Software Gone Wild by ipSpace.net
A podcast focusing on real-life SDN, NFV and SDDC architectures and solutions that work outside of the cozy environment of vendor-branded PowerPoint.
Episodes
AI in Networking with Andrew Yourtchenko
I always wanted to find someone who is more positive about AI than I am, while having solid “can deliver working stuff at scale” credentials. Andrew Yourtchenko definitely fits the bill. I first met him (online) when he was still an engineer in Cisco TAC, and when we finally met in person, he was busy automating the deployment of Cisco Live networking infrastructure. He was also instr
State of Network Automation with Urs Baumann
I stopped tracking the (lack of) progress in network automation years ago, when I realized I had nothing new to say. As an eternal optimist, I hoped I was just missing something, but Urs Baumann (the guest of Software Gone Wild Episode 206) destroyed my hopes when he said, “I can still use the same slides I created 10 years ago”. On a more positive note, he recently completed his Maste
Network Device Telemetry Protocols with Dinesh Dutt
Whenever I’m ranting about vendors changing their data models or APIs with every other release, there is inevitably a vendor engineer chiming in, saying, “Life would be so much better if the customers wouldn’t insist on doing screen scraping for the last 50 years.”
While some of that screen scraping is pure inertia, we sometimes have good reasons to do it rather than use pr
Infrahub with Damien Garros
Why do we need Infrahub, another network automation tool? What does it bring to the table, who should be using it, and why is it using a graph database internally?
I discussed these questions with Damien Garros, the driving force behind Infrahub, the founder of OpsMill (the company developing it), and a speaker in the ipSpace.net Network Automation course.
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IETF v6ops Working Group with Nick Buraglio
The first IPv6 specs were published in 1995, and yet 30 years later, we still have a pretty active IETF working group focused on “developing guidelines for the deployment and operation of new and existing IPv6 networks.” (taken from the old charter; they updated it in late October 2025). Why is it taking so long, and what problems are they trying to solve?
Nick Buraglio, one of the wor
Using netlab for Classroom Training with Sander Steffann
In March 2024, I received my first PR from an airplane: Sander Steffann was flying to South Africa to deliver an Ansible training and fixed a minor annoyance in the then-new multilab feature.
Of course, I wanted to know more about his setup, but it took us over a year and a half till we managed to sit down (virtually) and chat about it, the state of IPv6, the impact of CG-NAT on fraud prevention,
Working for a Vendor with David Gee
When I first met David Gee, he worked for a large system integrator. A few years later, he moved to a networking vendor, worked for a few of them, then for a software vendor, and finally decided to start his own system integration business.
Obviously, I wanted to know what drove him to make those changes, what lessons he learned working in various parts of the networking industry, and what (lookin
Labbing Network Technology Details with netlab
It’s been over four years since I published the last Software Gone Wild episode. In the meantime, I spent most of my time developing an open-source labbing tool, so it should be no surprise that the first post-hiatus episode focused on a netlab use case: how Ethan Banks (of the PacketPushers fame) is using the tool to quickly check the technology details for his N is for Networking podcast.
Bringing New Engineers into Networking on Software Gone Wild
As I started Software Gone Wild podcast in June 2014, I wanted to help networking engineers grow beyond the traditional networking technologies. It’s only fitting to conclude this project almost seven years and 116 episodes later with a similar theme Avi Freedman proposed when we started discussing podcast topics in late 2020: how do we make networking attractive to young engineers.
Elisa Ja
FreeRTR Deep Dive on Software Gone Wild
This podcast introduction was written by Nick Buraglio, the host of today’s podcast.
In today’s evolving landscape of whitebox, brightbox, and software routing, a small but incredibly comprehensive routing platform called FreeRTR has quietly been evolving out of a research and education service provider network in Hungary.
Kevin Myers of IPArchitechs brought this to my attention aroun
Streaming Telemetry with Avi Freedman on Software Gone Wild
Remember my rant how “fail fast, fail often sounds great in a VC pitch deck, and sucks when you have to deal with its results”? Streaming telemetry is no exception to this rule, and Avi Freedman (CEO of Kentik) has been on the receiving end of this gizmo long enough to have to deal with several generations of experiments… and formed a few strong opinions.
Unfortunately Avi is st
Faucet Deep Dive on Software Gone Wild
This podcast introduction was written by Nick Buraglio, the host of today’s podcast.
In the original days of this podcast, there were heavy, deep discussions about this new protocol called “OpenFlow”. Like many of our most creative innovations in the IT field, OpenFlow came from an academic research project that aimed to change the way that we as operators managed, configured, and even thoug
BGP Navel Gazing on Software Gone Wild
This podcast introduction was written by Nick Buraglio, the host of today’s podcast.
As we all know, BGP runs the networked world. It is a protocol that has existed and operated in the vast expanse of the internet in one form or another since early 1990s, and despite the fact that it has been extended, enhanced, twisted, and warped into performing a myriad of tasks that one would never have
SuzieQ with Dinesh Dutt and Justin Pietsch on Software Gone Wild
In early May 2020 I wrote a blog post introducing SuzieQ, a network observability platform Dinesh Dutt worked on for the last few years. If that blog post made you look for more details, you might like the Episode 111 of Software Gone Wild in which we went deeper and covered these topics:
How does SuzieQ collect data
What data is it collecting from network devices
What can you do with that data
H
Smart NICs with Silvano Gai on Software Gone Wild
A while ago we discussed a software-focused view of Network Interface Cards (NICs) with Luke Gorrie, and a hardware-focused view of them with Or Gerlitz (Mellanox), Andy Gospodarek (Broadcom) and Jiri Pirko (Mellanox).
Why would anyone want to implement features in hardware and not in software, and what would be the best hardware implementation? We discussed these dilemmas with Silvano Gai in Epis
Overlay Networking with Ouroboros on Software Gone Wild
This podcast introduction was written by Nick Buraglio, the host of today’s podcast.
As private overlays are becoming more and more prevalent and as SD-WAN systems and technologies advance, it remains critical that we continue to investigate how we think about internetworking. Even with platforms such as Slack Nebula, Zerotier, or the wireguard based TailScale becoming a mainstream staple o
NetDev 0x13 on Software Gone Wild
The last Software Gone Wild podcast recorded in 2019 focused on advances in Linux networking - in particular on interesting stuff presented at NetDev 0x13 conference in Prague. The guests (in alphabetical first name order) Jamal Hadi Salim, Shrijeet Mukherjee, Sowmini Varadhan, and Tom Herbert shared their favorite topics, and commented on the future of Linux networking.
IP Fabric with Gian-Paolo Boarina on Software Gone Wild
No, we were not talking about IP fabrics in general - IP Fabric is a network management software (oops, network assurance platform) Gian Paolo discovered a while ago and thoroughly tested in the meantime.
He was kind enough to share what he found in Episode 107 of Software Gone Wild, and as Chris Young succinctly summarized: “it’s really sad what we still get excited about something 30
OpenBGPD with Claudio Jeker on Software Gone Wild
Everyone is talking about FRRouting suite these days, while hidden somewhere in the background OpenBGPD has been making continuous progress for years. Interestingly, OpenBGPD project was started for the same reason FRR was forked - developers were unhappy with Zebra or Quagga routing suite and decided to fix it.
We discussed the history of OpenBGPD, its current deployments and future plans with Cl
Net2Text: Natural-Language Interface to Network Operations
Sick-and-tired of intent-based GUIs that are barely better than CiscoWorks on steroids? How about asking Siri-like assistant queries about network state in somewhat-limited English and getting replies back in full-blown sentences?
Warning: you might be reentering the land of unicorns driving flying DeLoreans... but then keep in mind what Arthur Clarke had to say on this topic ;).
Welcome to Net2Te
Intent-Based Networking with Batfish on Software Gone Wild
Imagine you would have a system that would read network device configurations, figure out how those devices might be connected, reverse-engineer the network topology, and be able to answer questions like “what would happen if this link fails” or “do I have fully-redundant network” or even “how will this configuration change impact my network”. Welcome to Batfish
Device Configuration Synthesis with NetComplete on Software Gone Wild
When I was still at university the fourth-generation programming languages were all the hype, prompting us to make jokes along the lines “fifth generation will implement do what I don’t know how”
The research team working in Networked Systems Group at ETH Zurich headed by prof. Laurent Vanbever got pretty close. The description of their tool says:
Programmable Packet Forwarding Pipelines Using P4 on Software Gone Wild
Every time a new simple programming language is invented, we go through the same predictable cycle:
Tons of hype;
Unbounded enthusiasm when people who never worked in target environment realize they could get something simple done in a short time;
Ever-worsening headaches as the enthusiasts try to get a real job done with the shiny new tool;
Disappointment;
A more powerful language is invented to
Using Faucet to Build SC18 Network with OpenFlow
Remember how Nick Buraglio tried to use OpenDaylight to build a small part of SuperComputing conference network… and ended up with a programmable patch panel?
This time he repeated the experiment using Faucet SDN Controller – an OpenFlow controller focused on getting the job done – and described his experience in Episode 101 of Software Gone Wild.
We started with the usual “what problem were you t
Multipath TCP on Software Gone Wild
I mentioned Multipath TCP (MP-TCP) numerous times in the past but I never managed to get beyond “this is the thing that might solve some TCP multihoming challenges” We fixed this omission in Episode 100 of Software Gone Wild with Christoph Paasch (software engineer @ Apple) and Mat Martineau from Open Source Technology Center @ Intel.
Smart NICs and Related Linux Kernel Infrastructure
A while ago we did a podcast with Luke Gorrie in which he explained why he’d love to have simple, dumb, and easy-to-work-with Ethernet NICs. What about the other side of the coin – smart NICs with their own CPU, RAM and operating system? Do they make sense, when and why would you use them, and how would you integrate them with Linux kernel?
We discussed these challenges with Or Gerlitz (Mellanox),
High-Speed IPsec on Snabb Switch on Software Gone Wild
In previous Software Gone Wild episodes we covered Snabb Switch and numerous applications running on it, from L2VPN to 4over6 gateway and integration with Juniper vMX code.
In Episode 98 we focused on another interesting application developed by Max Rottenkolber: high-speed VPN gateway using IPsec on top of Snabb Switch (details). Enjoy!
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Network Reliability Engineering on Software Gone Wild
In summer 2018 Juniper started talking about another forward-looking concept: Network Reliability Engineering. We wanted to find out whether that’s another unicorn driving DeLorean with flux capacitors or something more tangible, so we invited Matt Oswalt, the author of Network Reliability Engineer’s Manifesto to talk about it in Episode 97 of Software Gone Wild.
Using Math in Networking on Software Gone Wild
We love to claim that we’re engineers and yet sometimes we have no clue how technology we use really works and what its limitations are… quite often because understanding those limitations would involve diving pretty deep into math (graphs, queuing and system reliability quickly come to mind).
From Excel to Network Infrastructure as Code with Carl Buchmann
After a series of forward-looking podcast episodes we returned to real life and talked with Carl Buchmann about his network automation journey, from managing upgrades with Excel and using Excel as the configuration consistency tool to network-infrastructure-as-code concepts he described in a guest blog post in February 2018
netdev 0x12 Update on Software Gone Wild
In recent years Linux networking started evolving at an amazing pace. You can hear about all the cool new stuff at netdev conference… or listen to Episode 94 of Software Gone Wild to get a CliffsNotes version.
Roopa Prabhu, Jamal Hadi Salim, and Tom Herbert joined Nick Buraglio and myself and we couldn’t help diverging into the beauties of tc, and the intricacies of low-latency forwarding before c
Smart or Dumb NICs on Software Gone Wild
Hardware vendors are always making their silicon more complex and feature-rich. Is that a great idea or a disaster waiting to happen? We asked Luke Gorrie, the lead developer of Snabb Switch (an open-source user-land virtual switch written in Lua) about his opinions on the topic.
TL&DL version: Give me a dumb NIC, software can do everything else.
If you want to know more, listen to Episode 93
Is BGP Good Enough with Dinesh Dutt on Software Gone Wild
In recent Software Gone Wild episodes we explored emerging routing protocols trying to address the specific needs of highly-meshed data center fabrics – RIFT and OpenFabric. In Episode 92 with Dinesh Dutt we decided to revisit the basics trying to answer a seemingly simple question: do we really need new routing protocols?
Snabb Switch Update on Software Gone Wild
In 2014, we did a series of podcasts on Snabb Switch (Snabb Switch and OpenStack, Deep Dive), a software-only switch delivering 10-20 Gbps of forwarded bandwidth per x86 core. In the meantime, Snabb community slowly expanded, optimized the switching code, built a number of solutions on top of the packet forwarding core, and even forked a just-in-time Lua compiler to get better performance.
To find
Network Automation with Nornir (formerly Brigade) on Software Gone Wild
David Barroso was sick-and-tired of using ZX Spectrum of Network Automation and decided to create an alternative with similar functionality but a proper programming language instead of YAML dictionaries masquerading as one. The result: Nornir, an interesting network automation tool formerly known as Brigade we discussed in Episode 90 of Software Gone Wild.
OpenFabric with Russ White on Software Gone Wild
Continuing the series of data center routing protocol podcasts, we sat down with Russ White (of the CCDE fame), author of another proposal: OpenFabric.
As always, we started with the “what’s wrong with what we have right now, like using BGP as a better IGP” question, resulting in “BGP is becoming the trash can of the Internet”.
Data Center Routing with RIFT on Software Gone Wild
Years ago Petr Lapukhov decided that it’s a waste of time to try to make OSPF or IS-IS work in large-scale data center leaf-and-spine fabrics and figured out how to use BGP as a better IGP.
In the meantime, old-time routing gurus started designing routing protocols targeting a specific environment: highly meshed leaf-and-spine fabrics. First in the list: Routing in Fat Trees (RIFT).
Linux Interfaces on Software Gone Wild
Continuing the Linux networking discussion we had in Episode 86, we focused on Linux interfaces in Episode 87 of Software Gone Wild with Roopa Prabhu and David Ahern.
We started with simple questions like “what is an interface” and “how do they get such weird names in some Linux distributions” which quickly turned into a complex discussion about kernel objects and udev, and details of implementing
Packet Forwarding on Linux on Software Gone Wild
Linux operating system is used as the foundation for numerous network operating systems including Arista EOS and Cumulus Linux. It provides most networking constructs we grew familiar with including interfaces, VLANs, routing tables, VRFs and contexts, but they behave slightly differently from what we’re used to.
In Software Gone Wild Episode 86 Roopa Prabhu and David Ahern explained the fun
How Did NETCONF Start on Software Gone Wild
A long while ago Marcel Wiget sent me an interesting email along the lines “I think you should do a Software Gone Wild podcast with Phil Shafer, the granddaddy of NETCONF”
Not surprisingly, as we started discovering the history behind NETCONF we quickly figured out that all the API and automation hype being touted these days is nothing new – some engineers have been doing that stuff for almost 20
Ethernet History on Software Gone Wild
During Cisco Live Berlin 2017 Peter Jones (chair of several IEEE task forces) and myself went on a journey through 40 years of Ethernet history (and Token Bus and a few other choice technologies).
The sound quality is what you could expect from something recorded on a show floor with pigeons flying around, but I hope you’ll still enjoy our chat.
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Networking Trends Discussion with Andrew Lerner and Simon Richard: Part 2
In June 2017, we concluded the Building Next Generation Data Center online course with a roundtable discussion with Andrew Lerner, Research Vice President, Networking, and Simon Richard, Research Director, Data Center Networking @ Gartner.
In the second half of our discussion (first half is here) we focused on these topics:
Self-Driving Networks with Kireeti Kompella
A while ago I got a kind email from Kireeti Kompella, CTO @ Juniper Networks, saying “A colleague sent me an email of yours regarding SDN, the trough of disillusionment, and the rise of automation. Here's a more dramatic view: the Self-Driving Network -- one whose operation is totally automated.”
Even though Software Gone Wild podcast focuses on practical ideas that you could deploy relatively so
Networking Trends Discussion with Andrew Lerner and Simon Richard
In June 2017, we concluded the Building Next Generation Data Center online course with a roundtable discussion with Andrew Lerner, Research Vice President, Networking, and Simon Richard, Research Director, Data Center Networking @ Gartner.
During the first 45 minutes, we covered a lot of topics including:
Packet Fabric on Software Gone Wild
Imagine a service provider that allows you to provision 100GE point-to-point circuit between any two of their POPs through a web site and delivers in seconds (assuming you’ve already solved the physical connectivity problem). That’s the whole idea of SDN, right? Only not so many providers got there yet.
Start Using OpenConfig with NAPALM on Software Gone Wild
OpenConfig sounds like a great idea, but unfortunately only a few vendors support it, and it doesn’t run on all their platforms, and you need the latest-and-greatest software release. Not exactly a set of conditions that would encourage widespread adoption.
Things might change with the OpenConfig data models supported in NAPALM. Imagine you could parse router configurations or show printouts into
Network Testing on Software Gone Wild
Network automation and orchestration is a great idea… but how do you verify that what your automation script wants to do won’t break the network? In Episode 78 of Software Gone Wild we discussed the intricacies of testing network automation solutions with Kristian Larsson (developer of Terastream orchestration softare) and David Barroso of the NAPALM and SDN Internet Router fame.
Salt and SaltStack on Software Gone Wild
Ansible, Puppet, Chef, Git, GitLab… the list of tools you can supposedly use to automate your network is endless, and there’s a new kid on the block every few months.
In Episode 77 of Software Gone Wild we explored Salt, its internal architecture, and how you can use it with Mircea Ulinic, a happy Salt user/contributor working for Cloudflare, and Seth House, developer @ SaltStack, the company beh
Programmable ASICs on Software Gone Wild
During Cisco Live Europe 2017 (where I got thanks to the Tech Field Day crew kindly inviting me) I had a nice chat with Peter Jones, principal engineer @ Cisco Systems. We started with a totally tangential discussion on why startups fail, and quickly got back to flexible hardware and why one would want to have it in a switch.
NETCONF on Cisco Campus Switches on Software Gone Wild
During Cisco Live Europe (huge thanks to Tech Field Day crew for bringing me there) I had a chat with Jeff McLaughlin about NETCONF support on Cisco IOS XE, in particular on the campus switches.
We started with the obvious question “why would someone want to have NETCONF on a campus switch”, continued with “why would you use NETCONF and not REST API”, and diverted into “who loves regular expressio
TCP in the Data Center and Beyond on Software Gone Wild
In autumn 2016 I embarked on a quest to figure out how TCP really works and whether big buffers in data center switches make sense. One of the obvious stops on this journey was a chat with Thomas Graf, Linux Core Team member and a founding member of the Cilium project.
CloudScale ASICs on Software Gone Wild
Last year Cisco launched a new series of Nexus 9000 switches with table sizes that didn’t match any of the known merchant silicon ASICs. It was obvious they had to be using their own silicon – the CloudScale ASIC. Lukas Krattiger was kind enough to describe some of the details last November, resulting in Episode 73 of Software Gone Wild.
For even more details, watch the Cisco Nexus 9000 Architectu
OpenConfig: From Basics to Implementations
In 2013, large-scale cloud providers and ISPs decided they had enough of the glacial IETF process of generating YANG models used to describe device configuration and started OpenConfig – a customer-only initiative that quickly created data models covering typical use cases of the founding members (aka “What Does Google Need”).
Linux Networking Update from NetDev Conference on Software Gone Wild
When I recorded the first podcast with Thomas Graf we both found it so much fun that we decided to do it again. Thomas had attended the NetDev 1.2 conference so when we met in November 2016 we warmed up with What’s NetDev and then started discussing the hot new networking stuff being added to Linux kernel:
To Drop or To Delay, That’s the Question on Software Gone Wild
A while ago I decided it's time to figure out whether it's better to drop or to delay TCP packets, and quickly figured out you get 12 opinions (usually with no real arguments supporting them) if you ask 10 people. Fortunately, I know someone who deals with TCP performance for living, and Juho Snellman was kind enough to agree to record another podcast.
Update 2017-03-31: Added More information se
VXLAN Ping and Traceroute
From the moment Cisco and VMware announced VXLAN some networking engineers complained that they'd lose visibility into the end-to-end path. It took a long while, but finally the troubleshooting tools started appearing in VXLAN environment: NVO3 working group defined Fault Managemnet framework for overlay networks and Cisco implemented at least parts of it in recent Nexus OS releases.
You'll find m
Snabb Switch with vMX Control Plane on Software Gone Wild
In Software Gone Wild Episode 52 Katerina Barone-Adesi explained how Igalia implemented 4-over-6 tunnel termination (lwAFTR) with Snabb Switch. Their solution focused on very fast data plane and had no real control plane.
No problem – there are plenty of stable control planes on the market, all we need is some glue.
StackStorm 101 on Software Gone Wild
A few weeks ago Matt Oswalt wrote an interesting blog post on principles of automation, and we quickly agreed it’s a nice starting point for a podcast episode.
In the meantime Matt moved to StackStorm team so that became the second focus of our chat… and then we figured out it would be great to bring in Matt Stone (the hero of Episode 13).
Becoming a Programmer on Software Gone Wild
During our summer team-building podcast we agreed it would be fun to record a few episodes along the “how do I become a programmer” theme and figured out that Elisa Jasinska would be a perfect first candidate.
A few weeks ago we finally got together and started our chat with campfire stories remembering how we got started with networking and programming.
NAPALM Update on Software Gone Wild
We did a podcast describing NAPALM, an open-source multi-vendor abstraction library, a while ago, and as the project made significant progress in the meantime, it was time for a short update.
NAPALM started as a library that abstracted the intricacies of network device configuration management. Initially it supported configuration replace and merge; in the meantime, they added support for diffs an
Fast Linux Packet Forwarding with Thomas Graf on Software Gone Wild
We did several podcasts describing how one could get stellar packet forwarding performance on x86 servers reimplementing the whole forwarding stack outside of kernel (Snabb Switch) or bypassing the Linux kernel and moving the packet processing into userspace (PF_Ring).
Now let’s see if it’s possible to improve the Linux kernel forwarding performance. Thomas Graf, one of the authors of Cilium clai
Distributed On-Demand Network Testing (ToDD) with Matt Oswalt
In March 2016 my friend Matt Oswalt announced a distributed network testing framework that he used for validation in his network automation / continuous integration projects. Initial tests included ping and DNS probes, and he added HTTP testing in May 2016.
The project continues to grow (and already got its own Github and documentation page) and Matt was kind enough to share the news and future pl
Whitebox Switching at LinkedIn with Russ White on Software Gone Wild
When LinkedIn announced their Project Falco I knew exactly what one of my future Software Gone Wild podcasts would be: a chat with Russ White (Mr. CCDE, now network architect @ LinkedIn).
It took us a long while (and then the summer break intervened) but I finally got it published: Episode 62 is waiting for you.
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OpenStack on VMware NSX on Software Gone Wild
Does it make sense to run OpenStack on top of VMware infrastructure? How well does NSX work as a Neutron plug-in? Marcos Hernandez answered these questions (and a lot of others) in the Episode 61 of Software Gone Wild (admittedly after a short marketing pitch in the first 10 minutes).
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Software-Defined Navel Gazing
Software Gone Wild podcast is well into its toddler years and it was time for a teambuilding exercise. Just kidding – we wanted to test new tools and decided to discuss the vacation experiences and podcast ideas while doing that.
On a more serious note: we’re always looking for cool projects, implementations and ideas. Contact us at podcast (-the weird sign-) ipspace.net.
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Build Your Own Service Provider Gear on Software Gone Wild
A few days after I published a blog post arguing that most service providers cannot possibly copy Google’s ideas Giacomo Bernardi wrote a comment saying “well, we managed to build our own gear.”
Initially I thought they built their own Linux distribution on top of x86 server, but what Giacomo Bernardi described in Episode 59 of Software Gone Wild goes way beyond that:
Big Chain Deep Dive on Software Gone Wild
A while ago Big Switch Networks engineers realized there’s a cool use case for their tap aggregation application (Big Tap Monitoring Fabric) – an intelligent patch panel traffic steering solution used as security tool chaining infrastructure in DMZ… and thus the Big Chain was born.
Curious how their solution works? Listen to Episode 58 of Software Gone Wild with Andy Shaw and Sandip Shah.
Listen t
Using Macvlan and Ipvlan with Docker on Software Gone Wild
A few weeks after I published Docker Networking podcast, Brent Salisbury sent me an email saying “hey, we have experimental Macvlan and Ipvlan support for Docker” – a great topic for another podcast.
It took a while to get the stars aligned, but finally we got Brent, Madhu Venugopal, John Willis and Nick Buraglio on the same Skype call resulting in Episode 57 of Software Gone Wild.
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Model-Driven Networking on Software Gone Wild
The Model-driven Networking seems to be another buzzword riding on top of the SDN wave. What exactly is it, how is it supposed to work, will it be really vendor-independent, and has anyone implemented it? I tried to get some answers to these questions from Jeff Tantsura, chair of IETF Routing Area Working Group, in Episode 55 of Software Gone Wild.
More Open-Source Network Management Tools on Software Gone Wild
After listening to Open-Source Network Engineer Toolbox Nick Buraglio sent me an email saying “we should do another podcast on open-source network management tools…” and so we did. In Episode 56 of Software Gone Wild Nick, Elisa Jasinska and myself discussed a whole range of network management challenges and open-source tools you can use to address them.
Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) and Avaya Fabric on Software Gone Wild
A few months ago I met a number of great engineers from Avaya and they explained to me how they creatively use Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) to create layer-2, layer-3, L2VPN, L3VPN and even IP Multicast fabrics – it was clearly time for another deep dive into SPB.
It took me a while to meet again with Roger Lapuh, but finally we started exploring the intricacies of SPB, and even compared it to MPL
Palo Alto Integration with Cisco ACI and OpenStack on Software Gone Wild
A while ago Christer Swartz explained how a Palo Alto firewall integrates with VMware NSX. In the meantime, Palo Alto announced integration with Cisco ACI and OpenStack, and it was time for another podcast with Christer deep-diving into the technical details of these integrations.
Spoiler: It’s not OpFlex. For more details, listen to Episode 53 of Software Gone Wild
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x86-Based Switching at Ludicrous Speed on Software Gone Wild
Imagine you want to have an IPv6-only access network and transport residual IPv4 traffic tunneled across it. Sounds great, but you need to terminate those tunnels and encapsulate/decapsulate IPv4 traffic at multi-gigabit rate.
There are plenty of reassuringly-expensive hardware solutions that can do that, or you could work with really smart people and get software-based solution that can do 20 Gb
Troubleshoot Your Network with PacketDesign on Software Gone Wild
Imagine you get a routing outage in your network resulting in three minutes of traffic blackholing. After a few tense minutes it goes away and life is good, but you desperately want to know what went wrong. Can you figure it out? Well, you could if you were using PacketDesign tools, as Cengiz Alaettinoglu explained on Episode 51 of Software Gone Wild.
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VMware NSX Update on Software Gone Wild
A few months ago VMware launched NSX version 6.2, and I asked my friend Anthony Burke to tell us more about the new features. Not surprisingly, we quickly started talking about troubleshooting, routing problems, and finished with route-health-injection done with a Python script. The end result: Episode 50 of Software Gone Wild. Enjoy!
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Docker Networking on Software Gone Wild
A year and a half ago, Docker networking couldn’t span multiple hosts and used NAT with port mapping to expose container-based services to the outside world.
Docker is the hottest Linux container solution these days. Want to know more about it? Matt Oswalt is running Introduction to Docker webinar in a few days.
In August 2014 a small startup decided to change all that. Docker bought them before t
OpenSwitch Deep Dive on Software Gone Wild
A while ago I watched a Networking Field Day Extra video in which Chris Young and Michael Zayats talked about HP’s open source initiative – they decided to build yet another open networking operating system.
Obviously I wanted to know more, reached out to Chris, and we quickly managed to set up an online chat resulting in Episode 48 of Software Gone Wild podcast.
Running Open Daylight in Production Network on Software Gone Wild
Nick Buraglio used OpenDaylight and OpenFlow-enabled switches to build a part of the exhibition network of a large international supercomputing conference and was kind enough to talk about his real-life experience in Episode 47 of Software Gone Wild.
We covered:
CPLANE Networks on Software Gone Wild
When I wrote a blog post explaining the difference between centralized control and centralized control plane, John Casey, CEO of CPLANE Networks wrote a comment saying “yeah, that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
It took us a while to get the stars aligned, but finally we managed to sit down and chat about what they’re doing, resulting in Episode 46 of Software Gone Wild.
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Fibbing: OSPF-Based Traffic Engineering with Laurent Vanbever
You might be familiar with the idea of using BGP as an SDN tool that pushes forwarding entries into routing and forwarding tables of individual devices, allowing you to build hop-by-hop path across the network (more details in Packet Pushers podcast with Petr Lapukhov).
Researchers from University of Louvain, ETH Zürich and Princeton figured out how to use OSPF to get the same job done and called
