Packet Pushers - Priority Queue

Today’s Priority Queue delves into the topic of hackathons at the IETF. Hackathons may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a body whose objective is to document specifications and standards, but hackathons play a role in the development of some standards.

Our guest is Charles Eckel, who works for Cisco’s DevNet team and chairs the IETF’s hackathon program. We talk about why the IETF engages in hackathons and what the organization means by ‘rough consensus, running code.’

Charles also discusses how the rise of open source enables groups like the IETF to not just produce documents, but also functioning code that implements a standard. By developing code, the IETF generates feedback that can be fed back into a draft, and can produce reference implementations to share with a broader audience. This can help drive standards adoption in the tech community.

This podcast was recorded on site at the IETF 98 conference in Chicago. Thanks to Huawei, which covered travel and accommodations to enable the Packet Pushers to attend and record some shows and spread the news about what the IETF is up to.

This week’s Priority Queue was recorded on site at IETF 98 in Chicago. The topic is DNS.

You may think that DNS is “done” but it’s a fundamental mechanism that keeps the Internet running, and there’s lots to talk about regarding scale, security, privacy, and DDoS protection. We’ll also get into mechanisms for DNS authentication and operational issues.

Our guest is Tim Wicinski, co-chair of the IETF’s DNS Operations and DNS Privacy working groups. Join us for a free-flowing conversation about various issues in the world of DNS.

This podcast was recorded on site at the IETF 98 conference in Chicago. Thanks to Huawei, which covered travel and accomodations to enable the Packet Pushers to attend and record some shows and spread the news about what the IETF is up to.

Free Range Routing (FRR) is open-source routing software that’s been forked from the Quagga open-source project. Designed to run on Linux and Unix systems in a variety of production environments, FRR supports common routing protocols including BGP, IS-IS, LDP, OSPF, PIM, and RIP.

In this Priority Queue we look at the FRR project and its capabilities. We also provide some background on Quagga, why Quagga was forked and the companies behind it, and what people can expect from Free Range Routing going forward.

Our guests are Russ White, a network architect at LinkedIn; Martin Winter, a Quagga tester and co-founder of NetDEF, the Network Device Education Foundation; and Donald Sharp, a member of the technical staff at Cumulus Networks who focuses on routing.

You can learn more about Free Range Routing at its website, and get information on Quagga here.

This podcast was recorded on site at the IETF 98 conference in Chicago. Thanks to Huawei, which covered travel and accomodations to enable the Packet Pushers to attend and record some shows.

Today’s Priority Queue drills into the YANG data modeling language and telemetry. Our guest is Benoit Claise, a distinguished engineer at Cisco and an IETF director for operations and management.

We talk with Benoit about just what YANG modeling is (and what it isn’t), why we’re hearing more about YANG in the networking industry lately, and why YANG and NETCONF are often mentioned in the same breath. We also talk about how YANG relates to network monitoring, and how it can be used to gather telemetry.

If you’ve wanted to get up to speed on YANG, this is a good place to start.

This podcast was recorded on site at the IETF 98 conference in Chicago. Thanks to Huawei, which covered travel and accomodations to enable the Packet Pushers to attend and record some shows.

For many years, the CCIE has been the gold standard of certifications among network engineers. Recently, there has been a backlash against the cert by some, as Cisco has taken heat for increased pricing, an excessively difficult routing & switching written qualification exam, and a tendency towards a Cisco-centric way of looking at networking.

The question we raise today: Is the CCIE fading in value?

Our guests are Dustin Beare, a CCIE candidate who has been studying more than 20 hours a week for the certification; and Eman Conde, who has been recruiting CCIE talent since 1995.

We talk about engineers’ motivations for acquiring the certification, the industry’s demand for it, content changes, and new skillsets engineers might want to acquire.

Show Links:

Network Introvert – Dustin Beare’s blog

CCIE Flyer – Eman Conde’s blog

On today’s Priority Queue, we explore DMEVPN, a open-source, proof of concept technology using a DMVPN-like construct for multipoint EVPN tunnels. By using DMEVPN, network engineers can extend layer-2 tunnels across an external IP network.

Joining us today is Saurabh Mohan, a software engineer who’s been building software products for the networking space for over 15 years now. Saurabh wrote up a detailed post on the DMEVPN code he’s created that actually works and is available on GitHub.

We get details from Saurabh on DMEVPN, how it differs from DMVPN, the use cases for DMEVPN implementations, and even a packet walk to to illustrate how it works. We also dive into VXLAN, NHRP, and IPSec. Strap in because this one gets nerdy.

Show Links:

DMEVPN: DMVPN based alternative to EVPN – Packet Pushers

DMEVPN on GitHub – Saurabh Mohan

 

Startups sound like a great place to work. There’s dogs and foosball in the office, beer and munchies in the break room, free hoodies, and the tantalizing potential to earn crazy amounts of money.

But is working for a startup really all that great? Today’s Priority Queue cut through the glamor and shine that gets lacquered onto the startup industry to explore dank and distressing truths, including failure, hard labor, and flailing strategies.

Our guest is Aneel Lakhani. He’s worked at startups, big tech companies, analyst firms, and is now back in the startup world in technical marketing. We drill into the difficulties of running a startup, examine why it’s so hard to get teams to work together, and explore some of the quotidian realities (like the insane cost of living in Silicon Valley) that take the shine off the startup dream.

This isn’t Aneel’s first time on the Packet Pushers. He was guest on Show 137 – Gartner Is Not For Sale with @Aneel Lakhani.

You can also see more from Aneel below, and read his blogs on Medium.

We are not who we think we are – Aneel Lakhani – YouTube

Monktoberfest 2016: Aneel Lakhani – How Not to Get Rich in Tech – YouTube

The Priority Queue dives into the applicability of machine learning to networking. Our guest is David Meyer, Chief Scientist and Fellow at Brocade.

Machine learning (ML) implies that some magic software algorithm learns about your network and can then make smarter decisions, but the reality is more complicated. We define what ML is, contrast it to traditional programming, and explore where we are in the ML hype cycle.

David also outlines areas in networking where ML can be applied, and introduces some of the math that underpins the science of this discipline. He also offers some tips to spot weasely marketing around machine learning when applied to networking products.

Links:

Machine Intelligence and Networking – David Meyer presentation (PDF)

Coursera Machine Learning Course – Andrew Ng

Datanauts 059: The Machine Learning Hype Cycle – Packet Pushers

Greg Ferro and Drew Conry-Murray were delegates at Networking Field Day 14 this January in Silicon Valley. On today’s Priority Queue episode, we’re joined by two other delegates, Eyvonne Sharp and Kevin Myers, to talk about the technologies and products that were presented at the three-day event

We also discuss the impact that emerging technologies such as whitebox and automation will have on the enterprise.

Eyvonne is a consulting networking engineer in the healthcare sector. She blogs at ESharp.net. Kevin is a network architect who currently focuses on WISP/wireline service providers and large enterprise data centers. You can read his blog at StubArea51.net.

Four Categories

We shaped our discussion around four technology categories that were represented at the event: SD-WAN, whitebox switching, analytics, and automation/orchestration. Within these categories we examine the business needs driving the technology; talk about use cases and what kinds of organizations might benefit from the technology; and share opinions on the vendors, their products, and their messaging.

SD-WAN

* Riverbed

* Silver Peak

Whitebox

* Barefoot Networks

* Big Switch Networks

Analytics

* Kentik

* Nyansa

Automation/Orchestration

* Anuta Networks

* Juniper Networks

Thanks to the team at Tech Field Day for inviting us to participate! You can watch all the vendor presentations from the event here.

Today on the Priority Queue, 5G, the much lauded successor to the 4G wireless mobile specification. A variety of spectrum is proposed to address many use cases, so 5G isn’t just any one thing. 5G is in testing now and will see production rollouts over the next several years.

Which brings us to our question today. Is 5G going to help with the rural broadband problem? To help us understand the role that 5G will play in rural broadband Internet access is Alex Marcham. Alex is a network engineer, and shares his writing and research on wireless networking at NetworkArchitecture2020.com.

The Packet Pushers and Alex discuss all the technologies that come under the 5G umbrella, licensed and unlicensed spectrum, how radio waves translate into bandwidth, and some of the physical issues (line of sight, obstructions, weather) can affect wireless networking–among other topics.