Heavy Networking

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) transforms routers, load balancers, firewalls and other network devices into virtual instances that can be service-chained, spun up and down as needed, and are cloud-friendly. But if you're a hardware hugger or have been been burned by virtualization in the past, should you avoid NFV? Today's Heavy Networking guests want to change your mind. The Packet Pushers speak with Michael Pfeiffer, a Cloud Networking Architect for a VAR; and Brad Gregory, Senior Product Manager at Equinix.

Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) is the topic on today's Heavy Networking. IT folks tend to view user experience from their own particular area of responsibility--networking, security, app development--but the reality is there's a common set of data that IT should consume and understand. Sponsor Catchpoint joins us to discuss its DEM platform and how it measures user experience using metrics that are relevant across the IT stack. Our guest is JP Blaho, Director, Product Marketing at Catchpoint.

GNS3 is a tool for building virtual networks for labbing. Heavy Networking welcomes GNS3 co-founder and developer Jeremy Grossman and networking instructor David Bombal. We cover the state of GNS3 in 2021, including what GNS3 can do that maybe you didn’t know, and what’s on the roadmap.

Today's episode is the last Heavy Networking of 2020. In the spirit of an end-of-year reflection, we're going to talk about network design trends from this year, some of which were driven, or at least accelerated, by the pandemic hellscape that was 2020. Our guest is Zig Zsiga, a network designer, architect, CCDE, and instructor.

Today's Heavy Networking talks about the tradeoffs between commercial and open source software. While open source takes time and effort to make work, is commercial software any better? Guest Daniel Teycheney is here for the debate.

Hannes Gredler stops by the Heavy Networking virtual studios to educate us on what BGP-LS is, the problems it aims to solve, how it differs from segment routing, and whether the industry is loading too many features onto the back of the BGP workhorse.

On today's Heavy Networking, sponsored by Fortinet, we dive into a variety of topics including a multiplicity of edges that require connectivity and security (WAN edge, LAN edge, cloud edge, remote edge, etc.), the convergence of infrastructure and security, the need for interoperability among security vendors, implementing Zero Trust Access (ZTA), and the current and future roles for machine learning and AI. Our guest is John Maddison, EVP of Products.

SONiC is a network OS that can run on a variety of whitebox switches. Originally developed by Microsoft, SONiC is now an open-source project with distributions that target hyperscale and enterprise environments. Today's Heavy Networking is a deep dive into SONiC with Dave Maltz, a Technical Fellow at Microsoft who has been closely involved with SONiC's development. While Microsoft is a SONiC backer, this is an unsponsored episode.

Today's Heavy Networking podcast examines cross-domain automation. Our sponsor is Cisco and our guest is Omar Sultan, Leader, Product Management for Cisco's Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) product. While the discussion starts with NSO, the conversation also covers dealing with automation complexity, the need for tool choice, and the critical roles that organizational structure and teams play in a successful automation/orchestration effort.

In this discussion, Greg accosts...no, converses with...Simon Sharwood on a variety of issues highly relevant to networking's future. It turns out, Simon is not short on opinions. And thusly, Simon and Greg opine about sundry topics.