Packet Pushers - Fat Pipe

One dark day, Ivan Pepelnjak stopped labbing. He just couldn’t make himself yet again go through assigning addresses, building links, putting devices in place, setting up OSPF, BGP, VXLAN, EVPN, etc. before even being able to start whatever simulation or test he wanted to do. But from that darkness arose netlab. Ivan created netlab to... Read more »

Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware has generated a lot of anxiety among VMware customers. In this episode, we closely analyze the situation. First, we look at Broadcom’s past acquisitions in the infrastructure sector. Then we examine the product alignment and possible new product offerings and whether the acquisition will hamper innovation and development. We also cover... Read more »

Today we look at secrets management and privileged access management from the perspective of a network engineer. How do you and your team securely store sensitive data including passwords, SSH keys, API keys, and private certificate keys, while still being able to work nimbly? What Privileged Access Management (PAM) practices can help put guardrails in... Read more »

The days of network cowboy heroism are over… or at least they need to be. It’s time for network engineering to grow up and standardize how networks are built. Not only will this make life easier for all of us as we inherit networks when we move from company to company, but it’s the only... Read more »

What are we talking about when we are all talking about private clouds? On-prem? Hybrid? Virtualization? Where does hardware fit into it all– and would younger engineers even know what to do with a physical piece of hardware? Driven by Broadcom’s acquisition of VMare and the anticipated rising costs of VMare licenses, enterprises are exploring... Read more »

Hi, I’m Eric Chou, and welcome to the Network Automation Nerds podcast, the newest addition to the Packet Pushers family. This is your audio destination for network engineers and infrastructure professionals who are on a mission to build stronger, more resilient systems through the art of network automation. Join us as we connect with a... Read more »

It’s time to make the switch from WPA2 to WPA3. We cover how to do it and what migration challenges to be prepared for no matter what WLAN you are dealing with (open, passphrase, or 802.1x) . We also discuss what features make WPA3 an improvement over WPA2, particularly the replacement of PSK with SAE.... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We start with an FU on return-to-office policies, and then dive into some announcements from Cisco Live in Amsterdam. Cisco is rolling out rack and blade servers with Nvidia Tensor chips, and Cisco is adding new features to its Digital Experience Monitoring capabilities. Verizon hopes to utilize its MPLS network as... Read more »

Yale’s efforts to load-balance RADIUS servers is a case study in system design for resiliency. First, there was a lone, redundant PSN. Next, F5s load balancers entered the picture. Then the network team realized a feature in IOS-XE was the answer… and brought Cisco along the learning journey with them. Hear it all from the... Read more »

Chaos engineering is all about resilience and reliability… it just takes the harder path to get there. By injecting random and unpredictable behavior to the point of failure, chaos engineers observe systems’ weak points, apply preventative maintenance, and develop a failover plan. Matt Schillerstrom from Harness introduces Ned and Ethan to this wild corner of... Read more »

This week on Network Break we discuss Dell terminating its resale agreement of VMware as Broadcom looks to streamline OEM agreements, a new Wi-Fi AP and cloud-managed switches from Extreme, and the fits and starts in US chip manufacturing. A new study finds Return-To-Office (RTO) mandates don’t improve productivity or company performance, but do drive... Read more »

Guest Dinesh Dutt introduces his newest creation, SuzieQ. It’s a network observability platform application that has both a free, open source version and an enterprise version. Lightweight, fast, and platform-agnostic, SuzieQ’s use cases include network documentation, troubleshooting, fabric-wide visibility, network refresh and redesign, low/no code validation, audits and compliance, and proactive health checks. Hosts Ethan... Read more »

Hi, I’m Jennifer Minella and I’m excited to finally share with you all that I’ll be co-hosting a new podcast on the Packet Pushers network. It’s called Pocket Protector, a podcast exploring the intersection of networking and security. Each week, we’re drilling into topics, from wired and wireless network security to access control and zero... Read more »

Cloud repatriation: Is it a good idea? Guest Marino Wijay, an OSI and networking open source advocate, joins hosts Ethan Banks and Ned Bellavance to discuss the recent interest in cloud repatriation. They cover the intricacies of moving workloads from the cloud back to on-premises or edge environments, and question if it is possible to... Read more »

This week we discuss new products from Juniper including synthetic testing software for its Mist wireless networks and its first step toward integrating its Apstra data center software with AI. VMware clarifies its product strategy as customers face rising prices, and undersea cables in the Red Sea face potential threats. Nokia and Chinese mobile device... Read more »

Remote and hybrid work means network engineers have to grapple with lossy residential networks such as home wireless that your work-from-home folks are using to access company resources. Their Wi-Fi sucks, and so their use of corporate resources sucks. Sure, you’ve got them plumbed into a SASE fabric, but that doesn’t fix their user experience... Read more »

Today we’re talking about Python. If you’re new to Python and want to add it to your toolkit, this is the show for you. This episode offers a broad perspective on all the approaches and plug-ins that Python includes. Our guest Michael Kennedy is a Python enthusiast and Python instructor. We discuss: Why you should... Read more »

This week’s Network Break examines why Cisco bought eBPF startup Isovalent (hint: it’s about cloud-native networking), why Broadcom is cranking up pressure on VMware resellers and customers (hint: it’s about money), and why Google Cloud is sort of dropping fees for customers who want to exit the cloud (hint: it’s about getting out ahead of... Read more »

On today’s episode, we discuss networking sources of truth. That’s right, sources of truth, because you’re likely to have more than one depending on your environment and your point of view. On LinkedIn, Ethan quoted someone at the AutoCon0 conference who essentially said that the network itself shouldn’t be used as a source of truth.... Read more »

We talk with Tim Banks about a wide range of topics including career development, how to stand out as an interview candidate, building a resume, finding your blind spots, diversity in tech (or lack thereof), and more. Let’s get into all the things with Tim! Episode Guest: Tim Banks | Lead Developer Advocate at Dell... Read more »