Packet Pushers - Full Podcast Feed

How might we get network traffic from Earth to a lunar base? Or Mars? Or to spaceships carrying astronauts or probes exploring space? And how do we get it back? The problem, among other things, is latency. The answer isn’t TCP/IP. The answer is…complicated. On today’s Heavy Networking we explore the challenges of getting packets... Read more »

Vint Cerf, widely recognized as one of the fathers of the Internet, is today’s special guest on Total Network Operations. He currently serves as Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google. His pioneering work began back in the 1960’s when he was involved in the ARPANET project. Alongside Bob Kahn, Vint co-invented the TCP/IP... Read more »

Transitioning from IPv4 to IPv6, or at least IPv6-mostly, is no easy task. Today’s show provides some education and advice about IPv6 transition mechanisms. We cover options such as NAT64, DNS64, PREF64, and more, as well as use cases. Also, if your technology vendors aren’t offering some of these mechanisms, ask for them – you’re... Read more »

It’s time to talk crypto. No, not the Bitcoin kind. Ethan and Holly introduce the basics of IPsec, the protocol that authenticates and encrypts traffic between endpoints. They discuss what it is, how it provides trustworthiness and secrecy to IP traffic, and common use cases. They review the different types of IPsec protocols and modes,... Read more »

In the changing landscape of AI data infrastructure, F5 and MinIO are partnering on a solution that brings together the best of each company. This solution bookends the AI stack—it uses F5 for reliable, secure, and observable data delivery and MinIO’s AIStor for storage of all data types. The goal is to help organizations be... Read more »

The new WLAN Pi Go is small, lightweight Wi-Fi testing tool. It can sniff Wi-Fi frames, measure signals, decode packets, and more. The tool snaps to the back of your phone and connects via a short cable for data and power. The small form factor makes it ready to take it along and test any... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We double-dip on red alerts as the FBI warns that Russian state hackers are targeting a seven-year-old vulnerability on Cisco IOS and IOS-XE devices (a patch has been available for seven years), and a compromised XZ Utils backdoor is still lurking in some Docker images. Palo Alto Networks has added support... Read more »

DNS security is our topic on today’s Tech Bytes podcast, sponsored by Palo Alto Networks. Specifically, Palo Alto Networks is here to talk about its Advanced DNS Resolver, or ADNSR, which provides a security-centric, cloud-delivered DNS resolution service. We talk about how ADNSR works, its features and capabilities, and how it differs from other DNS... Read more »

Today’s episode is all about high-performance memory in switches. We dig into the differences among TCAM, SRAM, DRAM, and HBM, and all the complex tradeoffs that go into allocating memory resources to networking functions. If you’ve ever had to select a Switching Database Manager template or done similar operations on a switch, this is your... Read more »

On today’s Total Network Operations we talk through the adoption of AI in network operations with John Capobianco, Head of DevRel at Selector. Selector is the sponsor of today’s episode. John walks us through his career journey as a network engineer, and describes the moment where he realized that AI was going to change how... Read more »

Democratizing the learning environment is a passion for Deepak Ahuja.  So much so, he founded CloudMyLab, a company that provides hands-on, cloud-based labs and networking environments. His goal is to offer an affordable lab-as-a-service for two groups of people: network engineers seeking certifications, and network engineers and automators that need a place to safely test... Read more »

In this unplanned and unfiltered conversation, we dive deep into network automation realities with Ivan Pepelnjak, networking’s long standing and independent voice from ipSpace.net. We explore why automation projects fail, dissect the tooling landscape (Ansible vs. Terraform vs. Python), and discuss the cultural barriers preventing enterprises from modernizing their networks. Ivan delivers hard truths about... Read more »

Microsoft is rethinking allowing endpoint security software to run in the Windows kernel (including third-party and Microsoft’s own endpoint security software). While there are benefits to running security software in the kernel, there are also serious downsides (see the CrowdStrike outage). Dan Massameno joins JJ and Drew on Packet Protector to talk about the role... Read more »

Google now estimates that the specs for a Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computer (CRQC), which can break conventional public key encryption in a useful amount of time, are lower than they had previously estimated…by 95%. Given the breadth and pace of advancement in quantum computing, this makes the advent of the CRQC likely to happen years... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We start with critical vulnerabilities in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center and Fortinet’s FortiSIEM. On the news front, SonicWall announces Gen8 firewalls plus a $200,000 warranty for customers that sign on to SonicWall’s Managed Protection Security Suite. IBM Cloud suffers its fourth major outage since May of this year, SASE vendor... Read more »

LLMs and AI-powered chatbots are becoming a regular feature of network operations tools and vendor product portfolios. Now the next iteration of AI in network ops and automation is likely to be agentic. On today’s Heavy Networking, sponsored by HPE Juniper Networking, we talk about what agentic AI actually means, how AI agents will accomplish... Read more »

Building things for people to use has been our guest’s goal since entering university in the 1960s. Total Network Operations is delighted to welcome Jack Haverty, who’s been instrumental in ARPANET operations and innovation, the development of TCP, and more. He takes us through the history of the internet from the early days of ARPANET,... Read more »

You’ve sent in questions and on today’s IPv6 Buzz episode Ed, Nick, and Tom answer them. Questions include using DHCPv6 versus SLAAC in a home network, IPv6 and email services, a NAT66 recap, and more. Stay tuned for full episodes coming up that cover Path MTU discovery and IPv6 and containers.  Episode Links: Google IPv6... Read more »

Ethan and Holly bring you the last installment of the OSPF series discussing OSPF area types. They discuss why OSPF areas exist, do a quick recap of what OSPF areas actually are, and then introduce the different types of OSPF areas.  Lastly, see if you can answer Ethan’s rapid-fire OSPF questions. Episode Transcript: This episode... Read more »

Developers Rizel Scarlett and Ian Douglas join Ned and Kyler to talk about building an AI agent. Rizel and Ian work at Block, where they’re part of a team building an agent called Goose. They talk about what the agent does, building challenges, observability, and more. They also dive into topics such as how using AI... Read more »