Packet Pushers - Priority Queue

We’re always interested in open source projects here at Packet Pushers.

Today on the Priority Queue, we get an overview of ZeroTier, an open source networking project with a commercial variant that claims to “network almost any kind of device or application as if the entire planet is a single cloud region.”

Our guest is ZeroTier founder and CEO Adam Ierymenko. We’ll talk about the origins of the project and how it works. We also explore use cases for home, enterprise, and cloud.

Show Links:

ZeroTier

ZeroTier on Github

ZeroTier on Twitter

Visibility and telemetry are key to getting real-time insights into network operations and performance.

Today on this sponsored Priority Queue, Nokia Deepfield shares real-world use cases on how companies are using Deepfield to see traffic as it crosses every link, get application context, and then make the right decisions–including automated actions–to give customers the best performance possible.

Our guest is Tony Kourlas, Director of Product Marketing at Nokia. We talk with Tony about how an online gaming company, video content providers, and ISPs use Deepfield to gather telemetry, analyze the data, and then take informed actions. We also look at the DDoS mitigation use case.

In addition, we dig into how Deepfield gathers data, the types of data it gathers, and how it interacts with other systems such as SDN controllers to automate responses.

Show Links:

Nokia Deepfield

Nokia on Twitter

Show 352: Cloud & Network Insights With Nokia Deepfield (Sponsored) – Packet Pushers

Show 283: Deepfield Puts Network Telemetry To Work (Sponsored) – Packet Pushers

Our series of podcasts recorded live at IETF 99 continues with a conversation about network automation and the YANG data modeling language.

Our guest is Sue Hares, a consultant and chair of the Inter-Domain Routing Working Group at the IETF. Sue also joined us for Weekly Show 355: What’s Wrong With BGP?

We talk about the costs of network configuration, in particular the software interfaces and hand-crafted, artisinal command lines that define the majority of how network devices are set up and operated.

We also dive into why network automation is getting more attention, and how YANG fits into the picture. And Sue makes a pitch for listeners to participate in IETF hackathons for learning, professional development, and as a way to get involved with the standards organization.

For more conversations about YANG and IETF hackathons, check out the Show Links below.

Thanks to Huawei, which covered travel and accommodations to enable the Packet Pushers to attend IETF 99 and record some shows to spread the news about IETF projects and initiatives.

Show Links:

YANG Catalog

PQ Show 116: Practical YANG For Network Automation – Packet Pushers

PQ Show 111: YANG Models & Telemetry At IETF 98 – Packet Pushers

PQ Show 114: Hackathons: Rough Consensus, Running Code At IETF 98 – Packet Pushers

The Packet Pushers’ Priority Queue series from IETF 99 continues with a conversation about whitebox switching at LinkedIn.

Shawn Zandi, principal infrastructure architect at LinkedIn; and Russ White, network architect at LinkedIn.

Greg Ferro and his guests discuss the architectural changes going on at LinkedIn, including a move to adopt whitebox switches.

They look at the drivers for whitebox adoption, including wanting to have more control over their infrastructure, the ability to rethink network design, the opportunity to get features they want (and remove ones they don’t), and potential cost savings.

They also explore the challenges that come with whitebox deployment and operations, and talk about the pros and cons of various network designs.

Thanks to Huawei, which covered travel and accommodations to enable the Packet Pushers to attend IETF 99 and record some shows to spread the news about IETF projects and initiatives.

The Priority Queue returns to the IETF 99 conference to explore projects and standards being worked on within the IETF.

How do you get devices such as light bulbs and sensors join a network securely, make sure they’ve joined the right network, and that the network can be sure the device is what it claims?

That’s the general thrust of today’s episode, which looks at the ANIMA (Autonomic Networking Integrated Model and Approach) Working Group.

This working group aims to “…develop a system of autonomic functions that carry out the intentions of the network operator without the need for detailed low-level management of individual devices.”

Greg’s guest is Michael Richardson, an IETF member and Managing Editor at the Centre for Research and Experimental Development in Informatics Libre (CREDIL) in Canada.

In addition to ANIMA, Greg and Michael also discuss 6tisch and NETCONF.

Thanks to Huawei, which covered travel and accommodations to enable the Packet Pushers to attend IETF 99 and record some shows to spread the news about IETF projects and initiatives.

Can we accelerate the pace of change in enterprise IT?

That’s the topic for today’s Priority Queue. This episode, sponsored by VMware, was recorded live at VMware’s Future:Net conference on August 31, 2017.

Greg Ferro and Ethan Banks assemble a panel of networking experts and practitioners to discuss why technology change can be so difficult in the enterprise (product complexity, long buying cycles, process paralysis, and so on), and how organizations can spur change and innovation in their own environments.

Our guests are:

* Pere Monclus, CTO, VMware

* Jeremy Filliben – Principal Network Architect, Genworth Financial

* Tommy McNicholas – Solutions Architect at Technologent

* Truman Boyes – CTO Office, Head of Networks at Bloomberg

Packet capture and analysis tools are powerful things. Capturing real data lets you peer into the soul of your network.

That power can be enhanced with machine learning. It’s everywhere these days, but if there’s one area where machine learning can be very useful, surely it’s packet analysis.

That brings us to ExtraHop, the subject of today’s sponsored show. ExtraHop is a protocol decoder, packet analysis engine, threshold management system, alerting tool, flow record collector, and application health dashboard all in one.

We’ve spoken with ExtraHop before, and today we’re returning with news of product updates and ExtraHop’s “Addy” machine learning.

Our guests from ExtraHop are Isaac Roybal, Director of Product Marketing; and Matt Cauthorn, VP of Security.

We discuss the release of ExtraHop 7.0 to understand what’s in the newest version (including Live Activity Maps and SSL/TLS decryption), and then drill into its Addy machine learning technology to see how it can be used to analyze reams of data to produce actionable insights.

 

Show Links:

ExtraHop

ExtraHop on Twitter

ExtraHop Blog

 

Today’s Priority Queue returns to the IETF to explore the concept of path-aware networking. Currently, end points on a network have little control over or information about the path over which their traffic is carried.

Efforts are under way, both by vendors and within standards bodies, to develop technologies and protocols to both provide more information about links (i.e. performance, trust, cost, and so on) and enable end points to select the most appropriate path to meet certain criteria.

For example, SD-WAN gateways can connect to multiple links and then direct traffic across one or more of those links based on customer-defined policies.

Greg Ferro and guests from the IETF’s Path Aware Networking Research Group discuss the concepts of path aware networking and examine the work being done by the group.

Our guests are Brian Trammell, co-chair of the Path Aware Networking Research Group and a researcher at ETH Zurich; and Jen Linkova, also a co-chair of the research group and a network engineer at Google.

Thanks to Huawei, which covered travel and accommodations to enable the Packet Pushers to attend IETF 99 and record some shows to spread the news about IETF projects and initiatives.

Show Links:

Path Aware Networking Research Group – IETF

Standards – XKCD

Recorded live at IETF 99, this Priority Queue episode is a roundtable conversation on new and emerging ideas for data center fabrics.

Greg Ferro is joined by Jeff  Tantsura, a chair of the routing working group at IETF; Russ White, a network architect at LinkedIn; and Tony Przygienda, who works for a vendor and claims to be the only grownup in this conversation. (You be the judge!)

They discuss why efforts such as TRILL and SPB failed to gain traction, and then dive into BGP EVPN, Routing In Fat Trees (RIFT), and other protocols.

Thanks to Huawei, which covered travel and accommodations to enable the Packet Pushers to attend IETF 99 and record some shows to spread the news about IETF projects and initiatives.

Show Links:

RIFT: Routing In Fat Trees (PDF) – Juniper Networks

Routing Area Working Group – IETF

PQ Show 115: BIER, RIFT & BGP+SFC At IETF 98 – Packet Pushers

Today’s Priority Queue explores In-situ OAM (IOAM), an IETF initiative to enable per-packet telemetry information to be collected and extracted from the network. OAM stands for Operations, Administration, and Maintenance.

IOAM provides real-time data to understand how traffic is performing and to track the path packets take. IOAM adds a tag to each packet, and every node through which the packet passes can write metadata to the tag, such as the node’s identity, the interface and egress ports, and other details.

Greg Ferro is joined by Cisco engineers Shweta Bhandari, Frank Brockner, and Carlos Pignataro, all of whom are contributing to the IOAM project. They discuss the details of IOAM,  how it works, and potential use cases.

Thanks to Huawei, which covered travel and accommodations to enable the Packet Pushers to attend IETF 99 and record some shows to spread the news about IETF projects and initiatives.

Show Links:

Data Fields for In-situ OAM – IETF

Encapsulations for In-situ OAM Data – IETF

Requirements for In-situ OAM – IETF

Active and Passive Metrics and Methods (RFC 7799) – IETF