Certifications' organization. He holds a master's degree in telecommunication networks and a bachelor's degree in electronics and telecommunication engineering. He is also a penta CCIE in routing and switching, service provider, wireless, security, and data center technologies. Somit holds various industry-leading certifications, including CCDE, PMP, RHCSA, and VMware VCIX6 in Data Center and Network Virtualization. Somit has extensive experience in designing and developing various data center courses for the official Cisco curriculum. He started his career as a Cisco TAC engineer. Somit has more than 13 years of experience in the networking industry, working mostly with data center networks. You can reach Somit on Twitter: @somitmaloo.

Iskren Nikolov, CCIE No. 20164, CCSI No. 32481, MCT Alumni, content architect, engineer, and developer with the Cisco Learning & Certifications' Data Center & Cloud team. He is responsible for designing, developing, and reviewing Data Center Official Learning Cisco courses, including lab infrastructures and exercises. He holds a master's degree in computer systems and management from the Technical University-Sofia, Bulgaria. Iskren has more than 26 years of experience in designing, implementing, and supporting solutions based on the data center, security, storage, wide area networks, software-defined networks, cloud, hybrid, and multi-cloud technologies, including 11 years of teaching, and developing Cisco Data Center & Cloud and Microsoft Azure courses. The huge experience across technologies from multiple vendors such as Cisco Systems, VMware, Microsoft, and Barracuda, combined with the different perspectives gained from the different roles in his work and experience with customers from different industries, allow Iskren to have a unique view of the current data center technologies and the future trends. You can reach Iskren on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iskrennikolov.

Firas Ahmed, CCIE No. 14967, is a solution architect on the data center technologies team at Nile. He completed a master's degree in systems and control engineering following a bachelor's degree in computer engineering. Firas holds CCIE certificates in routing and switching, collaboration, wireless, security, and data center technologies in addition to industry-based certifications, including CISSP, PMP, VMware VCP6.5-DCV, ITIL, and GICSP. Firas has more than 18 years of experience in designing, developing, and supporting various data centers for enterprise and IoT customers. Firas has additional experience as a seasonal instructor in a number of community colleges in Toronto, where he taught various computer networking courses. You can reach Firas on Twitter: @dccor_firas.