Worth Reading: Network Traffic Telemetry Protocols

Pavel Odintsov published a series of introductory blog posts describing protocols we can use to collect network traffic telemetry:

  • Part 1 covers the ancient Netflow v5, Netflow v9, and IPFIX. It also mentions sampling and flow aggregation.
  • Part 2 describes sFlow, port mirroring and sampled mirroring, and the use of IPFIX/Netflow v9 to transport mirrored traffic.

These blog posts will not make you an expert but will give you an excellent overview of the telemetry landscape1.

  1. Hint: more than enough to turn you into an instant AI-assisted LinkedIn garbage generator Thought Leaderâ„¢ 😜 ↩︎

Introduction of an Artificial Neuron

 Introduction 


Before diving into the somewhat complex world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), let’s first consider what intelligence means from a human perspective. Judo, as a martial art, serves as a good—though not an obvious—example. I trained in judo for over 20 years. During that time, I learned which throwing techniques to use to take down an opponent efficiently by leveraging their movement energy and reactions. But how did I learn that? Through a supervised training process, where our coach first taught us the throwing techniques and the situations in which they work best. Then, we practiced them ourselves. Mastering these techniques requires thousands of repetitions before achieving perfection. Ultimately, timing and reaction to the opponent’s movements play a significant role in determining whether a throw is successful or not. After mastering several throwing technics, I was capable of apply them in the situation not necessarily to seen before.

How does this relate to Artificial Intelligence (AI)? AI is a broad term encompassing solutions that aim to mimic human brain functions. A subset of AI is Machine Learning (ML), which enables systems to make decisions based on input data without being explicitly programmed for each scenario. The driving force behind this Continue reading

Palo Alto Clientless VPN Configuration

Palo Alto Clientless VPN Configuration

As the title suggests, Palo Alto's clientless VPN allows users to access internal resources (HTTPS-based) without installing the GlobalProtect client. This is useful when you have an internal application that external contractors need to use, but they may not want to install a VPN client. All they need to do is open a browser, log in to your GlobalProtect portal, and access the applications directly. In this blog post, we'll go through the steps to configure Palo Alto Clientless VPN.

As always, if you find this post helpful, press the ‘clap’ button. It means a lot to me and helps me know you enjoy this type of content.

Overview

GlobalProtect Clientless VPN lets users securely access internal web applications from a browser without installing the GlobalProtect client. This is helpful for providing partners or contractors with access to specific internal applications. You can set up the GlobalProtect portal landing page to give users direct access to these applications.

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Clientless VPN acts as a reverse proxy, intercepting and modifying web pages from internal applications before presenting them to remote users. When users access these URLs, their requests pass through the GlobalProtect portal.

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Before proceeding, Continue reading

From Python to Go 014. Basic SSH Interaction With Network Devices.

Hello my friend,

As mentioned in the previous blogpost, we started talking about practical usage of Python and Go (Golang) for network and IT infrastructure automation. Today we’ll take a look how we can interact with any SSH-speaking device, whether it is a network device, server, or anything else.

You Put So Much Content For Free Online, Why To Join Trainings Then?

Our ultimate goal is to make you successful with software developing for IT infrastructure management. Out blogs are the first step so that you can get up to speed if you already well equipped with fundamentals as protocols, data formats, etc. We believe that sharing is caring, hence we share back our knowledge with you, so that your path could be a little bit easier and quicker, so that you have more time to focus on what matters. If that’s enough for you to move forward, that’s great.

At the same time, if you feel you need more, you want to have finely-curated labs, slack support and deep dive not just in coding, but really in fundamentals, our training programs are here for you:

We offer the following training programs in network automation for you:

Vast Data Builds Out Data Platform With Block Storage And Kafka Streams

If you are going to be audacious enough to call the thing you are creating Universal Storage, then by definition it has to do everything – meaning support every kind of data format and access protocol, and do so with good performance on all fronts. …

Vast Data Builds Out Data Platform With Block Storage And Kafka Streams was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Choosing the Right Transport Protocol: TCP vs. UDP vs. QUIC

We often think of protocol choice as a purely technical decision, but it’s a critical factor in the user experience and how your application is consumed. This is a high-impact business decision, making it crucial for the technical team first to understand the business situation and priorities. Choosing the right transport protocol — TCP, UDP or QUIC — profoundly impacts scalability, reliability and performance. These protocols function like different postal services, each offering a unique approach to delivering messages across networks. Should your platform prioritize the reliability of a certified letter, the speed of a doorstep drop-off or the innovation of a couriered package with signature confirmation? This decision-making framework breaks down the strengths, weaknesses, and ideal use cases of TCP, UDP and QUIC. It gives platform engineers and architects the insights to choose the proper protocol for their systems. Overview of Protocols Most engineers are familiar with TCP and have heard of UDP. Some may even have hands-on experience with QUIC. However, to make the right choice, it’s helpful to align on how these protocols compare before diving into the decision-making framework. TCP: The Certified Letter

Weekend Reads 022125


It’s no wonder that techno-futurists trumpet a coming machine intelligence with such ease — they’ve lowered the standards so much to begin with.


While companies are going to extraordinary lengths to obtain valuable compute power to satisfy artificial intelligence’s (AI) growing appetite, a group of vendors have found a way to dip into the existing infrastructure for the extra shot of compute.


To ensure stability and security, every IXP enforces a set of rules — a code of conduct for its participants. These rules go beyond technical niceties; they are essential safeguards for the entire ecosystem.


The terms Digital Sovereignty or Souveraineté numérique have recently risen in prominence to describe the international rule of law as it applies to information and communication technologies.


In this second installment of Beyond Their Intended Scope, we analyze a recent BGP leak out of Brazil that briefly affected networks around the world.

Run BGP Across a Firewall

When I asked my readers what they would consider a good use case for EBGP multihop (thanks again to everyone who answered!), many suggested running BGP across a layer-3 firewall (Running BGP across a “transparent” (bump-in-the-wire) firewall is trivial). I turned that suggestion into a lab exercise in which you have to establish an EBGP multihop session across a “firewall” simulated by a Linux host.

If you haven’t set up your own lab infrastructure, click here to start the lab in your browser using GitHub Codespaces. After starting your codespace, change the directory to basic/e-ebgp-multihop and execute netlab up.

N4N014: Spanning Tree Part 2 – Root Bridge, Edge Port, Forwarding and Blocking

Welcome to part 2 of our spanning tree series. We start with a quick review and then discuss root bridges, root ports, designated ports, and forwarding and blocked ports.  We explain the impact of topology changes on spanning tree and network performance, and discuss how topology changes and convergence events are communicated. Last but not... Read more »

High-Performance Kubernetes Networking with Calico eBPF

Kubernetes has revolutionized cloud-native applications, but networking remains a crucial aspect of ensuring scalability, security, and performance. Default networking approaches, such as iptables-based packet filtering, often introduce performance bottlenecks due to inefficient packet processing and complex rule evaluations. This is where Calico eBPF comes into play, offering a powerful alternative that enhances networking efficiency and security at scale.

Understanding Kubernetes Networking

Kubernetes networking consists of two primary components:

  1. Physical Network Infrastructure – Connects cloud resources to external networks, ensuring communication between nodes and the broader internet.
  2. Cluster Network Infrastructure – Manages internal workload communication within the Kubernetes cluster, including service-to-service traffic and pod-to-pod interactions.

Choosing the right data plane is critical for optimal performance. Factors such as cluster size, throughput, and security requirements should guide this choice. Poor networking choices can lead to congestion, excessive latency, and resource starvation.

Data Plane Options in Kubernetes Networking

Networking in Kubernetes is an abstract idea. While Kubernetes lays the foundation, your Container Networking Interface (CNI) is in charge of the actual networking. To better understand networking, we usually divide it into two sections: a control plane and a data plane.

  • Control Plane – Control plane is the part that manages how Continue reading

Arista Can Ride AI Up Past $10 Billion In 2026

In many ways, Arista Networks still behaves like a startup even though it was founded twenty years ago, rollout out its first products a little more than a decade and a half ago, went public a decade ago, and now as over 10,000 customers and over 100 million Ethernet ports sold that generated a cumulative $32 billion in revenues for hardware, software, and support. …

Arista Can Ride AI Up Past $10 Billion In 2026 was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Python Getters, Setters and @property Decorator

Python Getters, Setters and @property Decorator

When I first started working with Python classes, some of the most confusing topics were getters, setters, and @property. There are plenty of tutorials on how to use them, but very few actually explain why do we need them or what problem do they solve. So, I thought I’d write a dedicated post covering what they are and the problems they solve. Let’s get to it.

As always, if you find this post helpful, press the ‘clap’ button. It means a lot to me and helps me know you enjoy this type of content.

Python OOP - Method vs Function and the Mystery of ‘self’
I just realized how much I didn’t understand about Python Object-Oriented Programming. I thought I knew the basics, but a few days ago, while going through a Python course, I found out I was wrong.
Python Getters, Setters and @property DecoratorPacketswitchSuresh Vina
Python Getters, Setters and @property Decorator

Python Classes

Before diving in, let's have a quick look at a Python class. Here’s a simple example of a Person class with two attributes name and age.

class Person:
    def __init__(self, name, age):
        self.name = name
        self.age = age

I'm going to create an instance of the class called p1, passing Continue reading

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