Packet Pushers - Fat Pipe

Take a Network Break! We start with follow-up from a listener on the best way to listen to our podcast that helps the most. The answer? Any listen on any platform helps. Even better is to tell a friend! We discuss two critical security issues. First, CISA adds active exploits against known SonicWall vulnerabilities to... Read more »

On today’s Heavy Networking we talk with Dan Wade about testing the network, inspired by Dan’s talk at AutoCon 2: “Step 0: Test the Network.” We discuss why testing is a good idea, and then explore four types of network testing, including unit tests and integration tests. We dig into Yang, RESTCONF, NETCONF and gNMI... Read more »

Network monitoring, Internet monitoring, and observability are all key components of NetOps. We speak with sponsor Catchpoint to understand how Catchpoint can help network operators proactively identify and resolve issues before they impact customers. We discuss past and current network monitoring strategies and the challenges that operators face with both on-prem and cloud monitoring, along... Read more »

On this episode of Technically Leadership, we’re joined by Aleksandra Lemańska to learn about the Process Communication Model (PCM), a framework for enhancing communication. Alex calls PCM an algorithm for people, and it can be useful for improving interactions with engineers and technical folks operating in high-stress environments. We talk about how PCM works, understanding... Read more »

The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) assigns an IP address to a host that joins a network, along with other information necessary for the host to communicate. DHCP also has more to it, so this week’s episode is meant to be a solid introduction to this essential network protocol. We first discuss what it is... Read more »

Today’s guest is Jeff Doyle, an expert in the networking industry with over 30 years of experience as a consultant, instructor, architect, author, and speaker. Eric chats with Jeff about his background and how he got into networking (spoiler: it was not a computer science degree!). The conversation explores Jeff’s current work and delves into... Read more »

New breach reports show threat actor dwell times are dropping significantly. It’s a positive development, but there is a caveat. We discuss this caveat and other findings from the 2025 editions of the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report and the Google M-Trends Report. We also get highlights from the 2025 RSA Conference, and JJ gets... Read more »

Take a Network Break! This week we catch up on the Airborne vulnerabilities affecting Apple’s AirPlay protocol and SDK, and get an update on active exploits against an SAP NetWeaver vulnerability–a patch is available, so get fixing if you haven’t already. Palo Alto Networks launches the AIRS platform to address AI threats in the enterprise,... Read more »

On today’s Heavy Networking, a roundtable panel considers whether a modern network needs to be built around underlays and overlays. This isn’t just Ethan yelling at clouds. This is a legitimate question pondering the real-world value of an overlay/underlay approach. Is overlay everywhere overkill, or is that the architecture we need to deliver a safe,... Read more »

Doug Madory has been called “The Man Who Can See the Internet.” Doug has developed a reputation for identifying significant developments in the global layout of the internet. He joins us today to discuss his role in analyzing internet data to identify trends and insights. He shares his journey from a data QA position to... Read more »

This week we continue with DNS. In our last episode we covered the basics; today we expand our scope to cover topics such as security for DNS, reverse DNS, and DNS record types. For dessert this week, a serving of Raspberry Pi and Happy Eyeballs. Episode Links: DNS: Turning Names into Numbers – N Is... Read more »

The shine has been coming off public cloud for awhile. Cloud costs remain high, complexity is growing, and public cloud interoperability is difficult. And while there’s talk about moving back to private cloud, that migration presents its own costs and complexities. To help us navigate the challenge that is cloud in 2025, we welcome Mark... Read more »

Submarine cables are a hidden wonder. These fiber optic bundles carry data and voice traffic around the world and serve as critical global links for communication and commerce. Today on Packet Protector, guest Andy Champagne dives into the history of submarine cables, the technological and operational advancements that allow voice and data to travel hundreds... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We start with a Red Alert for SAP NetWeaver’s Visual Composer Metadata Uploader, and then dive into a new endpoint discovery feature from Forward Networks, and Ericsson adding clientless ZTNA to its SASE offering. Aviatrix adds a Secure NAT Gateway for Microsoft Azure as a way to help Azure customers navigate... Read more »

Confidence in a new technology is one of the greatest barriers to adoption of that technology. If you don’t believe it will improve your NetOps, why would you adopt it? This is especially true of AI products. On today’s show, we’re joined by Bob Friday, Chief AI Officer of Mist/Juniper to make the case for... Read more »

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is a very new protocol that provides a standard way to link AI models to a variety of data sources and tools. As the industry heads toward agentic AI–in which an AI agent interacts with disparate applications, data sources, and other agents to achieve a task–MCP provides the protocol glue. On... Read more »

On this episode of Technically Leadership, Chris Leonard joins to talk about the costs of intervention in a team discussion, whether that’s to bring a team back to a topic or to make a decision that needs to be made. We discuss hero culture (both in the team and as the leader), imposter syndrome, and... Read more »

The Domain Name System (DNS) keeps the Internet running. On today’s N Is For Networking podcast, we talk about how DNS transforms human-readable host names into IP addresses so that Internet traffic can be sent to the right place. We talk about root name servers, Top Level Domains (TLDs), and other elements of the DNS... Read more »

Today we explore the current state of network automation with Chris Grundemann, a co-founder of Network Automation Forum. Chris gives the history of the Network Automation Forum and AutoCon conference, which aims to blend technology and community. He shares ideas for advancing network automation, and invites other network engineers to participate in shaping the future... Read more »

Working with multiple Infrastructure as Code (IAC) tools can be painful. Spacelift provides a platform that operates on top of disparate IaC tools, including Ansible, Kubernetes, Pulumi, Terraform, and OpenTofu. Spacelift helps build the automation with and between these tools, creating graphs of graphs that make your dependencies just work. On today’s show, we talk... Read more »