Packet Pushers - Fat Pipe

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a centralized architecture in which a controller, or a hierarchy of controllers, runs software that computes network-engineered paths and pushes that forwarding scheme into the network. It’s also very complex, which can lead to network failures. What if there was a way to keep the benefits of SDN while also... Read more »

Today’s learning adventure is an overview of multicast. Ethan and Holly have invited a guest to share his multicast expertise: Lenny Giuliano, Sr. Distinguished Systems Engineer at HPE Juniper Networks. Lenny guides them through multicast principles and shares examples of where and how it’s used in live networks. He also explains how the OSPF routing... Read more »

Engineers and developers are using AI like never before, including in production. That has potential consequences, both good and bad, for uptime, operations, security and risk management, and more. Today’s guest, Rich Mogull, guides us through the decision-making process of adding AI to your production lifecycle and possible ramifications. Rich is Chief Analyst at the... Read more »

Today we’re going to learn about the care and feeding of a three-headed dog named Kerberos. Developed at MIT and released in 1989, Kerberos is a free, open source authentication protocol that uses cryptographic keys to protect identity data as it crosses a network. Today, Kerberos is the backbone of Windows authentication. We’ll dive into... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We start with follow-up on the proper pronunciation of the US state of Nevada, and then sound the alarm about new research that gets around WiFi client isolation and could enable man-in-the-middle attacks. On the news front, AMD and Meta strike a massive deal in which AMD will sell its stock... Read more »

With the continued growth of data centers for clouds, neoclouds (especially AI model training), for carriers, and for the enterprise, it’s important to discuss data center network operations and issues. Scott is joined by Dr. Peter Welcher, a consultant, blogger, and Tech Field contributor. Together, they dive into how latency and the rise of AI... Read more »

Our topic today is the designing and building of high-performance networking hardware. If you assume the hardware details don’t matter, you’re missing the intentional engineering required to build truly reliable and quiet infrastructure. In this sponsored episode, we discuss Meter’s hardware philosophy with our guest, Joshua Markell, Head of Hardware at Meter. Joshua walks us... Read more »

Alexis and Kevin sit down with Mike Miller to discuss what brought him from the back of a garbage truck to his current position as a Virtual Chief Information Security Officer (VCISO). He breaks down how a VCISO differs from a CISO, and discusses the two types of clients looking for VCISO services: those looking... Read more »

Eric sits down with David Henderson, Principal Architect for NetDevOps at Presidio, to discuss the practical journey for network engineers transitioning from manual CLI operations to scalable NetDevOps and automation. They discuss how traditional networking knowledge and certifications are foundational, and suggest essential tools and habits for beginning your automation journey. David also shares a... Read more »

On today’s show, we pop the lid off of a firewall (figuratively speaking) to understand what’s inside. We talk about how a packet moves through various packet-processing elements inside a firewall, how header analysis and de-encapsulation work, which hardware component has the biggest impact on performance, why stateful inspection still matters in an age of... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We start with follow-ups on secure browsers and data centers in space, and then sound the red alert about an RCE vulnerability in NLTK. On the news front, Palo Alto Networks acquires a startup that monitors endpoints for malicious packages, browser extensions, scripts, and other threats, Lumen debuts a multi-cloud gateway... Read more »

Traditional routing protocols like OSPF simply choose the “shortest” path. If the shortest path is full of traffic and there are alternate paths carrying nothing, OSPF can’t help you. Path Computation Element (PCE) along with Path Computation Element Protocol (PCEP) is a way to construct forwarding paths through the network based on factors that distributed... Read more »

Today, Ethan and Holly provide an overview of firewalls. While cybersecurity is a separate discipline from network engineering, much of what happens in cybersecurity is interesting at the packet level, so there’s a good deal of overlap. It’s likely that as a network engineer, you’ll be managing, or at least dealing with, firewalls in your... Read more »

Kat Traxler, Principal Security Researcher at Vectra AI, returns to the podcast to discuss her AI-powered vulnerability research workflow. She explains how she uses two different AI models to act as the “blackboard” while she applies her expertise to triage AI-generated ideas to increase her productivity. She also asks a concerning question: As AI automates... Read more »

With the rise of cloud services and SaaS, the browser has become a primary productivity tool. It’s also a primary vector for malware, phishing, identity theft, data leaks, and other risks. On today’s sponsored episode with Palo Alto Networks, we dive into browser security. We discuss risks to the browser and how they differ from... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We start with listener follow-up on data centers in space, and sound the Red Alert about a sandbox failure in Claude Code and a rash of Microsoft zero-days. On the news front, Cisco announces a 102.4Tbps switch ASIC in its Silicon One line of homegrown chips, and adds AI agent monitoring... Read more »

Scott talks with Mark Gebert from Verizon about something that sits at the heart of every reliable enterprise network: testing. Automation is moving fast in the telco world, but automation without testing is just an accident waiting to happen. They unpack what makes enterprise service provisioning so complex—multi-vendor networks, optical and IP gear, security functions,... Read more »

Our topic today is building and running network workflows. If your network workflows live in a spreadsheet, a SharePoint document, or in your head, you really need a workflow manager. A workflow manager brings scalability, repeatability, and consistency to your network operations team. In this sponsored episode, we discuss Cisco Crosswork Workflow Manager. Our guests... Read more »

Kevin and Alexis sit down with Melissa Brooks, a Senior Cloud Engineer at Aritzia, to discuss how she went from being a “terrible waitress” to going back to school for a diploma in network security. They explore how she used a strategic, “reverse engineered” approach to goal setting to land on a career in tech.... Read more »

Today we are joined by Matt Remke, who has spent years in the trenches of network automation projects as a consultant. Matt offers a unique, non-engineer perspective on scaling network automation in real-world, complex environments for some of the world’s largest companies. Matt shares what worked, what backfired, and the hard-earned lessons he has gained... Read more »