The Hedge

Encrypt everything! Now! We don't often do well with absolutes like this in the engineering world--we tend to focus on "get it down," and not to think very much about the side effects or unintended consequences. What are the unintended consequences of encrypting all traffic all the time? Geoff Huston joins Tom Ammon and Russ White to discuss the problems with going dark.

https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-162.mp3

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Encrypt everything! Now! We don't often do well with absolutes like this in the engineering world--we tend to focus on "get it down," and not to think very much about the side effects or unintended consequences. What are the unintended consequences of encrypting all traffic all the time? Geoff Huston joins Tom Ammon and Russ White to discuss the problems with going dark.

https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-161.mp3

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Cloud might seem shiny and new—but that's just the way it looks on the outside. Most cloud services are still built on decades old technology, from networking to file access. Avishai Ish-Shalom joins Tom Ammon and Russ White to discuss the impact of changes in hardware on the design of operating systems, and think through how things will need to change to continue the drive for more performance.

https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-160.mp3

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original article on USENIX here

In this last episode of 2022, Tom, Eyvonne, and Russ sit around and talk about some interesting things going on in the world of network engineering. We start with a short discussion about SONiC, which we intend to build at least one full episode about sometime in 2023. We also discuss state and antipatterns, and finally the idea of acquiring another company to build network resilience.

https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-159.mp3

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DDoS attacks continue to be a persistent threat to organizations of all sizes and in all markets. Roland Dobbins joins Tom Ammon and Russ White to discuss current trends in DDoS attacks, including the increasing scope and scale, as well as the shifting methods used by attackers.

https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-158.mp3

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Vendor lock-in has been an issue in networking for the entire time I've been working in the field—since the late 1980s. I well remember the arguments over POSIX compliance, SQL middleware standards, ADA, and packet formats. It was an issue in electronics, which is where I worked before falling into a career in computer networks, too. What does "vendor independence" really mean, and what are the ways network operators can come close to having it? Frank Seesink joins Russ White and Tom Ammon to rant about—and consider—solutions to this problem.

https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-157.mp3

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The Hedge December update contains information about upcoming episodes and training—listen in for the inside scoop!

https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-dec22.mp3

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Modularization is a crucial part of network design because it supports interchangeability, reduces the size of failure domains, and controls security domains. One critical aspect of modularization is functional separation, which argues for separating services onto specific physical and logical resources. Kevin Myers joins Tom Ammon and Russ White on this episode of the Hedge to discuss the theory and importance of functional separation in network design.

https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-156.mp3

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Network engineers normally use and support DNS as a service, but don't tend to deploy, manage, and interact with DNS servers at an application level. For this episode of the Hedge, Andreas Taudte joins Tom Ammon and Russ White to discuss the many lessons learned from planning and deploying DNS as a service.

https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-155.mp3

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Applications generally assume the network provides near-real-time packet transmission without regard for what the application is trying to do, what kind of traffic is being transmitted, etc. Back in the real world, its often important for the network to coordinate with applications to more efficiently carry traffic offered. The Path Aware Research Group (PANRG) in the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) is looking at the problems involved in understanding and signaling the path characteristics to applications.

In this episode of the Hedge, Brian Trammel joins Tom Ammon and Russ White to discuss the current work on path aware networking.

https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-154.mp3

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