Packet Pushers - Fat Pipe

Ethan Banks sits down with Ryan Hamel at the 96th North American Network Operators’ Group (NANOG96). Ryan, a network automation developer for the Zayo Group, talks about why boring network design is actually a good thing. He and Ethan explore why simplicity and standardization are key to long-term success. They also emphasize the importance of... Read more »

Lenny Giuliano, Sr. Distinguished Systems Engineer at HPE Juniper Networks, joins Holly and Ethan for another round of multicast. Part two helps fill in details not covered in episode 50. They cover how multicast traffic also affects Ethernet frame addressing, and the key differences between IPv4 and IPv6 multicast. They also explain new hybrid multicast... Read more »

Ned and Kyler discuss the state of platform engineering, DevEx, and how AI is affecting choices in those domains with guest Annem Shah. They discuss how AI can help bridge the gap between initial setup and continuous operations by providing feedback and interpreting complex error messages. They also break down how AI can assist in... Read more »

When applying AI to network operations and automation, a strong data foundation is essential. In this sponsored episode, Eric Chou and Scott Robohn are joined by Surya Nimmagadda, Chief Data Scientist; and Joby Rudolph, Senior Distinguished Engineer, both from Selector. They discuss the importance of transparency in their data and how it can instill confidence... Read more »

Firewall policies are the heart of network security, but over time they can become a tangled mess. Rules might be outdated, or conflicting, or fail to address new applications, services, and risks. Add in remote locations and public cloud deployments, and you’ve got a serious headache for security and network teams. On today’s sponsored show... Read more »

Take a Network Break! Mozilla is our Red Alert topic, with critical vulnerabilities in Firefox and Thunderbird. On the news front, we cover a string of security announcements from Palo Alto Networks, including a new certificate management service to help organizations keep up with shrinking cert lifetimes. Cisco announces new protections for AI agents and... Read more »

Scott Robohn and networking expert Russ White dive into the concept of design for operations. That is, they look at how to connect the design of a protocol or solution to how people are actually going to use it. They examine how protocol designers often overlook the teams that must operate them, creating some “inoperable”... Read more »

Palo Alto Networks released a slew of product news at the 2026 RSA conference around AI security, SASE, and a new certificate lifecycle management offering. On today’s Heavy Networking, sponsored by Palo Alto Networks, Ethan and Drew dig into these announcements to get details about how they work. They also talk about the risks of... Read more »

Alexis Bertholf and Kevin Nanns sit down for a conversation with Andrei Istrate, Senior Mobile Developer at Toptal. Andrei has taken the “mobile” part of his job literally: he’s built a life around travel and experiences rather than settling in one location. Andrei talks about the travel opportunities that remote work has presented, how he... Read more »

Eric Chou is joined by returning guest, Danny Wade a.k.a. Devnet Dan, to unpack everything you missed from AutoCon 4. AutoCon 4 had a heavy focus on AI’s role in network automation and Danny was there in person, has already blogged about his insights, and is here to break down the trends, takeaways, and key... Read more »

On today’s sponsored episode, Ned Bellavance and Kyler Middleton welcome guest Marcin Wyszynski, Head of R&D at Spacelift to guide them through the potential future of IaC and how AI is changing the landscape of developer productivity, especially around infrastructure. They discuss two of Spacelift’s products, Spacelift Intent and Spacelift Intelligence. Spacelift Intent is an... Read more »

Spending on SASE, which combines SD-WAN and cloud-delivered security, is forecast to nearly triple over the next few years, according to Dell’Oro Group. Today on Packet Protector we talk with that forecast’s author about what’s driving that spending. We also explore how SASE vendors are differentiating, architectural considerations for SASE deployments, pros and cons of... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We sound a red alert about a swarm of critical D-Link vulnerabilities. In this week’s news, CISA warns organizations to harden endpoint management systems in the wake of a cyberattack that used the target’s own Microsoft Intune system to wipe thousands of devices, Cisco rolls an NVIDIA ASIC into an N9100... Read more »

Eric Chou, author of the AI Networking Cookbook and host of Network Automation Nerds, joins Ethan and Drew to discuss adding artificial intelligence to your network automation toolbox. The AI Networking Cookbook is aimed at network engineers and provides a systematic approach to learning AI for network automation. Together they break down pros and cons... Read more »

In this sponsored episode, Dylan Hensler, Customer Solutions Specialist with Statseeker, joins Scott for a breakdown of what allows Statseeker to move beyond traditional network monitoring. Together they discuss Statseeker’s ability to help NetOps teams detect issues faster, prove root cause, and operate with confidence by turning raw data into operational intelligence. They also discuss... Read more »

Today’s topic is Multiprotocol Label Switching or MPLS, a foundational technology that powers service provider networks and enterprise WANs all over the world. To help us break it down, we’ve invited James Bensley, a Network Tech Lead who’s spent fifteen years with MPLS. James explains what spurred the creation of MPLS and how it works... Read more »

Building a Network Source of Truth (NSoT) is only step one in an automation effort — turning it into operational automation is where outcomes happen. In this sponsored episode by Network to Code, Eric Fetty, a self-taught network engineer who literally automated his way through his CCIE lab, shares how he’s doing exactly that at... Read more »

Kyler and Ned sit down with Liz Fong-Jones, Technical Fellow at Honeycomb, to discuss the impact of AI on open-source contributions. Liz proposes shifting the script from code patch contributions to detailed bug reports. They also break down the distinction between programming and software engineering, and the critical role of OpenTelemetry in ensuring the observability... Read more »

On today’s news roundup we assess the White House’s new US cyber strategy (bellicose, bombastic, and boiler-plate), discuss a cyberattack attributed to Iran that used Windows to wipe thousands of devices, and dig into a Microsoft update on Entra passkeys. JJ isn’t impressed with new research that bypasses Wi-Fi client isolation, corporate spyware gets a... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We begin with listener follow-up on Cisco SD-WAN vulnerabilities and a report that Nvidia is investing billions to develop open-source AI models. In our Red Alert section we warn of multiple vulnerabilities in Veeam’s backup software for Windows and a couple of Chrome zero-days. We cover new features in Fortinet’s FortiOS... Read more »