The Everything Feed - All Packet Pushers Pods

Keith Parsons and Nick Turner discuss the latest WLAN Pi OS updates including the integration of model context protocol (MCP) for AI agent interaction. They also discuss Wi-Fi 7 multi-link operation (MLO) testing and simultaneous transmit and receive (STR) capabilities. Episode Links: WLAN Pi

In this double-header episode, JJ and Drew talk with two cybersecurity experts. First up, Jayson E Street talks about how to make security awareness training effective and engaging. Instead of having employees sit through a video or lecture, or get scolded for failing a phishing test, Jayson’s approach, which he calls Silver Teaming, engages employees... Read more »

Many a IT professional is having the AI football tossed to them, “We need to implement in house AI, go do it”. If this is you, what questions should you be asking of yourself and of leadership? Getting traction accommodating vast new workloads with new and different behaviors is a challenge, given the parameters... Read more »

Today on the Tech Bytes podcast, we learn about Meter Grants. This is a new program from networking vendor Meter that offers up to $2,000 in grants for early-career network engineers who are looking to get certified or advance their learning. We’ll talk about how the program works, who’s eligible to apply, and why Meter... Read more »

Take a Network Break! Our Red Alert sounds for Nutanix Prism Gateway. Our news discussion covers a new pluggable optical form factor being pushed by Cisco and Nvidia, ORCA Computing launching a new quantum computer to run alongside GPUs, and New York University and New York City partnering to build a quantum fabrication facility in... Read more »

In this sponsored episode Scott is joined by Stefano Gridelli, cofounder and CEO of NetBeez, to discuss continuous network experience assurance and moving beyond reactive troubleshooting. Together they break down how NetBeez uses user-perspective monitoring, distributed sensors, and AI-assisted data analysis to quickly isolate network performance issues. Stefano also highlights the next-generation platform features introduced... Read more »

In this sponsored episode, Alex La Fazia and Daniel Kaczmarczyk of Meter explain how they built an internal tool to automate network topology creation, drastically reducing design time from hundreds of hours to seconds. They share how they relied on a deterministic rules engine to ensure accurate, repeatable network configurations. They also discuss leveraging AI... Read more »

IPv6-mostly is a foothold to get from your dual-stack network to a much more predominantly IPv6-run network, but the reality is that IPv6-mostly has a whole set of dependencies about the fact that IPv4 exists on the network. Ed, Nick and Tom discuss the realities of IPv6-mostly networks such as DHCP and SLAAC configurations, VPN... Read more »

Ethan and Holly are back to walk us through Access Lists. Access Lists regularly appear in networking device configurations and aren’t just for security. Ethan and Holly break down what an access list is, how an access-list is processed, the various ways we might use an access list, and more. AdSpot Sponsor: Meter Most IT... Read more »

John Capobianco returns to the show to discuss the latest developments in Model Context Protocol (MCP) and agentic infrastructure. John and host William Collins weigh in on the ongoing debate on AI consciousness, constitutional guardrails, and model welfare policies. They also look at emerging TypeSafe System One models and the practical realities of deploying autonomous... Read more »

Eric Chou speaks with Leo Fleskes on the pressing infrastructure challenges surrounding AI resource consumption, including data centers’ massive water and power demands. Together they discuss local community pushback, regulatory constraints, and the economic viability of AI providers. AdSpot Sponsor: Meter Most IT teams are managing networks stitched together from years of acquisitions and vendor... Read more »

Today on Tech Bytes we explore frontier virtual patching with sponsor Palo Alto Networks. Palo Alto Networks recently announced frontier virtual patching as part of PAN-OS 12.2. We’ll talk about how this release can help IT and OT organizations deal with the increased speed and scale of vulnerabilities being uncovered. Frontier virtual patching can help... Read more »

Our October news roundup is a boiling cauldron of consternation. The FBI and the Pentagon suffered breaches, serious exploits are targeting network gear, and researchers discover a lone threat actor who successfully hit hundreds of sites with the help of AI agents. Infostealer malware is impersonating brands such as LastPass to trick users into downloading... Read more »

Sometimes IT is forced to spend money to do nothing. It might be the cost of evaluating the products and services you don’t end up deploying. Or it’s the cost of scrambling to disable new functionality–mostly AI features these days–in existing apps and services, so it can be evaluated and re-enabled selectively, if at all.... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We startup with follow-up on global tech news coverage and pronunciations, then pivot to Red Alerts about Dell Container Storage and SonicWall. This week’s news includes a quantum networking controller prototype from Cisco, new rack-scale AI architecture options from Arista, and Cloudflare applying to become a Certificate Authority. Three country-level TLDs... Read more »

Christian Adell and David Flores join host Scott Robohn to discuss the intersection of observability, automation, and networking in AI data centers. With AI data centers linking thousands or tens of thousands of GPUs, observability becomes a huge challenge. Scott and guests dig into those challenges, including maintaining lossless networking, managing elephant flows, and leveraging... Read more »

Bart Dorlandt discusses the practical applications and architecture of the BGP Monitoring Protocol (BMP) for service providers. Bart has developed a BMP application to help his customers monitor BGP. He talks about how he handles data collection, why it’s important to capture pre- and post-policy filtering, how he deals with excessive prefix volumes, future plans... Read more »

Lightyear CEO and co-founder Dennis Thankachan shares his transition from investment banking to entrepreneurship and the lessons learned from his early startup failure. He also discusses the creation of Lightyear, the implementation of AI in network operations, and shares some actionable advice for engineers early in their careers. AdSpot Sponsor: Meter Most IT teams are... Read more »

Ned and Kyler explore the challenges and best practices of running AI agents securely at scale with guest Michael Levan. Together they discuss operational realities of agentic workloads such as specialized AI gateways, semantic routing, sandboxing, and the importance of robust observability practices. AdSpot Sponsor: Gartner The Gartner IT Infrastructure Operations and Cloud Strategies Conference,... Read more »

Sponsor HPE Networking comes to Packet Protector to talk about zero trust inline segmentation. This is a feature available in Juniper switches that can segment LAN traffic using group policy tags without the complexity associated with VXLAN or other segmentation mechanisms. On today’s show we dig into how inline segmentation works, common use cases, how... Read more »

Keith Parsons talks with Mary Bull from Internet2 to discuss the history and widespread deployment of eduroam, a global Wi-Fi roaming service supporting research and education networks. Together they discuss the technical scale of the US eduroam infrastructure, recent load-balancing improvements, and strategies for modernizing campus Wi-Fi. AdSpot Sponsor: Meter Most IT teams are managing... Read more »

What is an AI Factory, and why would an enterprise want to invest in one? Johna and John are joined by guests Thierry Pienaar of HPE and Kaushik Shirhatti of NVIDIA to discuss what an AI Factory is, the business case for it, and who should consider them. They also cover the value HPE’s expertise... Read more »

Today on the Tech Bytes podcast, you’re invited to The Velocity Room. The Velocity Room is a community for IT professionals with a focus on AI infrastructure and security. On today’s show we talk about this community, what kind of events it runs, and whether it might be worth your time. My guest is Richard... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We discuss listener follow-up on orbital data centers, and hit the Red Alert for a string of Citrix NetScaler vulnerabilities. Visa releases its homegrown agentic AI harness for finding and remediating vulnerabilities as open source software, a bad change borks Azure networking services in 19 regions around the world, and Gluware... Read more »

Today’s show puts the “heavy” in Heavy Networking with a discussion about Multipath Reliable Connection (MRC). MRC is about getting an even distribution of RDMA traffic across equal cost multipath links in massive data centers, and doing so over plain old lossy Ethernet. Ethan, Drew, and guests discuss how packet spraying, resilience to link and... Read more »

What will network operations look like in 2030, and how can teams embrace agentic AI without losing operational control? In this sponsored episode, Rekha Shenoy and Irfahn Khimji of BackBox speak with Scott Robohn about the shift toward agentic NetOps, balancing automation with backup and rollback strategies, and the evolving role of network engineers. Episode... Read more »

Thank you for sending in even more follow ups! On today’s show, Holly and Ethan respond to listener comments and corrections on Multicast, MPLS, NAC, Twisted Pair Cabling, and more. A big thank you to everyone who sent in responses. If you’d like to leave a comment about this comments episode, you can do so... Read more »

Ed and Nick explore why developers and SREs often become the bottleneck when transitioning to IPv6-only environments. They share practical strategies for bridging the communication gap between network and application teams, including early collaboration, data-driven monitoring, and fostering open dialogue. Episode Links: Watch this episode on YouTube

Garrett Masters talks with Eric Chou about the concept of the AI-Augmented Engineer. Together they discuss how IT professionals can use Python and NetMiko to automate tasks and even connect AI directly to lab environments. Garrett also shares practical advice on prompt engineering, the importance of context management, and how engineers can safely adopt AI... Read more »

William Collins and guest Drew Meli explore the realities of buying enterprise SaaS and infrastructure. They cover the common engineering misconceptions about enterprise sales, navigating rigorous security reviews, establishing clear proof of value criteria, and how AI is reshaping buying behaviors. AdSpot Sponsor: Gartner AI is rewriting your cloud architecture, your operating model, and your... Read more »

In-house data centers are a hot topic again! Companies of all sorts are repatriating cloud workloads. Many want to ramp up in-house AI development, training, and production deployment. However much (or little) you know about building a data center, the rules have all changed in the last few years. From political/regulatory concerns to economics to... Read more »

AI models have proven very effective at finding software vulnerabilities. This has dramatically increased the number of people (and agents) who can find bugs. But the number of experts who can verify and validate those bugs, and write fixes, has stayed exactly the same. On today’s Packet Protector we talk with Trey Ford, Chief Strategy... Read more »

The early exuberance of AI adoption has run up against hard-nosed business requirements around managing costs, protecting sensitive data, and matching the right model with the right job at the right price. On today’s show, sponsor Broadcom is here to make a case that private cloud is the place for AI inferencing workloads. We talk... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We sound a red alert for active exploits against Check Point’s Secure Gateway. On the news front, a Cisco survey says 51% of organizations run agentic AI in production, Selector announces agentic AI additions to its AI network observability platform, and NetBrain rolls out new AI agents to evaluate changes and... Read more »

“My goal in life is to say it’s not the network!” says Ben Shapiro, senior network engineer at Eugene (OR) School District 4J, the 6th largest school district in Oregon. He joins host Scott Robohn to discuss how to balance complexity, resiliency, legacy devices, security and more in an educational setting. He’s also a MistFit with... Read more »

Drew and Ethan talk with Kevin Nanns about his journey from network engineer to network architect. Kevin shares his experience grappling with the shift in responsibilities, increased pressure, and communication and management challenges associated with his new role. They also discuss his content creation work on TikTok and his strategies for translating complex technical concepts... Read more »

Renowned Cisco Press author Wendell Odom shares how he began writing the definitive guide for the CCNA exam. Alexis, Kevin, and Wendell discuss the balance between practical, on-the-job experience and certification study habits. Wendell also reflects on his career as well as the creation of his YouTube channel, Network Upskill. Episode Links: Watch this episode... Read more »

Ned and Kyler talk with Jim Jones about data protection, backups, and security in the age of hybrid cloud and AI. They explore the operational challenges of integrating automated AI agents into enterprise workflows, the need for proper permission scoping, immutable backups, and data security posture management (DSPM). AdSpot Sponsor: Gartner The Gartner IT Infrastructure... Read more »

Keith sits down with Kjetil Hansen to explore spectrum analysis and vibe coding for wireless networking tools. They also discuss building custom tools, using AI for 3D network modeling, and how Kjetil uses OpenIntent in his projects. Episode Links: Kjetil Hansen’s Website Kjetil Hansen on YouTube

Everyone is talking about autonomous AI for network operations. But in critical infrastructure, is removing the human really the right goal? In this sponsored episode, Johna and John welcome BackBox CEO Rekha Shenoy and VP of Products and Engineering Richard Phillips to discuss the risks of blind autonomy, where AI can go wrong, why human... Read more »

Today’s Packet Protector is a sponsored show that sits very nicely at the networking/security intersection. Our sponsor is NetCore, which makes the Unimus network configuration management software. Unimus supports network automation, configuration management and backup, change management, and auditing and compliance. We dive into how Unimus provides visibility into both the running config and the... Read more »

Today on the Tech Bytes podcast we talk VPNs. Our sponsor is Firezone, which offers a secure remote access solution built on Wireguard. But instead of just hearing from Firezone, we talk with a customer. Our guest is Daniel Caruso, IT Network and Systems Administrator at Beaver Excavating, a construction firm headquartered in Canton, OH.... Read more »

Take a Network Break! We start with listener follow-up on Arista’s vulnerability reporting, and Cisco ISE takes center stage for our Red Alert. Then we dive into EVA Networks, a startup touting ephemeral network connectivity to minimize risks of persistent network access, why AWS is recommending customers relocate workloads away from its data centers in... Read more »

Q-Day signals the public emergence of a cryptographically relevant quantum computer that can break public key encryption. The date of Q-Day is unknown but the tech industry is making preparations now. Bill Dockery joins Drew and guest host Scott Robohn to dig into Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC), what network engineers need to know to test... Read more »

In this crossover episode, Scott invites William Collins and Eric Chou to do the hosting so he and Network Automation Forum (NAF) cofounder Chris Grundemann can discuss how their community emerged from a simple question: Why haven’t we seen full adoption of network automation? They discuss the growth of AutoCon and how its practitioner-focused, vendor-neutral... Read more »

Traditional IPAM and DDI tools struggle to handle IPv6 at scale because they were originally designed around IPv4. Today Ed and Tom examine the visibility challenges posed by SLAAC addresses, broken DNS integrations, and massive prefix allocations. They also share potential solutions and strategies for enterprise IPv6 deployment. AdSpot Sponsor: Megaport If you’re supporting cloud... Read more »

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), the routing protocol of the global internet, is finding uses in all sorts of places in 2026 beyond internet routing. It’s a huge topic. Large books have been written about BGP and its related technologies, so Ethan and Holly are here with a gentle introduction to BGP. They break down what... Read more »

In this sponsored episode, Paul Delory of Gartner joins Kyler and Ned to discuss the reconciler pattern for operations and the shift toward continuous operations. Together they discuss how immutable infrastructure, policy as code, and platform engineering help bridge the gap between traditional IT and modern automation. They also highlight Gartner’s upcoming Infrastructure, Operations &... Read more »

Is AI going to kill us all? Frontier systems are producing real security failures, but extinction forecasts are being used to support policies that could consolidate control over AI. Eyvonne and William discuss Jacob Coxon’s high-profile resignation from Anthropic, the gap between real technical risks and speculative extinction narratives, and the commercial incentives driving calls... Read more »

Eric is joined by Sid Mathur, founder of Fastah Inc., to unpack the real-world implications of Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) internet. Sid has built a career obsessing over data networks, system performance, and the operational challenges facing ISPs and satellite operators. Together they dive into the complexities of in-motion geolocation and explore the traffic routing implications... Read more »