The Fat Pipe - All Packet Pushers Pods

Many organizations are leaping into the cloud in hopes of achieving “digital transformation.”

Collapsing your entire data center and moving it online might seem like a great idea, but just pushing your heritage application to the cloud won’t digitally transform your company any more that slapping an Autobots symbol on your car makes it a Transformer.

How do you actually move a workload to the public cloud? What are the pitfalls and gotchas? Why did we get a whole movie about Bumblebee and not Jazz? Let’s dive into the world of cloud migrations to find out.

My guest is Martin Ehrnst, a Technical Lead for Azure at Intility AS. We talk about what digital transformation entails for startups and for established enterprises.

We also discuss:

* Why you need multi-factor authentication from the start

* How to use governance templates to ensure that new workloads get the right monitoring and controls

* Why you need a team or department to drive digital transformation within an organization

* Why the principles and practices of digitization can’t only reside with that team

Show Links:

Martin Ehrnst on Twitter

Martin’s blog on Adatum

Ned Bellavance on Twitter

Pushing your heritage application to the cloud won't digitally transform your company any more that slapping an Autobots symbol on your car makes it a Transformer. On today's Day Two Cloud podcast, guest Martin Ehrnst delves into the nuances of digital transformation in the enterprise.

On today's Heavy Networking we explore how to build a source of truth for networking devices as a foundation for automation. Our guests Damien Garros and Adam Mills of Roblox share their real-world experiences developing sources of truth using Netbox and Git as part of a company-wide automation effort.

Today’s Heavy Networking guests make the case that you can’t successfully automate your network unless you start with a source of truth.

When embarking on an automation project you can get caught up in tool selection, frameworks, orchestration platforms, product reviews, and organizational responsibilities and nomenclatures.

But without a source of truth for the devices you want to automate, you’ll find it hard to get very far.

We have two guests to talk about how they built, populated, and manage their own source of truth to underpin a major automation project: Damien Garros, Network Reliability Engineer; and Adam Mills, Principal Engineer. Both work at the gaming platform Roblox.

We start by defining a source of truth and how it relates to key device properties including naming conventions, IP addresses, cabling information, VLANs, BGP peering, and more.

Our guests share lessons learned, including why you can’t assume homogeneity, why you’ll need to be prepared to manage multiple sources of truth, and the koan-like principle that “you always follow the rule, except when there is an exception, in which case you follow a new rule based on that exception.”

Damien and Adam also talk about how to manage network device properties as code, and why they chose the open-source tools Netbox and Git as key repositories.

Sponsor: ITProTV

Get over 65 hours of free technical training from ITProTV. ITProTV offers online instruction in CompTIA, Cisco, VMWare, Microsoft and more. You can stream courses live and on demand on your favorite device. Sign up for a free membership at itpro.tv/packet-pushers and try it with no obligation.

Sponsor: Cumulus Networks

Cumulus Linux allows you to affordably build and efficiently operate your network like the world’s largest data center operators, unlocking vertical network stacks. Combined with Cumulus NetQ, an operational management tool, organizations can take advantage of deeper analytics and advanced telemetry to increase visibility across the network and reduce mean time to resolution. Find out more at cumulusnetworks.com/epicpushers.

Show Links:

Network Device Properties As Code – Slideshare

Network Device Properties As Code – PDF

Managing Network Device Properties as Code – Damien Garros (YouTube)

Ansiblefest 2018 Network automation journey at roblox – Slideshare

Netbox – GitHub

Today's Network Break issues a few corrections, and then delves into hybrid cloud news from Google and Cisco, examines a new SD-WAN service from Juniper, discusses Sungard's bankruptcy, and other tech news.

Take a Network Break! We start with corrections from last week’s show (and please do send corrections, opinions, and responses to things we say).

Then we pivot to news from Google Next ’19 including Anthos for hybrid cloud, plus Cisco makes ACI available in AWS, and Juniper launches an SD-WAN service.

Sungard files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy; a VPN flaw bites Palo Alto, Cisco, and Pulse Secure; and HPE and Nutanix partner around HCI.

Chef is going to an entirely open-source code base under an Apache 2.0 license, the law catches up to Julian Assange and the second incarnation of the Dread Pirate Roberts, and Yahoo makes an $117.5 million offer to settle its breach lawsuits.

Last but not least, we offer a cautionary tale of why you should bring a Wi-Fi scanner to your next AirBnB stay.

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: TeleGeography

We’re also sponsored by TeleGeography,  a telecommunications market research firm. TeleGeography wants you to know about its  WAN Cost Benchmark. This is a tool that lets you model your hybrid WAN expansion plans and compare costs based on over 2 million data points. Head to benchmark.telegeography.com to learn more.

Show Links:

Correction: Satellite Broadband – YouTube

Correction: Citrix Layoffs: Reports of Citrix layoffs may be overblown – Tech Target

Introducing Anthos: An entirely new platform for managing applications in today’s multi-cloud world – Google

Anthos – Google

Powering enterprise transformation: Announcing new additions to Google Cloud Networking – Google Cloud Blog

ACI Anywhere Now Extending On-Premises to AWS Cloud – Cisco Systems

Cisco taps into AWS for data center, cloud applications – Network World

Cisco Cloud Application Policy Infrastructure Controller – AWS Marketplace

Juniper Networks’ SD-WAN as a Service Reimagines the Enterprise Branch – Juniper Networks

On today’s Heavy Networking we talk with sponsor Netrounds about measuring network performance and user experience through active testing. Netrounds' software generates synthetic traffic to measure actual performance of critical services, provides assurance that KPIs are being met, and identifies where problems occur.

The expression “There’s more than one way to skin a cat” is a colloquial reminder that there are many ways to solve a problem.

That’s demonstrably true when it comes to monitoring networks and network services. From SNMP to flow records to packet capture, engineers have a multitude of choices.

On today’s Heavy Networking we talk with sponsor Netrounds about another approach: that of active testing and service assurance.

Rather than passively collect metrics, Netrounds software generates synthetic traffic to measure actual performance of critical services. It helps network engineers ensure that key performance indicators are being met, and identify where problems occur.

Joining us to talk about active testing and the concept of service assurance are Mats Nordlund, CEO and co-founder of Netrounds; and Stefan Vallin, Director of Product Strategy.

We discuss:

* The concept of service assurance for measuring network performance and user experience

* How active testing differs from traditional monitoring methods such as SNMP or packet capture

* Netrounds’ software-driven approach, including its controller and agents

* How Netrounds testing informs SLA measurements, KPIs, and troubleshooting

* Customer use cases

Show Links:

Netrounds information resources and free t-shirt offer

Netrounds on Twitter

Netrounds Blog

Netrounds on Facebook

Netrounds on LinkedIn

Netrounds on YouTube

Netrounds presentations at Networking Field Day 20

Looking to elevate your skills from on-prem hardware monkey to cloudy diva? In this episode, we explore one person’s career path from tech support to cloud architect, and get his opinions on key cloud issues.

Our guest is Bill Gurling, Cloud Solutions Architect at Rubrik.

In part one of the show, we review  Bill’s career journey, which includes stints at GeekSquad, end user support, the army, and a converged infrastructure architect. We talk about what drove Bill to move into different roles, and why scripting and automation have been key throughout his journey.

In part two, we pivot to Bill’s cloud expertise and dig into his opinions on tools such as Terraform and AWS CloudFormation, including ease of adoption and what it’s like to work with these tools at scale.

In part three, Bill shares his insights on whether the industry will achieve the dream of multi-cloud applications, getting beyond lift-and-shift as organizations move to the cloud, and what it means to be a distinguished engineer.

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:

Bill Gurling on Twitter

Bill Gurling’s Blog

Which do you use – Terraform or CloudFormation? – Reddit

CloudFormation / Terraform real world use cases? – Reddit

Defining a Distinguished Engineer – Jessie Frazelle

Looking to elevate your skills from on-prem hardware monkey to cloudy diva? In this episode, we explore one person’s career path from tech support to cloud architect, and get his opinions on key cloud issues.

Our guest is Bill Gurling, Cloud Solutions Architect at Rubrik.

In part one of the show, we review  Bill’s career journey, which includes stints at GeekSquad, end user support, the army, and a converged infrastructure architect. We talk about what drove Bill to move into different roles, and why scripting and automation have been key throughout his journey.

In part two, we pivot to Bill’s cloud expertise and dig into his opinions on tools such as Terraform and AWS CloudFormation, including ease of adoption and what it’s like to work with these tools at scale.

In part three, Bill shares his insights on whether the industry will achieve the dream of multi-cloud applications, getting beyond lift-and-shift as organizations move to the cloud, and what it means to be a distinguished engineer.

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:

Bill Gurling on Twitter

Bill Gurling’s Blog

Which do you use – Terraform or CloudFormation? – Reddit

CloudFormation / Terraform real world use cases? – Reddit

Defining a Distinguished Engineer – Jessie Frazelle