The Hedge

We often talk about “human infrastructure” in network engineering–but what does this mean, and how do we help engineers “produce” while helping them to flourish as individuals? Catherine Hicks joins Tom and Russ to discuss the psychology of software engineering, and how the lessons learned apply to network engineering.

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You can find Catherine’s new book on the psychology of software engineering here.

Sometimes we can be so focused on the problems in front of us that we forget the people who are following in our footsteps. Michael McCollum, a new network engineer, joins Tom and Russ to ask questions about life as a network engineer.

Most designers and operators default to carrying all traffic–including network management traffic–across the same paths as application data, or in band. Is this the right choice, or should operators seriously consider creating an out-of-band network just for network management? If you decide to build an out-of-band network, what are some of the considerations and lessons learned? Daryll Swer joins Tom and Russ to discuss.

The entire technology world has, for decades, treated the IP address as a shorthand host identifier. This is clearly not the way IP was designed, but what are our other choices? In this episode of the Hedge, Scott Robohn joins Russ And Tom to discuss a recent paper arguing cryptographic keys should be the primary host identifier, and another article on the centrality of DNS to the Internet.

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We are often told that if engineers who don’t go “all in” on AI will be left behind. While there are a few voices who argue that AI can be a dangerous tool, impacting not only the quality of our work, but the very quality of our thinking skills. Doug Smith, a critic of using AI for engineering, joins this episode of the Hedge to argue the contrary view of AI.

What are the dangers of relying on AI?

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You can find Doug’s blog here.

What is AI Ops, and how can it be useful for your network? Akshay Balaganur and Sushanth Mascaren join Tom and Russ to discuss various aspects of AI Ops.

As DNS is more widely used to distribute certificate information, proving ownership of a resource becomes more critical. The constant challenges required to prove resource ownership, however, increase delay in connecting or using a resource. DNS persists–as the name implies–creates a persistent connection between a resource and a certificate authority. Henry Birge-Lee, Michael Slaughter, and Shiloh Heurich join Russ and Tom to explain how this new record type works and it’s importance to DNS.

We all talk about how engineers deal with imposter syndrome–but we don’t often talk about the experience of making things work “in the background.” What is competence, and what do we do when competence isn’t recognized? Justin Wilson (j2sw) joins Russ and Tom to discuss.

Many companies rely on open source, regardless of whether or not they realize it. In this best of the Hedge episode, Alistair Woodman joins Russ White and Tom Ammon to talk about not only why you should support the open source projects you use, but how you can.

If you advertise routes into the default free zone (or global Internet), you might struggle with seeing and understanding what they look like “on the other side.” While there are many manual tools to help operators with this process, bgproutes.io gives you visibility in the global routing table through interfaces like BMP. Listen to this episode of the Hedge to learn more.