Packet Pushers - Fat Pipe

On today's Day Two Cloud we discuss the state of  network automation and whether and how it can catch up to automation in the public cloud. We look at network automation challenges, define boundaries with other elements of the infrastructure stack, the impact of cloud networking, whether AI and ML can help, and more. Our guests are Chris Grundemann and Scott Robohn, co-founders of the Network Automation Forum (NAF). The post Day Two Cloud 210: Can Network Automation Catch Up To The Cloud? appeared first on Packet Pushers.

On today's sponsored Heavy Networking we talk with Fortinet about how it converges network and security across the breadth of its portfolio. Fortinet is best known for its firewalls, but the company also offers campus and branch switches, has a wireless portfolio, offers SD-WAN and SASE, provides AI-supported operations, and more. We also talk about Fortinet's approach to the branch office that rethinks networking, security, and performance. The post Heavy Networking 700: Rethinking Networking and Security For The Campus And Branch With Fortinet (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

This week on Network Break we dig into Microsoft's post-mortem of an attack that led to the theft of emails from multiple US government agencies, discuss Huawei rolling out a new 7nm chip despite US trade restrictions meant to thwart advanced chipmaking, examine a Cisco and Nutanix team-up, and more tech news. The post Network Break 446: Microsoft’s Series Of Unfortunate Events; Huawei’s 7nm Chip Gives US The Middle Finger appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Virtual Application Networks, or VANs, are today’s Heavy Networking topic. Our guest is Ted Ross, motive force behind the Skupper.io project. Skupper builds VANs in Kubernetes clusters that are conceptually like a VLAN or VPN, except that all the magic happens at layer 7. Skupper is based on the Advanced Message Queueing Protocol (AMQP), making it effectively a message bus used to interconnect application messages inside of mTLS tunnels running on top of whatever L3 network is available. If you're confused, don't be. We talk it all out, and explain why it's relevant to today's networking pros. The post Heavy Networking 699: Connecting Multicloud Kubernetes Clusters With Virtual Application Networks appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Today's Day Two Cloud kicks off an occasional series on cloud essentials. For the first episode we discuss the Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). A VPC is an fundamental construct of a public cloud. It's essentially your slice of the shared cloud infrastructure, and you can launch and run other elements within a VPC to support your workload. Ned Bellavance walks through key VPC components including regions and AZs, networking and IP addressing, paid add-ons, data egress and associated charges, monitoring and troubleshooting, and basic security controls. The post Day Two Cloud 209: Cloud Essentials – Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Today on Network Break we discuss Juniper integrating ChatGPT with its AI digital assistant, Microsoft's plan to unbundle Teams in the EU to fend off regulators, financial results from soon-to-be-paired Broadcom and VMware, a 5G follow-up, and more. The post Network Break 445: Juniper Pairs With ChatGPT, Microsoft To Unpair Teams In The EU appeared first on Packet Pushers.

In today's sponsored Heavy Networking we explore new features in Cisco Thousand Eyes, an operational tool based on visibility and observability of public and private network. Thousand Eyes has continued to grow into complex operational areas such AWS Network Path, Webex performance, and integrations with Meraki to help you identify and fix network and application performance problems. The post Heavy Networking 697: Getting Operational Visibility Into The Networks That Matter (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Today on Day Two Cloud we dive into the implications of licensing changes that HashiCorp has made to its popular Terraform software. In short, the company has switched from an open source to a business source license. HashiCorp says it felt compelled to make the change to ensure that some other business entity doesn't take the open-source software and turn it into a competing product (looking at you, AWS). Will the licensing change have a significant impact? For 99% of users probably not, but there are caveats and concerns to discuss. Today's show is a crossover with Chaos Lever, a weekly podcast co-hosted by Ned Bellavance and Chris Hayner that covers IT news. The post Day Two Cloud 208: HashiCorp Licensing Changes And The Day Two Cloud-Chaos Lever Crossover appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Take a Network Break! On today's episode we discuss two announcements from VMware Explore 2023: a private AI offering, and a revamped NSX for public and private cloud networking. We also discuss recent rule changes at the SEC that require public companies to disclose material security incidents in a timely manner, NVIDIA's huge revenue results, SUSE going private, and more tech news. The post Network Break 444: NVIDIA Mines GPU Gold; VMware Wants To Sell You Private AI; SUSE Prepares To Go Private appeared first on Packet Pushers.

EVPN/VXLAN is our topic on today's Heavy Networking. What is it? What’s it for? Should you deploy it? Since you’ve probably already got a network, how do you add EVPN to it? Do you need special hardware? How does EVPN impact your security design? And what are the fundamentals? Our guest with the answers is IT instructor Tony Bourke. The post Heavy Networking 696: EVPN Fundamentals (And Some VXLAN) With Tony Bourke appeared first on Packet Pushers.

We’ve got more durm and strang in open source license debate, cars that don't work wihtout a network, something mumble something Fibrechannel, a security acquisition by Check Point, cheesy microchips and more. The post Network Break 443: Nuclear DCs, Mobile Cars, Fibrechannel, Open Source And Cheese appeared first on Packet Pushers.

On today's Heavy Networking we explore network and firewall automation with sponsor BackBox. BackBox has developed a platform that aims to deliver practical automation out of the box. We get under the hood to understand how it works, what it delivers, and how it addresses the challenges of network and security operations. The post Heavy Networking 695: Automating Network And Firewall Operations With BackBox (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

On today's Day Two Cloud we examine the similarities and differences among SSE and SASE, which provide cloud-delivered security; and SD-WAN, which can provide connections to these services. We also discuss the drivers for cloud-delivered security, the role of networking, where and how zero trust can come into play, some of the big players in these spaces, and more. The post Day Two Cloud 207: Making Sense Of SSE, SASE, And SD-WAN appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Today on Network Break we discuss big moves in open source, including HashiCorp switching from an open source license to "business source" and Red Hat competitors banding together to offer an alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). We also discuss Google's odd attempt to get employees back to the office by charging them to stay at an on-campus hotel. The post Network Break 442: HashiCorp Swaps Open Source For BSL; Open Enterprise Linux Goes After RHEL appeared first on Packet Pushers.

This week on Heavy Networking we've assembled a roundtable of network engineers to talk about...stuff. Each guest has brought a topic to discuss with the table, so we've got lots of subjects and lots of experiences and opinions. In particular we explore SPB, career advice, getting network automation off the ground, and the joys and perils of self-hosting. The post Heavy Networking 694: A Network Engineering Roundtable appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Red teams attack a customer's security systems. The idea of a red team, whether consultants or in-house, is to approach the target like an attacker would. A red team includes technical and human-based exploit and attempts to test defenses, probe for weaknesses, and identify vulnerable systems and processes. On today's episode we look at how to get the most out of a red team engagement--it's much more than just an attack and a report. The post Day Two Cloud 206: Making The Most Of Red Teaming With Gemma Moore appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Take a Network Break! This week we discuss new charges for IPv4 addresses being levied by AWS, Cisco's acquisition of a BGP monitoring service, and financial results for a host of tech companies. We also speak with J Metz, the Steering Committee Chair of the Ultra Ethernet Consortium to learn more about the organization's goals; and examine the efforts to investigate claims of a breakthrough in superconducting research.

On today's sponsored Heavy Networking we dig into cloud-delivered Secure Web Gateways (SWGs), which help guard end users against Web-based threats and enforce corporate Web access policies. As employees split time between home, office, and who knows where else, and as more applications move online, cloud-based SWGs help connect and protect workers. Our sponsor is Palo Alto Networks. The post Heavy Networking 693: Securing Workforce Transformation With Cloud SWG (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Today's Day Two Cloud peers inside the box of quantum computing. We explore how it works, what qbits are and why they matter, the current state of quantum computing hardware, what problems could be solved with quantum computing, and how you can get involved with it via the Qiskit open-source project. Our guest is Abby Mitchell, Quantum Developer Advocate at IBM. The post Day Two Cloud 205: States Of Quantum Computing With Abby Mitchell appeared first on Packet Pushers.

On this week's Network Break we discuss a new Broadcom ASIC, a request from US Senator Ron Wyden to three US agencies to investigate Microsoft for sloppy security practices, an Intel pledge to add AI to all its platforms, Juniper financial results, and more IT news.