Packet Pushers - Full Podcast Feed

We turn the nerd meter up to eleven on today’s episode with longtime friend of the show, Russ White. First we dive into how an Ethernet adapter knows when a link is lost, where Russ teaches us all about loss of carrier and OAM. He also gives us a tutorial on how the rest of... Read more »

Keith Gregory teaches us about data engineering in a way DevOps folks (and hydrologists) can understand. He explains that the role of a data engineer is to create pipelines to transport data from metaphorical rivers and make it usable for data analysts. Keith walks us through the testing process; the difference between streaming pipelines and... Read more »

What’s the difference between cybersecurity “as a service” vs. “managed” vs. “hosted”? And what’s the difference between an MSP and an MSSP? In this episode, JJ helps untangle the terms and concepts in cybersecurity offerings. She explains what questions you should ask vendors to make sure you’re picking the right one for your needs; negotiating... Read more »

Why are some executives still insisting on Return to Office policies? Does it improve culture and productivity like they swear? Or is it more about the devaluing of a massive asset on their books: Commercial real estate. If the value of commercial real estate drops, companies have less to leverage for loans and– perhaps more... Read more »

Take a Network Break! This week we cover a new microsegmentation offering from Arista, new GenAI assistants from Fortinet, and a GenAI firewall from Versa Networks to monitor and report on how organizations are using generative AI tools and applications. AWS will stop selling VMware Cloud on AWS (but you can still get it through... Read more »

Network monitoring is growing increasingly complicated. Companies are facing more distributed applications and more remote employees. NetBeez, our sponsor today, is here to talk about how they monitor network performance in real time for the campus, WAN, and more. From proactively testing networks after configuration changes to identifying how well a worker’s laptop is connecting... Read more »

The future has arrived: 800 gig Ethernet is here. Amit Bhardwaj and Dmitry Shokarev from today’s sponsor, Juniper Networks, join the show to tell us all about Juniper’s 800 gig Ethernet and what we need to know as engineers: use cases, transition plans, fiber and power needs (a lot less than you’d think). We also... Read more »

As part of our ongoing series on IPv6 basics, today we cover the differences you should be aware of between ICMPv4 and ICMPv6. Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) is the protocol that lets you test reachability: Pings, echoes, TCP connections, etc. We explain what you need to know and why you need to know it,... Read more »

Today we chat with the maintainers of Nautobot, the open source network source of truth and network automation platform. Jason Edelman, Ken Celenza, John Anderson explain how their day jobs at professional services company, Network to Code, informs their work on Nautobot. They walk us through Nautobot’s core, out-of-the-box capabilities as well as the extensibility... Read more »

The classical encryption algorithms that currently undergird our IT infrastructure will be broken once there’s a powerful and stable enough quantum computer to do the job. Quantum-resistant algorithms are being developed by NIST, but implementation and deployment of these algorithms still have to be addressed. So what does all this mean for busy IT and... Read more »

With the rapid growth of IoT across enterprise and industrial spaces, now is a good time to check in on the wireless training and certification landscape beyond Wi-Fi. Today, Tom Carpenter, the Director of Education for the Certified Wireless Network Professionals joins us to give a lay of the land. He explains how the protocols... Read more »

Zero Trust Network Access, or ZTNA, is a core element of a Security Service Edge because it enables secure remote access to on-prem and cloud-based applications. On today’s episode, sponsored by HPE Aruba Networking, we dig into ZTNA from HPE’s perspective and hear customer stories on how it’s being used for third-party access, VPN consolidation,... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We welcome guest commentator Kyler Middleton of Day Two Cloud to discuss the IBM/HashiCorp deal, then pivot to new Wi-Fi 7 APs from HPE Aruba Networking, and discuss why a data center builder in Ireland is constructing a power generation plant alongside the generator–and powering it partly with vegetable oil. Noncompete... Read more »

What if instead of sending multiple queries out to APIs and getting disparate data back, you could just send a single query and receive a single answer. That’s exactly what GraphQL does for you. Rick Donato joins the show today to teach us about GraphQL and how it can help us on the path to... Read more »

The expectations for application delivery are higher than ever before, the networks that support those applications are increasingly distributed, and visibility is essential for network operations and troubleshooting. On today’s sponsored episode, Kentik’s Phil Gervasi joins us to discuss how Kentik collects essential performance data to help you monitor and manage all the networks your... Read more »

What makes for a good manager, director, and independent contributor (IC), and how do you figure out which is the best fit for you? Hazel Weakly has had a whirlwind tour of all three and is ready to share her insight into each. We talk about the skill set needed for each, and figuring out... Read more »

IoT devices are often like the tiny aliens in the locker in Men in Black: They’ve created a whole little world on your network without almost any humans knowing they exist. Today Troy Martin joins the show to teach us the basics of how to find and secure IoT devices on your network, specifically focusing... Read more »

Right now we’re in the first generation of edge architecture. We won’t even really know how to define it until we’re past it. Greg and Johna discuss the operational milieu in which the edge is forming: Vast numbers of IoT devices, increased remote computing capabilities, questions around cloud operational costs and efficiency, and vendors jostling... Read more »

Take a Network Break! This week we cover Hypershield, a new Cisco security product that uses technology from its Isovalent acquisition. We parse a blog from Broadcom CEO Hock Tan on the company’s VMware strategy, and discuss China’s latest counter-punch in its tech infrastructure fight with the United States. A KPMG survey reveals that executives... Read more »

Secure Access Service Edge, or SASE, combines SD-WAN with cloud-delivered security services including next-gen firewall, CASB, secure web gateway, and others. You can mix and match your SD-WAN and cloud security, but today Rajesh Kari from Palo Alto Networks is here to advocate for the benefits of their single-vendor option. We talk performance, security, and... Read more »