Stream 1 October 2013:
CCIE#1346 didn’t like it. In fact, he despised it so much that even after the edits he never posted the recommendation on his LinkedIn profile. The endorsement passage was strong and to the point; after having had his book, Developing IP Multicast Networks, for years and using it constantly, I had decided to write the man a nice complement about him and his book but apparently Beau wasn’t a huge fan of receiving complements or at least bragging about them on his public LinkedIn profile. After almost 8 years, the recommendation is still sitting in my mailbox and he decided not to publish that, although he thanked a lot. The gist of the unpublished LinkedIn recommendation was that “…As of June 2013, LinkedIn reports more than 225 million users but very few have ever made such a significant contribution in shaping the world of networking as Beau has over the past 3 decades….”, I had also gone on to add what I personally owed him (basically a career and a couple of jobs). Pretty innocuous, but still the humble Beau didn’t like it. Very much the same way, he never took much credit for writing the first (and probably the only) dedicated book on Multicast details around Cisco.
Stream 2 sometime in early 2000s:
The interviewer was shifting his weight in his seat, a bit uncomfortably as the body language would betray his thoughts. He only had one scenario prepared, a long question that the entire interview would depend on. It was a hyper-scale multicast-based service provider, and my task as the candidate for the architect role was to identify every single multicast conversation on their national-wide backbone. Back then, in contrast to all the resources available to the community today, there wasn’t anything more comprehensive on the maze of theories of multicast than Beau’s book. I still vividly remember that the insane number of details packed in chapter 7 on “PIM Sparse Mode” totally blew away the interviewer on that very day. The interview ended and the offer letter came through in less than 5 hours. Fast forward to 2022, after owning his book for over 17 years, every now and then I revisit that, especially his “Rules of Multicast” printed on the inside covers of the book; just to make sure if you ripped all the pages and lost every single important page, the hardcover and the golden rules won’t be lost!
Stream 3 sometime in 2020:
The news was heartbreaking and short; in fact, not many details were needed either. “Beau he Williamson passed away Sunday morning, January 19, 2020, in his sleep at home surrounded by family”.
I am sure, many networkers today, whether they admit or not, even if they’re aware of it or not; owe Beau a lot; so, do I. But what always strikes me is what his obituary said after he found out he was terminally ill; “…he sat down to create his “bucket list.” After struggling with it for a long time and asking a lot of people for input, he realized how blessed his life was and that he had lived his “bucket list…”. That’s a bit soothing and truly what I would wish for anyone I care about, what I am not so sure about though, is if the gap created by his absence will ever be filled.
Tomorrow is January 19th again; Rest in peace Beau!
Twitter: @kagahian
