Packet Pushers - Full Podcast Feed

With the rise of cloud services and SaaS, the browser has become a primary productivity tool. It’s also a primary vector for malware, phishing, identity theft, data leaks, and other risks. On today’s sponsored episode with Palo Alto Networks, we dive into browser security. We discuss risks to the browser and how they differ from... Read more »

Where are all the network engineers? OK, obviously, there are network engineers out there, like the thousands of you listening to this podcast. But there’s an impression that the current generation is aging out of the profession while fewer young people are taking on network engineering as a career. At the same time, networks are... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We start with listener follow-up on data centers in space, and sound the Red Alert about a sandbox failure in Claude Code and a rash of Microsoft zero-days. On the news front, Cisco announces a 102.4Tbps switch ASIC in its Silicon One line of homegrown chips, and adds AI agent monitoring... Read more »

Scott talks with Mark Gebert from Verizon about something that sits at the heart of every reliable enterprise network: testing. Automation is moving fast in the telco world, but automation without testing is just an accident waiting to happen. They unpack what makes enterprise service provisioning so complex—multi-vendor networks, optical and IP gear, security functions,... Read more »

Our topic today is building and running network workflows. If your network workflows live in a spreadsheet, a SharePoint document, or in your head, you really need a workflow manager. A workflow manager brings scalability, repeatability, and consistency to your network operations team. In this sponsored episode, we discuss Cisco Crosswork Workflow Manager. Our guests... Read more »

Kevin and Alexis sit down with Melissa Brooks, a Senior Cloud Engineer at Aritzia, to discuss how she went from being a “terrible waitress” to going back to school for a diploma in network security. They explore how she used a strategic, “reverse engineered” approach to goal setting to land on a career in tech.... Read more »

We’ve spent a decade figuring out how to (more or less) securely authenticate humans. Now AI agents are crashing the party, and identity just got a whole lot more complicated. Today we sit down with Dan Moore, Senior Director of CIAM Strategy and Identity Standards at FusionAuth, to explore the collision course between artificial intelligence... Read more »

Today we are joined by Matt Remke, who has spent years in the trenches of network automation projects as a consultant. Matt offers a unique, non-engineer perspective on scaling network automation in real-world, complex environments for some of the world’s largest companies. Matt shares what worked, what backfired, and the hard-earned lessons he has gained... Read more »

Everything old is new again in today’s Packet Protector news roundup, as a decade-old Telnet exploit resurfaces, and Microsoft unfolds its roadmap to phase out the ancient NTLM protocol. In other news, Google takes down a sprawling residential proxy network, the popular Notepad++ app takes steps to recover from a serious compromise, and a Polish... Read more »

The recent U.S. Executive Order 14365, Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence, is the administration’s latest attempt to prevent the enforcement of most of the AI laws passed in individual US states. Because it is only an executive order (EO), it cannot directly nullify, supersede, forestall, or put a pause on state-level laws.... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We start with a trio of follow-ups, including a correction regarding Mplify certifications, Cisco proposing new OSI layers, and free-space optics. Our Red Alert sounds off about a remote code execution vulnerability in the Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile agent. On the news front, Broadcom announces new silicon for wireless APs for... Read more »

What should network engineers know about software development? What should software developers know about networking? Ethan and Drew sit down with Chris Rapier and Nick Buraglio to discuss why crossing these silos can improve outcomes for everyone. They break down why being a little curious about the infrastructure can help software developers write better code,... Read more »

Quality of Service (QoS) is a huge topic with a punishingly large group of acronyms. Join Ethan and Holly as they help you build a mental framework of what QoS is and what it solves. Not only do they break down essential acronyms, they also discuss QoS fundamentals, define the major groups of QoS tools,... Read more »

Are you struggling to get IPv6 working, whether in a lab or even a pilot deployment? Ed, Nick, and Tom walk through the essentials of IPv6 troubleshooting, revealing the non-negotiable differences between IPv4 and IPv6 that can trip up even experienced network engineers. They break down why blocking all ICMP, like in v4, will instantly... Read more »

Ned and Kyler sit down with Tikhon Jelvis to discuss Haskell and other niche programming languages. They explore how this decades-old language isn’t just surviving, but thriving. They also break down how Haskell can provide distinct advantages over traditional programming, especially for complex domain modeling and concurrent applications. Episode Links: Copilot Language Haskell Project Haskell... Read more »

Operation Technology (OT) and Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are where the digital world meets the physical world. These systems, which are critical to the operation of nuclear power plants, manufacturing sites, municipal power and water plants, and more, are under increasing attack. On today’s Packet Protector we return to the OT/ICS realm to talk about... Read more »

Every Wi-fi or network professional occasionally struggles with understanding what their endpoints are experiencing. Keith sits down with Bill Bushong, creator of NetViews, a macOS application originally called PingStalker. In this conversation they discuss why he built NetViews, the technical details on how it works, its network monitoring capabilities, and how Wi-Fi professionals can use... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We’ve got Red Alerts for HPE Juniper Session Smart Routers and SolarWinds. In this week’s news, Microsoft debuts its second-generation AI inferencing chip, Mplify rolls out a new Carrier Ethernet certification for supporting AI workloads, and AWS upgrades its network firewall to spot GenAI application traffic and filter Web categories. Google... Read more »

Let’s talk about AI for NetOps: It’s not just coming, it’s here. There are tools to use, skills to acquire, and we want to talk about what’s needed for highly certified network engineers to skill up in AI. What certification opportunities or paths exist? What developments do we think we’re going to see here? And... Read more »

AI is everywhere in networking right now, but most of it feels like hype. In this sponsored episode, we go deeper than buzzwords with Steven Butler from Nokia to explore what it takes to make AI Ops real, reliable, and trustworthy in production environments. If you want AI to deliver value, you need the fundamentals... Read more »