NAN128: Beyond RAG: Making Network AI Truly Agentic
Eric Chou welcomes Juulia Santala, a Solutions Engineer at Cisco, to discuss her transition from traditional network programmability to cutting-edge AI research. They explore how she moved beyond simple RAG to make AI truly agentic, while solving some hallucination problems in production configurations. They also cover the number one skill network engineers need by 2027,... Read more »PP120: News Roundup—AI Giants Praise Open Weight Models, Attackers Capture Captive Portals, a Tricky Mac Attack, and More
Packet Protector uncorks another News Roundup! We talk about attackers capturing hotels’ captive portals to steal Microsoft credentials, and the OpenAI-attacking-Hugging Face story and how it ties into a broader industry effort to keep the US government from blocking access to open weight AI models from China. Nvidia and the Linux Foundation launch separate AI... Read more »HS139: When “One Cloud to Rule Them All” is NOT the Answer: Regionalization
IT folks spent a lot of time in the last 20 years creating globe-spanning infrastructures that maximize performance while minimizing the number of data centers or cloud instances they operate. More recently, the steady rise of regionalized data sovereignty requirements has created counter-pressure. AI regulations are now adding to that pressure to ditch a single... Read more »
NB585: Anthropic Models Bad Behavior; Orbital Data Center Patent Issued
Take a Network Break! We start with red alert for a serious vulnerability in HashiCorp’s Terraform MCP server. In the news, Anthropic, not wanting to be one-upped by OpenAI, reveal that its own models are also ‘leet’ hackers. We also consider whether OpenAI and Anthropic have broken the law by not preventing their models from... Read more »TNO067: The Impact of AI on Internet Traffic
Scott Robohn sits down with guests Lenny Giuliano and Russ White to examine whether generative AI will affect internet traffic patterns. Together they explore the role of CDNs, the importance of latency, and the potential for a shift toward edge-based inference. They also discuss the impact of data sovereignty on infrastructure and the potential return... Read more »HN836: Optimize AI Traffic on the WAN with Ciena’s Integrated IP Networking (Sponsored)
As more applications and services rely on AI inferencing, that means more traffic on the WAN. Yes, bandwidth can solve a lot of problems, it’s not unlimited and AI inference traffic still has to share pipes with other flows. That means things like WAN latency, determinism, security, and traffic engineering are just as important as... Read more »LIU019: Jason Gooley: The Godfather of Programmability
Jason Gooley is a longtime member of the Cisco community and author of the latest edition of the CCNA book. Jason joins the show to share his unconventional path from a challenging childhood to technical evangelist and author at Cisco. Together they discuss the importance of community, mental health, and resilience in navigating technical career... Read more »D2DO309: Packet Pushers Assemble! Bridging the Telemetry Divide
Today, several members of our Packet Pushers podcast team assemble to discuss whether the grass is greener on the NetOps or DevOps side of the telemetry fence. William of The Cloud Gambit, Scott of Total Network Operations, and Ned and Kyler of Day Two DevOps discuss the difficulties and differences of getting telemetry and state... Read more »PP119: Automating Firewall Ops To Stay Ahead of AI Threats (Sponsored)
There’s always been a gap between the discovery of a security issue and the time it takes to remediate. Now AI models can autonomously find weak points and chain together actions to exploit them. How does AI change the notion of “fast enough” for network defense? On today’s sponsored episode we dig into how FireMon... Read more »HW084: Spatial Reuse in Wi-Fi
Jake Snyder joins Keith Parsons to explain the mechanics of spatial reuse in Wi-Fi. They discuss practical implementation, the trade-offs involved in increasing signal detection thresholds, and why effective RF design remains the primary method for optimizing network performance. Episode Links: Jake Snyder’s WebsiteNB584: OpenAI Agents Mug Hugging Face; Fortinet Picks Intel for Custom Silicon
Take a Network Break! Scott Robohn steps in for Johna this week. We start with some followup on 3M and then tackle the news. Arista catches up to the rest of the market on a “branch in a box” approach with new security capabilities in its VeloCloud SD-WAN, Cisco announces the Antares family of Small... Read more »HN835: The Pros and Cons of Shortest Path Bridging (SPB)
Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) remains an intriguing and reliable fabric technology, offering a unique approach to Ethernet that differs from more widely deployed fabrics such as EVPN/VXLAN. Jeff Wilson joins Ethan and Drew to share his experience designing and managing SPB-based fabrics. Together they discuss how SPB simplifies multicast, essential hardware design considerations for scaling,... Read more »IPB204: Tayga and IPv6 Translation
Andrew Palardy joins the hosts to discuss how Tayga, the open-source NAT64 daemon for Linux, is being updated to ensure it is up to date with all the current RFCs. Andrew explains how recent RFC compliance and UDP checksum fixes help resolve connectivity issues and how the new eBPF CLAT support arriving in NetworkManager promises... Read more »N4N060: Your First Wi-Fi Network Part 1
Have you ever wondered how data actually travels through a Wi-Fi network? Holly and Ethan break down the fundamentals of wireless networking, including radio frequencies and channel planning. They also address the complexities of roaming, how the Wi-Fi space has changed over the years, and share advice on how to design and maintain a home... Read more »TCG080: Skills Over MCP and More
What if your MCP server shipped with its own manual? Angie Jones, VP of Developer Experience at the Agentic AI Foundation, joins William and Eyvonne to break down the Skills Over MCP working group effort, which delivers Agent Skills through MCP’s existing resources primitive (think voice over IP, not skills versus MCP). Angie shares her... Read more »NAN127: Scaling Network Automation Communities
Eric Chou welcomes Florian Lohden, a NetDevOps engineer and co-founder of the NetAuto Group, to discuss his community-building efforts and his latest adventures in network automation. Together they explore how adopting software development practices can help with network automation, and the importance of sharing knowledge within networking communities. Florian also talks about how he balances... Read more »D2DO308: Exploring the AI Governance Paradox (Sponsored)
In this sponsored episode, Jonah Kowall from Spacelift joins the show to unpack the findings of the 2026 Infrastructure Automation Report. The discussion covers the “governance paradox”, where organizations have confidence in their AI oversight despite a lack of formal policies. Ned and Jonah provide actionable insights on bridging the gap between automation and the... Read more »HS138: When “One Cloud To Rule Them All” Is NOT the Answer: Repatriation for AI and more
Some enterprises are finding reasons to pull back from a cloud-first IT strategy and run workloads in on-premises data centers. John and Johna dig into why companies are making the change, including cost and AI security. They also discuss and the strategic implications for IT, and what organizations stand to gain—and lose—from repatriation. Episode Links:... Read more »