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NAN069: Lessons On the Journey From NOC to Aerospace Networking
Today, Lexie Cooper shares her journey from a NOC environment to networking engineering in the aerospace industry. Along the way, the discussion makes stops at the importance of medium skills, and the role of humor and relatability in attracting and educating younger professionals in networking. Finally, Lexie relates her challenges when working on the New... Read more »PP024: Considering Resiliency in a Time of Global Outages
In the wake of one of the largest global IT outages, resiliency is the theme of today’s show. We dig into the CrowdStrike debacle as well as an Azure outage that kinda flew under the radar. We also look at the Resiliency Planning Framework Playbook from CISA and other frameworks for building resilient infrastructure. We... Read more »HS079: Big Rock, Best-in-Breed, or Ecosystem: What’s the Best Vendor Procurement Strategy?
When choosing vendors, what strategy should you employ: big rock, best-in-breed, or ecosystem? The big rock approach consolidates vendor relationships around a few strategic partners. Best-in-breed focuses on selecting top solutions from various vendors. The ecosystem model combines elements of both. Today’s conversation explores all three models and also highlights the importance of integration, the... Read more »
HW032: What’s New With RUCKUS MDUs – From Wi-Fi 7 to AI (Sponsored)
Providing Wi-Fi in multi-dwelling units (MDUs) such as apartments or dormitories is complicated. These environments require dense AP deployments, have to provide secure access to lots of users, must support myriad device types, and must offer good performance. Our guests are Kyle Leissner, founder of Wire Star; and Bart Giordano, president of the RUCKUS at... Read more »TL001: The Line Between Management and IC Leadership
This first episode of Technically Leadership explores distinctions and commonalities between the management track and the staff engineer track with guests Nick Silkey and Martin Smith. Our guests share their stories from both perspectives and offer advice for those considering similar paths in technical leadership. Episode Guests: Nick Silkey and Martin Smith Nick Silkey, Senior... Read more »PP023: Wi-Fi Security Part 1 – Unpacking Vulnerabilities and Exploits
From an SSID confusion exploit to a RADIUS attack to a critical vulnerability in a Windows Wi-Fi driver, the past several months have seen multiple attacks and exploits targeting the wireless realm. On today’s Packet Protector podcast we talk with Wi-Fi security expert Stephen Orr to get his take on the severity of these issues,... Read more »HS078: Is It Time To Dump Microsoft?
Should enterprises ditch Microsoft because of security concerns? Microsoft’s numerous vulnerabilities and questionable responses make it a significant risk for continued use. At the same time, Microsoft’s strong integration and utility in enterprise environments make it attractive for continued use. Johna Till Johnson and John Burke debate. They also weigh considerations including the challenges of... Read more »
TL000: Announcing Technically Leadership, a New Podcast for the Next Phase of Your Career
Technically Leadership is a brand new podcast on the Packet Pushers network. Host Laura Santamaria explores leadership in the tech industry, with conversations and insights to help you development your management skills. Whether you’re considering your first management role or you’re an experienced manager working your way to the C-suite, this podcast is for you.... Read more »NAN068: Is Cloud Networking the Future for Network Engineers?
On today’s episode, host Eric Chou and guest Kyler Middleton discuss the transition from on-prem network engineering to cloud networking; the importance of adapting to new platforms such as AWS, Azure, and Terraform; and the future of cloud versus on-premises solutions. We also discuss Kyler’s background, navigating the journey from a farm upbringing to a... Read more »PP022: Inside an Equipment Test Lab
Third-party test labs can help buyers make decisions about which products to purchase. While a testing lab can’t mimic the conditions of your specific production environment, it can assess a product’s fundamental capabilities and measure throughput, performance, and–in the case of security devices–effectiveness against a test suite of malware or attack techniques. On today’s episode... Read more »HW031: Wi-Fi Surveys – Past, Present & Future
The evolution of wireless surveys is the topic of today’s Heavy Wireless podcast with guest Jussi Kivineimi of Hamina. We cover the transition from traditional on-site assessments to predictive tools, with an emphasis on the importance of a hybrid approach for accurate network design. We also tackle the role of APIs in network design, the... Read more »PP021: Critical Vulnerabilities, AI-Assisted Scams, Compromised VPNs, and More Security News
It’s an all-news episode for this week’s Packet Protector podcast. We cover critical vulnerabilities in the MOVEit file transfer software and in thousands of ASUS routers, and a remote code execution vulnerability in a Windows wireless driver that you really should patch. We discuss a Wall Street Journal article about how AI tools are helping... Read more »HS077: Should IT Lead or Follow?
The evolving role of IT in business is the topic of lively discussion between co-hosts Johna Johnson and John Burke. Johna argues that IT should align with business goals, acting as an executive assistant, while John believes IT should take a proactive leadership role, driving innovation and framing business problems. They explore the challenges IT... Read more »
NAN067: AI and Total Network Operations with Scott Robohn
This is the final episode of a series of interviews with Scott Robohn (for now). We discuss AI in networking operations and how it’s still too early to tell exactly how much, if any, value will be created. We also dig into Scott’s Total Network Operations framework, what it consists of and how he wants... Read more »PP020: Dropping the SBOM: The Software Bill of Materials and Risk Management
If you care about nutrition, you check the ingredients of your food. If you care about your IT infrastructure, you check the Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) of the tech. At least that’s the future that Thomas Pace hopes for. Right now, SBOMs aren’t super common and software transparency is very low. Thomas walks us... Read more »HW030: Down and Dirty with Industrial Wireless
Wastewater containers, conveyors, chemical reactors… Scott McNeil goes out where the carpet ends to do his wireless work. Today he joins the show to talk us through the basics of designing industrial wireless architecture. With advances in wireless technology, not only is wireless now reliable enough for production environments, but it’s also much cheaper than... Read more »HS076: Greg’s Finale
This is Greg’s last Heavy Strategy episode before he heads off to retirement. He gives us his final pieces of career and life advice, opinions on private equity, and a Cookie Monster quote. We also briefly introduce John Burke, the new Heavy Strategy co-host. Farewell, Greg. Thank you for all the great debates. Episode Transcript... Read more »
NAN066: Operationalize Your Automations With torero (Sponsored)
When you’re trying to share your cool new network automation with your co-workers, the last thing you want to do is deal with other systems’ different libraries and dependencies gumming it up. That’s where our episode sponsor torero comes into play. As an “automation gateway,” torero dynamically creates an execution environment based on what has... Read more »PP019: The God Accounts: Cloud IAM
Today we discuss how to secure your all-powerful root accounts on the three major public cloud providers: AWS, Azure, and GCP. Our guests today, Ned Bellavance and Kyler Middleton from the Day Two Cloud podcast (soon to be Day Two DevOps podcast), describe the struggle of securely managing several root accounts at once. They take... Read more »HS075: How to Ask Questions
Asking questions is a critical skill whether you’re an outside consultant or on an internal IT team. In today’s episode, Greg and Johna review what kind of questions to ask and how to ask them. They discuss the ‘Five Whys,’ identifying points of invariance, discovering unknown unknowns, and watching out for landmines. They also cover... Read more »