The Everything Feed - All Packet Pushers Pods

On this episode of Datanauts, we chat with Brandon Olin, the creator of PoshBot, a PowerShell based chatbot for ops teams. What does PoshBot do? How was PoshBot built? How do chatbots impact Brandon’s delivery model?

ChatBots?

Bots have been around for a long time. They’re really handy, too, often being able to answer simple questions by submitting a special command that has some sort of prefix or identifier associated with them. Especially if you’re on Twitch and want to know how long your favorite streamer has been online.

Maybe that isn’t the most helpful thing in the world, but what if we changed the narrative to be all about operations and how talking to a bot (with your peers watching) could actually up-level your day-to-day enjoyment of IT?

That’s our conversation today.

What is PoshBot?

“PoshBot is a chat bot written in PowerShell. It makes extensive use of classes introduced in PowerShell 5.0. PowerShell modules are loaded into PoshBot and instantly become available as bot commands. PoshBot currently supports connecting to Slack to provide you with awesome ChatOps goodness.”

For More Information About PoshBot

PoshBot on GitHub, Home of the PoshBot Project

https://github.com/poshbotio

PoshBot Documentation

http://docs.poshbot.io/en/latest/

PoshBot Demo – PDX PowerShell User Group 2017-05-31

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36fkyKYq43c

Follow Brandon Olin

https://devblackops.io

https://twitter.com/devblackops

 

It turns out you can’t do it all in the cloud. And thus, we have the rise of edge computing, in which data is collected, processed, and analyzed close to the source of its creation and close to where people and systems need it.

The goals of edge computing include improving performance, reducing the costs and time of data transmission, and creating new applications to take advantage of that data.

Our guide to edge computing is Alex Marcham. Alex is a technologist, writer and researcher. You can find his work at NetworkArchitecture2020.com.

We level-set with a working definition of edge computing, examine the notion of locality and what it means for edge computing, and discuss latency issues.

We explore edge computing use cases such as industrial processes and video surveillance, and dive into the infrastructure that drives this technology.

Show Links:

Network Architecture 2020

Alex Marcham on Twitter

Pica8 makes it first steps into network automation in a unique fashion with apps for its PicOS NOS. PicaFabric build a virtual switch chassis from an leaf/spine switch clister. The PicaPilot app builds vitual switch stack for fat tree L2 everywhere campus networks. All this is done with open hardware that you can mix & match.

Link: Show 382: Whitebox In The Enterprise With Pica8 (Sponsored) https://packetpushers.net/podcast/podcasts/show-382-whitebox-enterprise-pica8-sponsored/

Today's Full Stack Journey explores continual learning for technologists. Guest Cody Bunch shares tips on how to approach new information, why you should share what you learn, how to take notes, time management, and more.

The Datanauts travel to a galaxy of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The good ship InfoSight is piloted by sponsor HPE Nimble Storage as we explore automating infrastructure on today’s episode.

Our guest is Ryan Brown, Enterprise Storage Architect and Chief Technologist for Storage in Canada at HPE.

We talk about InfoSight, HPE’s cloud-based predictive analytics platform that works with HPE’s Nimble Storage arrays, and soon to work with other products from HPE. InfoSight applies machine learning and AI to help customers better manage storage resources and predict problems before they affect the business.

We look at the kind of information that InfoSight gathers, how it collects that information and ships it to the cloud, and how it’s protected.

We also delve into the value that InfoSight can provide for resource allocation and operational benefits such as preventing outages, maintaining uptime, and improving performance.

Show Links:

HPE InfoSight

HPE InfoSight at Tech Field Day

In January 2018, the WiFi Alliance announced that WPA3 was coming this year, a collection of security enhancements to address issues with WPA2.

Today, we discuss WPA3 with Dan Harkins, a scientist at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. Dan has been closely involved with WPA3’s development, and I heard Dan present on his work at Aruba Atmosphere 2018 in March of this year.

Dan was kind enough to join us today for a preview of what’s coming, with a special focus on one aspect of WPA3 that interests me personally, Opportunistic Wireless Encryption (OWE).

We also discuss the fixes that WPA3 makes to WPA2, and when we can anticipate product support.

Sponsor: Paessler AG

Paessler AG is the maker of PRTG Network Monitor. PRTG monitors your whole IT infrastructure 24/7 and alerts you to problems before users even notice. Find out more about the monitoring software that helps system administrators work smarter, faster, better. Visit paessler.com today.

Show Links:

Wi-Fi Alliance® introduces security enhancements – Wi-Fi Alliance

Opportunistic Wireless Encryption (RFC 8110) – IETF

Dragonfly Key Exchange (RFC 7664) – IETF

Whether by choice or circumstance, it’s inevitable you’ll find yourself looking for a new job.

On today’s Datanauts episode we break down the job hunt process to help you understand what you want, what you have to offer, and how to make the most of your application.

Our guest is Doug Lane, a tech/ops professional who’s been working in IT for 25 years. He’s also recently gone through the process of finding and getting a new job.  You can follow him on Twitter at @debuggist.

Doug shares his experiences and tips about how he approached the job search. We start by talking about honestly understanding your own strengths and weaknesses, and then thinking about what kind of job it is you really want.

We also discuss how to evaluate job descriptions, and how to nail the application process.

On 6 November 2017 in Episode 12 of Briefings in Brief, I speculated on what would happen with VMware’s acquisition of VeloCloud.

This week we see the launch of “NSX SD-WAN by VeloCloud” and it’s time to update those thoughts.

Today on Priority Queue, the Packet Pushers peer into the darker corners of network monitoring.

Monitoring gets you visibility. But when you can see what’s happening, you might not like what you find. That’s the topic of today’s sponsored show with Paessler AG, maker of PRTG network monitoring software.

Our guests are Greg Ross, Presales Systems Engineer at Paessler; and Troy Mursch, a security researcher who blogs at Bad Packets Report.

Troy discovered that cryptojacking malware called Coinhive had infected a popular Website. We’ll talk about how he used Paessler sensors to monitor the malware on the site, and to track down other infected systems.

We talk with Troy and Greg about how to use Paessler to monitor key metrics that could indicate malware. We also dig into Paessler’s capabilities for more typical network monitoring use cases.

And here’s a special offer for Packet Pushers listeners: Paessler is offering a free network security eBook. You can get it at go.paessler.com/packetpushers.

You can also get a free trail of PRTG here.

Show Links:

Free Network Security eBook – Paessler

Paessler PRTG Free Trial

Paessler on Twitter

Troy Mursch/Bad Packets Report on Twitter

Who and What Is Coinhive? – Krebs On Security

Bad Packets Report – Troy Mursch

Anuta Networks, which makes software to orchestrate physical and virtual network infrastructure, will launch a SaaS version of its product on June 1st.

The idea is to entice more customers into orchestration by releasing a cloud version that lets them ease into a deployment and start small. Anuta will offer Standard and Advanced versions of its service.

The company says it can manage devices from 45 vendors, including Cisco, Juniper, Arista, VMware, and Check Point.

You can get more details at antuanetworks.com.