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 »
Ifeanyi Otuonye was a decorated track and field athlete at Kansas State and even competed professionally. Then he made the leap to a Technical Account Manager role at Amazon Web Services. Alexis and Kevin sit down with Ifeanyi to discuss the difficulties of that career change. Ifeanyi explains why he chose cloud engineering, what he ... Read more »
Eric sits down with two graduates from the CU Boulder Networking Engineering Master’s Program to discuss what they learned during their time in the program and how that translated into real world opportunities and experiences. They also offer some invaluable career advice from the “seven plus one” formula and the value of asking “dumb questions.” ... Read more »...
OAuth is a widely used authorization (not authentication) protocol that lets a resource owner grant access to a resource using access tokens. These tokens define access attributes, including scope and length of time. OAuth can be used to grant access to human and non-human entities (for example, AI agents). OAuth is increasingly being abused by ... Read more »
Take a Network Break! We start with a Red Alert in Oracle’s WebLogic Server Proxy Plugin for Apache or IIS, which has a severity score of 10. In the news, Fortinet warns that attackers have found a new exploit path against previously-patched vulnerabilities, Microsoft 365 services suffered an outage, and ServiceNow inks a deal with ... Read more »
What is the real-world impact of AI on network operations? Drew and Ethan have a chat with Carlos Pignataro, Founder & Principal at Blue Fern Consulting, to cut through the AI hype machine. Carlos offers a thoughtful, balanced take on where the industry is headed, and where it’s missing the mark. Together they discuss Intent-Based ... Read more »
Go beyond the basics to understand the mechanics that keep your default gateway from becoming a single point of failure. Ethan and Holly demystify Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP), which helps provide network redundancy. They break down everything from the VRRP election protocol to the protocol’s unique communication methods. They also look back at previous ... Read more »
Ned and Kyler sit down with industry analyst Jon Collins for a fun and free-ranging discussion that covers everything from the changing landscape of software engineering to the importance of good architecture (physical and digital). They tackle the pros and cons of “Vibe Coding” as well as the “Augmentation Gap”, the idea that AI tools ... Read more »...
In this sponsored episode, Eric sits down with Lee Peterson, VP of Product Management for Secure WAN, at Cisco. Together they discuss how Cisco Unified Branch is helping organizations scale, automate, and secure their distributed environments. They also define the Branch Network, discuss the major challenges facing network teams, and walk through Cisco’s vision of ... Read more »...
The start of a new year is a good time to assess what’s important. We’ve gathered some Packet Protector listeners to talk about their security priorities for 2026 in a roundtable discussion with hosts JJ and Drew. We talk about key risks for 2026, whether those risks have changed since last year, use cases for ... Read more »
Take a Network Break! This week we start with follow-up from a perhaps not-so-red Red Alert, and then cover two very-red Red Alerts. On the news front, Ruckus Wireless gets a new parent company, and sources say Extreme Networks may be interested in bringing Ruckus into its fold. AT&T rolls out an IoT management offering, ... Read more »
Ethernet is everywhere. Today we talk with one of the people responsible for this protocol’s ubiquity. Doug Boom is a veteran of the Ethernet development world. His code has helped landers reach Mars, submarines sail the deep seas, airplanes get to their gates, cars drive around town, and more. Doug walks us through the origins ... Read more »
Are you an AI skeptic or an enthusiast? Ethan and Drew sit down with Igor Tarasenko, Senior Director of Product Software Architecture and Engineering at Equinix, to break down the reality of AI in the network. In this sponsored episode, Tarasenko discusses why APIs are the new CLI, the critical need for observability in AI, ... Read more »
Is it possible for IT professionals to remain technical when moving into roles that expand influence, scale, and reach? Matt Starling, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Ekahau and co-founder of the WiFi Ninjas podcast, joins Alexis and Kevin to share how your career can evolve beyond on-call operations without losing the technical core. His ... Read more »
Eric Chou is joined by Dr. Levi Perigo, Scholar in Residence and Professor of Network Engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder. They discuss Levi’s non-traditional career path from being in the network automation industry for 20 years before shifting to academia and co-founding QuivAR. Levi also dives into the success of the CU Boulder ... Read more »...
Everything old is new again in this Packet Protector news roundup, from end-of-life D-Link routers facing active exploits (and no patch coming) to a five-year-old Fortinet vulnerability being freshly targeted by threat actors (despite a patch having been available for five years). We also dig into a clever, multi-stage attack against hotel operators that could ... Read more »...
Take a Network Break! The virtual donut factory is back from hiatus, and we’ve got a fresh batch to pass around as we discuss the week’s tech news. We start with an emergency patch for Cisco ISE, then dig into a set of new product announcements from Arista including a new ability to deploy wireless ... Read more »
It’s been over a decade since the first Packet Pushers podcast on EVPN. Now, guest Jeff McAdams can legitimately suggest that we “EVPN all the things.” Hosts Ethan Banks and Drew Conry-Murray dig into Jeff’s stance on EVPN/VXLAN. They look at how VXLAN and EVPN work; talk about use cases in the data center, the ... Read more »
Ethan and Holly discuss the major differences between In-band and Out-of-band (OOB) management and the pros and cons of both. They explore how to implement a proper OOB network and critical use cases where OOB is required. They also explain the differences and roles of the data plane, the control plane, and the management plane. ... Read more »
Marina Wyss, Senior Applied Scientist at Twitch, joins Kyler and Ned to discuss her unique path from political science to AI Engineering. Wyss clarifies the difference between AI Engineering and Machine Learning Engineering and offers practical advice for aspiring engineers who want to incorporate data science, AI, and machine learning into their work. She digs ... Read more »...
If you’re curious as to what Ethan and Holly have in store for 2026, they give you a sneak peak on today’s episode. Hint: Some of these topics might include letters like B, G, P, Q, o, S, A and I. They also take time in this episode to answer listener questions, ranging from how ... Read more »
Ned Bellavance and Kyler Middleton are joined by Rachel Stephens, Research Director at RedMonk, to discuss the state of DevOps and the impact of AI. They explore the distinction between developer productivity and development productivity, underlined by a DORA report finding that while AI dramatically boosts individual developer productivity, it often fails to improve overall ... Read more »...
Today Eric Chou dives deep into network automation and operational simplicity with guest Hardik Ajmera, VP of Product Management at Extreme Networks. In this sponsored episode, they talk about the ‘network fabric’, Extreme Platform ONE, and, of course, what’s next with AI in the world of enterprise networking. Hardik also shares how customers in complex ... Read more »...
Our final news roundup for 2025 is a holiday sampler of tasty, chewy (and a few yucky) confections. We look at a years-long exploit campaign that used browser extensions to steal credentials, inject malicious content, and track behavior; tracks ongoing exploits using the React2Shell vulnerability; and debates whether a surveillance camera maker’s pledge to follow ... Read more »...
Take a Network Break! We close out 2025 with a look back at some of the stories and trends that captured our attention this year. We start with the top five vendors with the worst track records in 2025 for zero-days in critical enterprise infrastructure. On the news front, we discuss the insanity of the ... Read more »
Len Bosack, co-founder of Cisco Systems and the CEO of XKL, sits down for a discussion with Scott Robohn. Len shares how he went from a mathematician to being responsible for pioneering the widespread commercialization of LAN technology. We also get to hear his firsthand account of building the first multi-protocol routers at Stanford and ... Read more »
Is the ideal IT employee just leaving college or a veteran with years of experience? Russ White joins Ethan Banks and Drew Conry-Murray to discuss the complexities of this question. Younger professionals just out of college are more willing to work longer hours or unpopular shifts, learn new tools and skills, and take risks. Older ... Read more »
AJ Murray joins Kevin and Alexis to share his unique journey into tech, pivoting away from aviation maintenance into networking. Together they explore the importance of person-to-person networking and building a community in order to be successful. They also talk about the reality of burnout, which ultimately led AJ to step away from his podcast. ... Read more »
Let’s hear from the next generation of network engineers. Eric Chou sits down with Sem Eyob and Damon Hoody, two early-career network engineers, to talk about how they got into the profession and where they hope to go. They share their views on AI and its effect on their generation, their struggles finding entry level ... Read more »
As AI tools and agentic AI become part of how applications are developed, delivered, and managed, application performance monitoring and observability have to adapt. Ned Bellavance sits down with Drew Flowers and Jacob Yackenovich from IBM Instana about where these fields sit today, and the potential impacts of AI. They detail the challenges of application ... Read more »
