The Fat Pipe - All Packet Pushers Pods

Today's Heavy Networking examines packet analysis with sponsor ExtraHop. We drill into the company's marketing claims about deep analysis at line rate with Mike Ernst, VP of Sales Engineering. We also tackle how ExtraHop handles encrypted traffic, incuding TLS 1.3 and Perfect Forward Secrecy. Mike promises to keep his inner salesperson on mute for this conversation.

Deep packet analysis at line rate is a complex claim. What do we mean when we say, “Deep”? Assuming we mean layer 7 payloads…which protocols? Some of them? All of them?

What if the packet is encrypted? What if we’re a dual-stacked IPv4 and IPv6 network?

And what do we mean when we say, “Line rate”? We’re at speeds of 400Gbps now. So, which lines are we talking, and how many of them?

By the way, if we’re analyzing packets at line rate, where are we keeping them? Do we have to build a massive storage array?

None of these problems are new, and the more data we put on the network, the more challenging line rate deep packet inspection becomes. Today we take a stab at it with our sponsor ExtraHop.

Our guest is Mike Ernst, VP of Sales Engineering at ExtraHop. Mike has promised to put his engineering hat on today and keep his inner salesperson in the background.

We discuss:

* Commercial tools vs. Wireshark

* The packet capture architecture required to get “every packet and transaction”

* ExtraHop’s appliance family

* How ExtraHop gets packets from the public cloud

* Real-time analysis vs. investigating stored packets

* Differences among flow data, telemetry, and full packet capture

* How ExtraHop deals with encrypted traffic

* Why an agent is required to decrypt TLS 1.3 traffic

Show Links:

ExtraHop

ExtraHop.com/packetpushers

Follow ExtraHop on Twitter

I hear about companies that create net new DevOps roles and hire “DevOps Engineers” to fill them.

And then those DevOps people fail in their roles, because no one wants to deal with the additional processes they tend to create.

I’ve wondered if hiring specific DevOps roles is doing it wrong. Is a transformative approach a better idea?

That is, take the people you’ve got and retrain, retool, and reorganize. Foster a different culture that’s DevOps-ian in nature. Then, you might be successful.

Am I right? We explore this idea of hiring DevOps on the Datanauts podcast with guest Matt Stratton. Matt is a DevOps advocate at PagerDuty.

We discuss:

* Core DevOps principles and how to separate out marketing nonsense

* Why every IT professional in an organization needs to understand the business

* Whether there are costs to an IT team to moving to DevOps, and costs for not moving

* DevOps success stories

* Dealing with the inevitable people problems

* Iterative steps you can take to creating a DevOps culture

Sponsor: Tufin

Tufin has pioneered a policy-based approach to network security management using automation and analytics. As a result, you can make network changes in minutes instead of days, reliably and securely. Tufin. The Security Policy Company. Find out more at tufin.com.

Sponsor: Quest Software

Quest Software is your go-to for everything Microsoft. Migrate to a new SharePoint or Office 365 environment, move to OneDrive for Business, consolidate Active Directory and Exchange, secure your AD from insider threats, and much more! Learn more at Quest.com/DatanautsPod.

Show Links:

Matt Stratton on Twitter

Matt Stratton on LinkedIn

Arrested DevOps Podcast

The “Matt’s hair” tweet

Old Geeks Yell at Cloud with Andrew Clay Shafer & Bryan Cantrill – Arrested DevOps

DevOps Culture Change With Bill Joy – Arrested DevOps

Principal Engineering With Silvia Botros – Arrested DevOps

Matt’s Favorite DevOps Definitions

“DevOps is the union of people, process, and products to enable continuous delivery of value to our end users.” – Donovan Brown http://donovanbrown.com/post/what-is-devops

“A culture where people, regardless of title or background, work together to imagine, develop, deploy and operate a system.” – Ken Mugrage https://kenmugrage.com/2017/05/05/my-new-definition-of-devops/

“A cultural and professional movement, focused on how we build and operate high velocity organizations, born from the experiences of its practitioners.” – Adam Jacob https://github.com/chef/devops-kungfu

Matt’s Favorite DevOps Resources

I hear about companies that create net new DevOps roles and hire “DevOps Engineers” to fill them.

And then those DevOps people fail in their roles, because no one wants to deal with the additional processes they tend to create.

I’ve wondered if hiring specific DevOps roles is doing it wrong. Is a transformative approach a better idea?

That is, take the people you’ve got and retrain, retool, and reorganize. Foster a different culture that’s DevOps-ian in nature. Then, you might be successful.

Am I right? We explore this idea of hiring DevOps on the Datanauts podcast with guest Matt Stratton. Matt is a DevOps advocate at PagerDuty.

We discuss:

* Core DevOps principles and how to separate out marketing nonsense

* Why every IT professional in an organization needs to understand the business

* Whether there are costs to an IT team to moving to DevOps, and costs for not moving

* DevOps success stories

* Dealing with the inevitable people problems

* Iterative steps you can take to creating a DevOps culture

Sponsor: Tufin

Tufin has pioneered a policy-based approach to network security management using automation and analytics. As a result, you can make network changes in minutes instead of days, reliably and securely. Tufin. The Security Policy Company. Find out more at tufin.com.

Sponsor: Quest Software

Quest Software is your go-to for everything Microsoft. Migrate to a new SharePoint or Office 365 environment, move to OneDrive for Business, consolidate Active Directory and Exchange, secure your AD from insider threats, and much more! Learn more at Quest.com/DatanautsPod.

Show Links:

Matt Stratton on Twitter

Matt Stratton on LinkedIn

Arrested DevOps Podcast

The “Matt’s hair” tweet

Old Geeks Yell at Cloud with Andrew Clay Shafer & Bryan Cantrill – Arrested DevOps

DevOps Culture Change With Bill Joy – Arrested DevOps

Principal Engineering With Silvia Botros – Arrested DevOps

Matt’s Favorite DevOps Definitions

“DevOps is the union of people, process, and products to enable continuous delivery of value to our end users.” – Donovan Brown http://donovanbrown.com/post/what-is-devops

“A culture where people, regardless of title or background, work together to imagine, develop, deploy and operate a system.” – Ken Mugrage https://kenmugrage.com/2017/05/05/my-new-definition-of-devops/

“A cultural and professional movement, focused on how we build and operate high velocity organizations, born from the experiences of its practitioners.” – Adam Jacob https://github.com/chef/devops-kungfu

Matt’s Favorite DevOps Resources

On today's Heavy Networking podcast we examine the role of DNS in infrastructure automation with sponsor BlueCat Networks. We look at how BlueCat hooks into third-party operational tools and get details on new integrations with Cisco DNA and ACI.

DNS, DHCP, and IPAM. That’s DDI. DDI systems work together to maintain sanity for your IP naming and addressing schemes.

If your idea of DDI tracking is a spreadsheet you update when you think of it, you’re not doing it all that well. And if you are trying to move into network automation, you’re really going to struggle trying to use a manual spreadsheet as a data source.

Our sponsor today is BlueCat Networks. BlueCat is a DDI platform that can help you get control of your IP addressing world, and is automation-friendly. In fact, BlueCat is announcing integrations with Cisco DNA and ACI, adding yet more functionality to the automation these systems already bring you.

Joining us today to talk about BlueCat Networks and automation is CTO Andrew Wertkin.

We discuss:

* BlueCat’s IPAM, DNS, and DHCP (DDI) platform

* Why and how DNS and IP addressing ties into enterprise automation

* How BlueCat works with third-party operational tools via APIs

* The role of IP infrastructure management in public cloud

* How operations and security teams can leverage DNS

* New integrations with Cisco DNA and ACI

* More

Show Links:

BlueCat Networks

BlueCat Networks on Twitter

BlueCat Networks Blog

Today's Network Break podcast examines the latest twists in the Huawei vs. USA battle, speculates on China's threat to ban Windows from military computers, explores a new telemetry feature from Mellanox, discusses Google's moves to deprecate ad-blocking features in Chrome, and more tech news.

Take a Network Break! A trio of standards bodies remove and then reinstate Huawei from their memberships, China’s military will reportedly dump the Windows OS and develop a home-grown alternative, and Mellanox introduces new telemetry capabilities called What Just Happened?

Google plans to make ad blockers less effective on Chrome–except for paid enterprise versions, Equifax gets downgraded by the Moody’s credit ratings agency, Marvell sells its Wi-Fi and Bluetooth business and picks up an ASIC designer.

Palo Alto spends hundreds of millions on a pair of acquisitions, and reports its quarterly financials. Last but not least, a pair of U.S. Energy Department officials rebrand LNG as “freedom gas.”

As always, links are below for more details.

Sponsor: ExtraHop

ExtraHop is the enterprise cyber analytics company delivering performance and security from the inside out. ExtraHop offers complete visibility with machine learning to help you make quick, confident decisions about your IT environment. Explore the ExtraHop Performance Platform at extrahop.com/packetpushers.

Sponsor: Tufin

Tufin has pioneered a policy-based approach to network security management using automation and analytics. As a result, you can make network changes in minutes instead of days, reliably and securely. Tufin. The Security Policy Company. Find out more at tufin.com.

Tech Bytes: NetBeez

Stay tuned after the news for a sponsored Tech Bytes conversation with NetBeez, which makes hardware and software agents to monitor network connectivity and performance from the end user perspective. We’ll talk about how the product works and hear how customers are using it to spot problems and speed troubleshooting.

Show Links:

IEEE tells contributors with links to Chinese corp: Don’t let the door hit you on Huawei out – The Register

Huawei’s membership with SD, WiFi and Bluetooth alliances restored – The Star

Huawei was reinstated in the SD Association (Updated) – Android Authority

HUAWEI Nano Memory Card – HUAWEI UK

Microsoft stays silent on potential Huawei Windows ban – The Verge

US Huawei Ban Threatens Internet Access in Rural Areas, Some Providers May Fold – CircleID

Openness, Collaboration and Development: Building a Secure Digital Society – Huawei

Huawei Files Motion in US Federal Court Calling Ban Unconstitutional, an Assault on Human Rights – CircleID

Today on Tech Bytes we welcome sponsor NetBeez, which makes software and hardware to monitor networks from the end-user perspective.

NetBeez agents monitor connectivity and measure performance to spot problems and speed troubleshooting.

Our guest is CEO and co-founder Stefano Gridelli. Stefano’s going to introduce us to NetBeez and share some customer stories about how NetBeez is being used in the real world.

We cover:

* NetBeez’s hardware and software monitoring agents

* The company’s approach to active and distributed monitoring

* How it tracks the user perspective on performance

* How customers can share dashboards and metrics with service providers

* Customer examples including SaaS monitoring and remote office troubleshooting

Show Links:

NetBeez Product Page

NetBeez Demo Page

Stefano Gridelli on Twitter

Tech Bytes welcomes sponsor NetBeez to talk network and performance monitoring from the end user perspective. CEO and cofounder Stefano Gridelli talks about how NetBeez works, the tests it performs, and what customers are doing with it.