Packet Pushers - Weekly Show

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

At AutoCon0 in November 2023, guest Jeremy Schulman delivered a talk from the main stage about delivering network assurance. If the term “network assurance” doesn’t mean anything to you, think about how you prove after an install or a change that the network is doing what it’s supposed to be doing. If you’re doing it... Read more »

We talk with network architects and engineers at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital about their automation strategy for mission-critical networks that support patient care. We explore the automation progress they've made, long-term goals, technical and cultural challenges, what they'd like to see from vendors, and more. The post HN715: Prescribing The Right Dose Of Automation For A Hospital Network appeared first on Packet Pushers.

SD-WAN and SASE are evolving to encompass more features and capabilities around security, application performance, network visibility, and more. On today's Heavy Networking, sponsored by Palo Alto Networks, we look at how AI is transforming SD-WAN and SASE to help build the branch of the future. The post HN714: Building The Branch Of The Future With SASE Powered By AI (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Today’s show is roundtable conversation on the state of automation in the networking industry. We discuss takeaways from the recent AutoCon event on network automation, and get into issues such as sources of truth and the role of abstractions in automation. We also talk about the learning, cultural, and business challenges of network automation--and how to get beyond them. The post HN713: Network Automation: Where Are We, And Where Can We Go? appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Fortinet turns its on-prem and cloud security devices into a sensor network that collects threat intelligence across the globe. That intelligence then feeds those devices and services with new updates and the latest protections. In today's sponsored Heavy Networking, we talk with Fortinet about its Fortiguard Security Services, how they work, and how customers can take advantage of them. The post HN712: FortiGuard Security Services: Invisible Operations, Tangible Results (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Today on Heavy Networking, sponsored by Juniper, we’ll talk about how Juniper’s Apstra software can help you operate your on-prem data center more like a public cloud; meaning service provisioning that’s repeatable, standardized, and straightforward to consume. We’ll also talk about how Apstra now works with Terraform to help streamline network self-service. The post HN711: Get Cloud-Like Operation Of Your Data Center With Juniper Apstra And Terraform (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Analyst Brad Casemore offers his takes on the rise of zero trust, the influence of geopolitics on IT, what's driving the need for visibility and observability on prem and in the cloud, and whether 5G will ever live up to the hype. The post HN710: The Future Of Networking With Brad Casemore – Part 2 appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Cloud environments often have poor visibility and monitoring, and controlling access to sensitive corporate data is difficult. We speak with sponsor Palo Alto Networks about how it integrates CASB and Data Loss Prevention to control Web access and prevent sensitive information from leaking from your organization. The post HN709: Protecting Data, Apps With Cloud DLP And CASB (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

The Future of Networking series continues with Brad Casemore, who survived multiple decades in the technology sector, including sixteen years as an analyst for IDC. He's been a longtime observer of networking markets, technologies, and trends. We talk about the interest in AI and try to separate the hype from the reality, multi-cloud networking, and more. The post HN708: The Future Of Networking With Brad Casemore – Part 1 appeared first on Packet Pushers.

AI and machine learning are finally being applied to networking in meaningful ways. On today's sponsored show we talk with Selector about its AIOps platform, which ingests networking logs, flows, configurations, SNMP, and other telemetry to detect patterns, spot problems, and provide contextual insights to help network engineers do their jobs better. We speak with Selector about what it is, how it works, and concrete use cases. The post Heavy Networking 707: Getting Real With Selector’s AIOps (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Today’s Heavy Networking is about collaborative automation via GitNops, which applies DevOps principles to networking. That means things like version control, working with sources of truth, operating infrastructure as code, and collaborating on network on changes and updates. GitNops benefits include automation, repeatability, and scalability. We'll dive into GitNops with guest Tom McGonagle. The post Heavy Networking 706: The GitNops Approach To Collaborative Network Automation appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Today on Heavy Networking we talk about how to get from a handful of Python scripts to a network automation platform that enables a self-service environment and incorporates the checks and governance required to make sure the automation doesn't blow up the network. Our sponsor today is Itential. Itential offers just such a network automation platform. We talk about how Itential makes it happen, including simple and more complex examples. The post Heavy Networking 705: Evolving From Python To Platforms For Network Automation (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Today's Heavy Networking is another roundtable episode. We've assembled a group of network engineers to talk about what's on their minds. Topics today include why other IT departments adn end users are quick to blame the network first, and what can be done about it; using Nokia's open-source Containerlab for testing and development work; and why you shouldn't feel left behind when you hear talk about 400G and 800G networks. The post Heavy Networking 704: Roundtable Redux: Blaming The Network; Containerlab Love; 400G Envy appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Today’s Heavy Networking, sponsored by Palo Alto Networks, discusses Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) across the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). You could think of ZTNA, as VPN evolved and SASE as SD-WAN evolved. Not only do you get an overlay connectivity fabric, but you also get cloud-hosted security services. We talk about how it all works together, the role of client software, Palo Alto Networks' architecture, integrating an IDP, and more. The post Heavy Networking 703: Integrating ZTNA And SASE With Palo Alto Networks (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Today's Heavy Networking covers Pandas. Not the cuddly bears that eat bamboo, but the Python library that makes it easy for you to work with a set of data. Import Pandas at the top of your Python script, follow one of many Pandas tutorials online, and in short order you’ll be able to perform data operations in a spreadsheet-like way. We talk network automation use cases for Pandas with Rick Donato. The post Heavy Networking 702: Supporting Network Automation With The Pandas Python Library appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Our topic today on Heavy Networking is SD-WAN monitoring at massive scale. Scale can grow quickly with SD-WAN when you account for the underlay, overlays, gateways, endpoints, and more. We talk with sponsor Broadcom about their monitoring platform and dig into a case study with a Broadcom customer providing global IT infrastructure for thousands of their own customers. The post Heavy Networking 701: Monitoring SD-WAN At Scale With Broadcom (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.