The Fat Pipe - All Packet Pushers Pods

Most IT careers will involve some kind of technical education, training, or certification; it’s just part of the job.

Today on the Datanauts podcast we get an insider’s view of what it’s like to develop educational programs by someone who’s actually done it.

Our guest is Brett Guarino, a Principal Instructor for VMware Education. He designs and teaches instructional courses on how to use VMware products.

We talk about how training courses are put together, how curriculum teams decide what to prioritize, how they handle different learning styles, and how they train trainers.

Brett also shares his insights on how IT professionals can address learning something new, shares research suggestions, discusses the utility of home labs, and offers tips to stay abreast of new features that roll into products.

The Datanauts and Brett also map technical training to the certification path, discuss where training and certification course materials may converge and diverge, and speculate on the future of certifications.

Our apologies for the noise on Chris’s mic in the early part of the episode; we’re cooking up a fix for future shows.

Show Links:

Brett Guarino on Twitter

A Cloud Guru

Most IT careers will involve some kind of technical education, training, or certification; it’s just part of the job.

Today on the Datanauts podcast we get an insider’s view of what it’s like to develop educational programs by someone who’s actually done it.

Our guest is Brett Guarino, a Principal Instructor for VMware Education. He designs and teaches instructional courses on how to use VMware products.

We talk about how training courses are put together, how curriculum teams decide what to prioritize, how they handle different learning styles, and how they train trainers.

Brett also shares his insights on how IT professionals can address learning something new, shares research suggestions, discusses the utility of home labs, and offers tips to stay abreast of new features that roll into products.

The Datanauts and Brett also map technical training to the certification path, discuss where training and certification course materials may converge and diverge, and speculate on the future of certifications.

Our apologies for the noise on Chris’s mic in the early part of the episode; we’re cooking up a fix for future shows.

Show Links:

Brett Guarino on Twitter

A Cloud Guru

VMware and Cisco make moves to stay relevant in the age of Kubernetes and the cloud, Dell EMC releases new ToR switches with an odd lack of fanfare, Cisco releases another security advisory, and more tech news analysis from the Network Break podcast.

Gluware sponsors today's Weekly Show podcast and brings along a Big Pharma customer to talk about network automation in a brownfield production network. We dive into making network automation work in real life.

You have a network. It has anywhere from dozens to thousands of switches, routers, and so on. What happens when you need to make a global change, where every network device has to be touched to bring the network up to snuff?

Do you put on a pot of coffee, crack your knuckles, log in to device 1, and start typing?

Probably not. You need to automate.

Our guest today is Sal Rannazzisi, a director-level network geek at a big pharma company. Sal needed to update around 25,000 devices. He’s got experience with many different automation tools, but settled on Gluware, who is our sponsor for this episode.

Also joining us is Mike Haugh, VP of Product Management at Gluware.

We talk with Mike to level-set on the state of network automation and get a high-level overview of Gluware’s automation suite, including multi-vendor support.

Then we drill down on Sal’s experiences with automation tools and products.

Sal describes his network (one of everything from Cisco), reviews the problems he was trying to solve, and then shares how he tested Gluware and  brought it into production to provision devices and standardize configurations.

Show Links:

Gluware

Config Modeling with Gluware

Global Pharma Real-World Automation – Gluware blog

ONUG POC: Automating Networking In AWS – Vimeo

Gluware on Twitter

Gluware on LinkedIn

Gluware on YouTube

One problem with learning networking technology is all the work it takes to set up your lab. Creating a virtualization environment, fighting with images, tweaking performance, building out the connections, and so on.

What if there was a tool that handled the set up burden for you? A tool where you could jump right in and start learning?

Our guests today tell us about a new online tool that does just that. Called NRE Labs, this Web site provides education and training for network automation.

You can learn the basics of YAML, Git, and working with APIs, try out automation tools, walk through lessons, or simply experiment with virtual instances of real networking interfaces.

Developed and supported by Juniper Networks, NRE Labs is free and open source, and welcomes contributions to the project. You don’t have to register or even log in to use the site; just show up and jump in.

Matt Oswalt and Derick Winkworth, both Product Marketing Managers and Juniper, are two of NRE Labs’ creators. They join us on the podcast to walk us through the site.

Sponsor: Packet Pushers Virtual Design Clinic 3

Join the Packet Pushers and special guests on December 19th for a live, online Virtual Design Clinic. See presentations on network design for NVMe fabrics, CI/CD for networking, and get your networking questions answered by our panel of experts. Sign up now for this free event.

Show Links:

NRE Labs

Antidote (NRE Labs OSS) – GitHub

Antidote Docs

Juniper Engnet – Juniper Networks

Keeping It Classless – Matt Oswalt’s blog

We dig into a new online tool, NRE Labs, designed to help network engineers learn the concepts and tools of network automation. NRE Labs was created by Juniper Networks, but it's a free and open source platform, and you can start learning now with no sign-in, no registration, and no paywall. Our guests are Matt Oswalt and Derick Winkworth.

Cisco throws its hat in the 400G ring with switches built on two different ASICs, IBM buys Red Hat and the tech industry says "Good luck with that," Pica8 and Dell partner on campus and edge briteboxes and more tech news analysis on this week's Network Break.

Today's Weekly Show podcast delves into home automation, IoT, and security with guest Chris Young. We talk about Chris's experience building and running his home automation network, how to reverse-engineer undocumented APIs, and the security implications of home automation.

Home automation and the proliferation of IoT devices that live inside your house means that home networking matters more and more.

When your IoT devices need to talk to the cloud to turn on the lights, the network needs to work. It also brings to mind the question of security–or lack of it.

Our guest is Chris Young, no stranger to the Packet Pushers community. He’s Global Product Manager, Networking at HPE, but he’s on the podcast today solely as a home networker.

In this episode we probe into Chris’s passion for home automation, and we go deep down the rabbit hole.

We talk about Chris’s experience building and running his home automation network, the various wired and wireless protocols he works with (including WiFi, Zigbee, Bluetooth, and ZWave), how to reverse-engineer undocumented APIs, and the security implications of home automation and IoT.

Sponsor: InterOptic

InterOptic offers high-performance, high-quality optics at a fraction of the cost. If you’re not doing optics correctly, you’re going to pay for it upfront (and then later too). Don’t be fooled by lesser optics. The difference between generic third-party and brand-equivalent optics matters. Go to InterOptic.com to learn more.

Sponsor: ITProTV

Whether you’re just starting out or you’re a seasoned IT professional, ITProTV is the only source you’ll need to learn the skills to pass the most in-demand IT certs — from entry level to advanced — with engaging hosts and a talk-show style format. Visit itpro.tv/packetpushers and use code PACKETPUSHERS to try it FREE for 7 days, and receive 30% off your monthly membership for the lifetime of your active subscription.

Show Links:

Chris Young On YouTube

Home Kit Geek.com

Home Kit Geek on Twitter

Charles HTTP Proxy