Packet Pushers - Weekly Show

As we approach the end of 2021, it's informative to look back at how much change has gone on in the industry. One of the biggest transitions we've seen in enterprise networking has taken place in the data center. Software-defined approaches that emerged over the past decade have matured and are being deployed in production. On today's Heavy Networking, we talk with Juniper Networks in a sponsored episode about its Apstra Intent-Based Networking (IBN) platform and how Apstra is transforming the enterprise data center.

On today's Heavy Networking we discuss a Nautobot, an open-source software tool that can serve as a source of truth for network automation. We explore how Nautobot works, what it's used for, how it ties in with Python and Ansible, major features, and more.

Today's Heavy Networking considers the current state of networking technologies and the networking market. We debate whether we've seen any significant innovations over the past year, if the industry has stagnated, or if we're simply trying to stay on top of disruptions caused by cloud, Covid, and the erosion of traditional network boundaries. We also discuss how network engineers and the industry are dealing with complexity, if organizations can "cloud" their way out of legacy problems, and more.

Today's Heavy Networking goes deep on Network Access Control (NAC) for wired and wireless networks. Our guest is Arne Bier, a Senior Consulting Engineer and CCIE. We hit a bunch of topics including MAC authentication bypass, client certificates, EAP methods, and more. We also discuss reasons why NAC is worth deploying despite the effort.

In today's sponsored Heavy Networking show with VMware, we take a fresh look at VMware's SASE and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) solution. VMware has a breadth of products that allow for a differentiated overall solution. Joining us today is Craig Connors, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Service Provider and Edge at VMware.

The DNS Abuse Institute is a community effort to develop solutions to DNS-related problems including malware, botnets, phishing, pharming, and spam. On today's show we speak with its Director, Graeme Bunton, about the institute and its work, and the challenges of dealing with malicious actors that exploit DNS and domain names.

Today on Heavy Networking, we consider a newly announced platform for artificial intelligence workloads, the cnvrg.io Meta Cloud. Our sponsor is Intel, and our guest is Yochay Ettun, Co-founder and CEO at cnvrg.io.

Today's Heavy Networking discusses the notion of looking at, and learning about, networking via a systems approach. Our guest is Dr. Bruce Davie who's had a long career in networking, has written numerous IETF RFCs, and is the author of a new set of free books on networking and computer systems.

What would you build if you could treat your network infrastructure programmatically? That’s what we’re going to consider in today’s sponsored Heavy Networking episode with Nokia. Nokia’s SR-Linux is infrastructure-as-code friendly, and their NetOps Development Kit allows you to think of the network as data models and build all kinds of useful tools. Our guest is Bruce Wallis, Senior Director of Product Management in Data Center Switching at Nokia.

Today on Heavy Networking, all about improving email security with SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance), and DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail). Our guest is Alex Blackie. He wrote an article on Email Authenticity 101 that I thought explained these topics really well. If you're a domain manager, you should listen to this one, even if you don't route mail through your domain. You can keep the bad guys from spamming in your name!

Cisco ThousandEyes is a long-time Packet Pushers sponsor, and we're going to probe deeply to discuss the latest feature additions that will bring you the data you need. And, since it’s been just about a year since ThousandEyes was acquired by Cisco, we’ll also discuss how ThousandEyes is being integrated into the gargantuan Cisco product portfolio.

Internet exchange points are networks you can use to connect to some other exchange participant. Sounds like maybe that’s a service provider thing, and it can be. But IXPs are useful for businesses, too. In this episode of Heavy Networking, we’re going to learn about IXPs, and non-profit IXPs in particular.

On today's sponsored Heavy Networking we talk with DriveNets about why it’s time to take the disaggregated model--where you buy whitebox hardware and put a network operating system of your choice on it--seriously. Along the way, we’re going to hit DriveNets network architectures and operating models, and get you thinking about why disaggregated networking might make sense for you.

Today's Heavy Networking gets entangled in a discussion about quantum communications or quantum networking. We discuss qubits, the challenges of moving them across a network, use cases such as key distribution, and more. Our guest is Dr. Joshua Slater.

Today's Heavy Networking podcast discusses the pros and cons of building a private 5G network in the enterprise. We examine use cases, contrast 5G with Wi-Fi, unpack the hardware and software required, and more. Intel is our sponsor for this episode.

Today's Heavy Networking podcast dives into academic research on DDoS attack techniques. Our guests have published a paper about how the TCP protocol and middleboxes such as firewalls can be weaponized by bad actors and used in reflective amplification attacks. We discuss technical details, how they performed this research, potential countermeasures, and more.

In today's sponsored Heavy Networking show, we talk to Opmantek about NMIS, an intelligent network management platform that spans monitoring, visibility, automation, and configuration management. Our guest is Opmantek CTO Keith Sinclair.

Like anything in the world of IT, TLS has gone through various versions. TLS 1.1 and 1.2 are still commonly used, but TLS 1.3 is really where it’s at. Our guest is Ed Harmoush. Ed’s a professional instructor who’s researched TLS 1.3 and more as he’s prepped for his latest course offering, Practical TLS, which you can find at http://pracnet.net/tls. Use coupon PacketPushers100 to get $100 off this deep dive course from Ed.

On today’s Heavy Networking, we drill into VMware’s vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) to learn how it provides end-to-end monitoring, how it uses flow records and other data sources, and its architecture. We’ll also discuss modeling/digital twin capabilities, and applying vRNI to security, troubleshooting, and other use cases. VMware is our sponsor.

Today on Heavy Networking, we talk with Remington Loose, Solutions Architect at a mid-sized VAR, to get a sense of what technology is in demand; what problems customers are trying to solve; and how cloud, DIY, and other forces affect the competitive landscape. It's a #VARlife episode.