Ethan Banks

Author Archives: Ethan Banks

Heavy Networking 435: End-To-End Network Performance Monitoring With AppNeta (Sponsored)

On today’s sponsored Heavy Networking episode we explore how AppNeta wraps user metadata around Netflow records, deep packet inspection, and discovery of networks to help engineers get a continuous view of end user performance and the telemetry to find and fix problems.

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Datanauts 160: The Hitchhiker’s Guide To IT Travel

Today's Datanauts episode offers travel advice for IT pros who spend a lot of time on the road. Our three guests have logged millions of miles for work. They share tips on getting from A to B smoothly, offer packing hints for clothes and equipment, give advice on maximizing travel programs, and tout their favorite travel gear.

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Heavy Networking 433: An Insider’s Guide To AWS Transit Gateways

AWS Transit Gateways, an evolution of Transit VPCs, centralize VPN connectivity to multiple VPCs, allowing for greater scale and simpler connectivity and management. Today's Heavy Networking drills into this topic with guest Nick Matthews, an AWS solutions architect. We also examine Global Accelerator and TLS termination on Network Load Balancer.

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Improve Productivity. Shut Off Notifications. (YouTube)

Here’s a short car video where I recommend shutting off notifications as a way to increase productivity. Spoiler alert. That’s pretty much the summary of the entire video, so you can save yourself the four minutes. Or…watch it to get the nuance. I’ll be okay either way. I’m not making money on YouTube ads.

Connecting Python To Slack For Testing, Development, and Chat

Plugging Python Code Into Slack, Maybe For A Chatbot

The scripting language Python can retrieve information from or publish information to the messaging app Slack. This means you can write a chatbot that puts info into Slack for you, or accepts your queries using Slack as the interface. This is useful if you spend a lot of time in Slack, as I do.

The hard work of integrating Slack and Python has been done already. Slack offers an API, and there are at least two open source Python libraries that make leveraging these APIs in your Python code easy.

When searching for Slack projects using Python, most of the top hits are using Slack’s official python-slackclient. Github reveals that python-slackclient is an active project, with recent commits. In addition, most code examples I turned up are using python-slackclient. But it’s not a preference borne of experience. Maybe you’d prefer an alternate library like slacker.

Securing The Slack App Security Token

The slackclient library is security-conscious. Some other library sample code shows putting the Slack access token right in the source code as a static variable assignment, which is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea. Why? If you publish Continue reading

Datanauts 158: Creating, Operating, And Collaborating On Open Source

Today's Datanauts examines the successful open source project dbatools to better understand its intent, how the project is operated, and how folks collaborate across a wide spectrum to build something magnificent and open. Our guests are Chrissy LeMaire and Rob Sewell.

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BiB 071: SnapRoute CN-NOS For Whitebox Focuses On Operators

Drew Conry-Murray & Ethan Banks were briefed by SnapRoute co-founders Adam Casella and Glenn Sullivan in February 2019. After a year plus of post-launch quiet, SnapRoute has re-emerged with a new focus and energy centered around a shiny new whitebox network operating system called CN-NOS. The NOS is aimed at making operations easier, and features Kubernetes inside. Not just a K8s plugin, either.

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BiB 069: Plixer’s FlowPro Shines A Light On Network Darkness

Plixer has announced the FlowPro network probe to shine some light on sections of the network with limited flow export capability. Available both as hardware and virtual appliances, FlowPro observes network packets via SPAN or ERSPAN and can, based on its observations, create and export flow records to Scrutinizer. But that’s not all that FlowPro can do. There’s a bunch of analytical capability baked into the tool with both APM and security use cases.

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Leveraging Desktop Real Estate To Decrease Distractions

I use a dual-monitor setup. In my setup, the main screen sits centered directly in front of me. The secondary screen, which is slightly smaller, is off to one side. The real estate provided by the two screens gives me plenty of pixels across which to splash my applications–ample “screenery.”

I use my screenery productively when recording podcasts. I display a script, conferencing app, and recording tool without having to switch between them. Research productivity is also enhanced. I display a note-taking app front and center, with research subject matter like a video presentation, Kindle book, or PDF off to the side.

No Pixel Left Behind

Acres of screenery has benefits, but lots of screen space is also a potential distraction. I fight the desire to fill every pixel with an application. If I don’t use all the pixels, I must be wasting desktop space, right? I don’t want to waste my not inconsiderable investment in fancy monitors. Hmm. Sounds like an example of the sunk cost fallacy.

Desktop operating system developers have catered to my craving, adding sticky edges to windows that ensure not a single pixel is wasted. I can make my window edges stick to each Continue reading

BiB 068: Aporeto’s Identity Based Workload Segmentation

Aporeto is an identity-based security solution. Not only user identity, but also workload identity. That is, when using Aporeto, workloads can only talk to each other when their identity is authenticated by fingerprint and authorized by policy. Aporeto decouples the network infrastructure from security, adding a whole new dimension to microsegmentation strategies.

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Automating Logistics To Improve Productivity

Getting work done is hindered by logistics. Logistics is work about work. It’s the work you do so that you can get something else done.

For example, there’s a workflow I use to create a podcast. Most of that work is logistical: creating a collaborative script document from a template, inviting guests to a recording channel, scheduling the recording, coordinating sponsor content, updating the production calendar, editing the episode, writing a blog post about the episode, and promoting the episode on social media.

Relatively little of the workflow is what I consider the meat of podcast creation: researching the topic and guests, writing interview questions, and recording the actual show.

I draw the line between logistics and meat by considering what I can delegate vs. what I need to do uniquely myself. Most tasks can be divided along this line.

Solving The Logistics Problem With Delegation

One way to boost productivity is to delegate logistics. Delegation frees up your time to focus on the remaining tasks requiring your unique skills.

Delegation comes in at least three forms.

  1. Humans.
  2. Software.
  3. Automation.

Some tasks can be delegated to other humans. In my case, I delegate many tasks in my business to consultants, Continue reading

Heavy Networking 423: Introducing Heavy Networking

Today's episode introduces Heavy Networking, a rebrand of the Packet Pushers' Weekly Show. We've renamed this podcast to better reflect its deep dive into networking technology and skills, and better differentiate it from other infrastructure shows in our podcast network. We also dive into key trends that will impact your career.

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