The Hedge

Everyone in networking—and beyond networking, in fact—thinks about what the future of work might look like. Jacquelyn Adams joins Eyvonne Sharp, Tom Ammon, and Russ White on this episode of the Hedge to discuss what work might look like based on this era of rapid change, and how you can prepare for that future.

Burnout stalks most network engineers—and most people in the world of information technology—striking at least once in every career, it seems, and often more than once. In this episode, Brian Keys joins Eyvonne Sharp, Tom Ammon, and Russ White to discuss his personal experience with burnout. The discussion then turns to general strategies and ideas for avoiding burnout on a day-to-day basis.

Anycast is a bit of a mystery to a lot of network engineers. What is it, and what is it used for? Andree Toonk joins Tom and Russ on this episode of the Hedge to discuss the many uses of anycast, particularly in the realm of the Domain Name Service (DNS). Andree helped build the OpenDNS network and service, so he has deep experience with anycast routing on the DFZ.

At first glance, it would seem like the history of a technology would have little to do with teaching that technology. Jacob Hess of NexGenT joins us in this episode of the Hedge to help us understand why he always includes the history of a technology when teaching it—a conversation that broadened out into why learning history is important for all network engineers.

RAW is a new working group recently chartered by the IETF to work on "high reliability and availability for IP connectivity over a wireless medium. RAW extends the DetNet Working Group concepts to provide for high reliability and availability for an IP network utilizing scheduled wireless segments and other media..."

How can managers grow teams that add value to the company? Teams are made up of people, and people need to grow, so the key is in learning how to grow people. Join us at the Hedge as we discuss learning paths, doing what's right for the company and the person, and growing teams by growing people.

Security has taken on an aura of mystery to many network engineers—why can't we approach security in the way we do many other topics, rationally? It turns out we can. Dan Blum joins Tom Ammon and Russ White to discuss the concepts and techniques behind rational cybersecurity.

Most packet processing in Linux "wants" to be in the kernel. The problem is that adding code to the kernel is a painstaking process because a single line of bad code can cause havoc for millions of Linux hosts. How, then, can new functionality be pushed into the kernel, particularly for packet processing, with reduced risk? Enter eBPF, which allows functions to be inserted into the kernel through a sort of "lightweight container."

Brian Trammell joins Alvaro Retana and Russ White to discuss the Path Aware Research Group in the IRTF. According to the charter page, PANRG "aims to support research in bringing path awareness to transport and application layer protocols, and to bring research in this space to the attention of the Internet engineering and protocol design community."

PTSD is a real thing in the information technology world; it impacts the ability to keep and manage good people. In this episode of the Hedge, Lya Myers joins Eyvonne Sharp, Tom Ammon, and Russ White to discuss PTSD, burnout, and strategies for dealing with them.