The Fat Pipe - Most Popular Packet Pushers Pods

AI and machine learning are being more widely used in IT and elsewhere. Today's episode opens the AI magic box to better understand what's inside, including software and hardware. We discuss essentials such as training models and parameters, software components, GPUs, networking, and storage. We also discuss using cloud-based AI platforms vs. building your own in-house, and what to consider when assembling your own AI infrastructure.

Today's episode includes Cisco patching a critical vulnerability affecting IOS-XE gear, startup Prosimo releasing a cost calculator to help network engineers track their public cloud networking costs, and Juniper integrating its SD-WAN to the AWS cloud WAN. We also cover Cisco's investment in a quantum networking startup, growing DPU sales, and Intel divesting from pluggable optical modules.

AI and machine learning are finally being applied to networking in meaningful ways. On today's sponsored show we talk with Selector about its AIOps platform, which ingests networking logs, flows, configurations, SNMP, and other telemetry to detect patterns, spot problems, and provide contextual insights to help network engineers do their jobs better. We speak with Selector about what it is, how it works, and concrete use cases.

On today's Day Two Cloud we talk about how to build a successful security practice within your organization. Our guest is Swathi Joshi, VP, SaaS Cloud Security at Oracle. She breaks down security teams into three core groups: proactive security, defensive security, and assurance (risk reduction, enabling secure access, meeting compliance requirements). She also shares her insights around SoCs, security automation, threat and vulnerability management, and successful blue team practices.

This week's IT news podcast covers a serious Cisco exploit against IOS XE, new firewalls from Juniper, Broadcom's hopes to capture the routing market with merchant silicon, more movement on restoring net neutrality in the US, and more.

Today’s Heavy Networking is about collaborative automation via GitNops, which applies DevOps principles to networking. That means things like version control, working with sources of truth, operating infrastructure as code, and collaborating on network on changes and updates. GitNops benefits include automation, repeatability, and scalability. We'll dive into GitNops with guest Tom McGonagle.

The goal of private AI is to bring AI models and compute to where your data is stored to ensure privacy and control. On today's Day Two Cloud, sponsored by VMware, we dig more deeply into private AI, major use cases, and the kinds of data that get fed into a private AI system. We also discuss the infrastructure required to build out a private AI platform, how to connect to your data stores, and  VMware's role in virtualizing GPUs to maximize efficiency.

This week's Network Break covers a new set of Layer 1 switches from Arista for high-frequency trading, Ruckus announcing a (pre-ratified) Wi-Fi 7 AP, and AWS planning to require multi-factor authentication starting in mid-2024. MGM Resorts says it will take a $100 million hit due to a security breach, the UK finally fines Equifax for a 2017 breach, and Broadcom may have cleared a China hurdle to its VMware acquisition.

Today on Heavy Networking we talk about how to get from a handful of Python scripts to a network automation platform that enables a self-service environment and incorporates the checks and governance required to make sure the automation doesn't blow up the network. Our sponsor today is Itential. Itential offers just such a network automation platform. We talk about how Itential makes it happen, including simple and more complex examples.

Today's Day Two Cloud covers highlights from a recent Edge Field Day event. Ned Bellavance was a delegate at the event and will share perceptions and insights based on presentations from the event. Topics include a working definition of edge, the constraints of hosting infrastructure in edge locations (power, space, network connectivity and others), and operational models for running software and services in these environments.