Episode 91 of Networking Tech with Fexingo dives into P4 programmable switches — hardware that lets network engineers define their own packet-processing behavior instead of being locked into fixed silicon. Lucas and Luna explore how companies like Google and Microsoft use P4 for custom telemetry, in-band network telemetry (INT), and rapid protocol prototyping. They walk through a concrete example: a large cloud provider replaced a proprietary load-balancer ASIC with a P4-based design, cutting deployment time from 18 months to 6 weeks. The hosts discuss how P4 differs from traditional switch programming (OpenFlow, NPUs), where it fits in a production network, and why it's gaining traction in 2026. They also touch on the P4 Language Consortium and the open-source P4 compiler. If this episode saves you time debugging a network issue, consider tossing a coffee to the show at buymeacoffee.com/fexingo.

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