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Public clouds abstract away much of the nitty-gritty work that goes into provisioning infrastructure, including networking. Application teams can quickly connect resources and deploy applications without having to know much about the plumbing that links everything together. When they compare the public cloud experience to standing up applications in an on-prem data center, the on-prem experience…isn’t so great. There are tickets and configurations and ports and policies and hours–or days–of waiting.

Today on Heavy Networking, sponsored by Juniper, we’ll talk about how Juniper’s Apstra software can help you operate your on-prem data center more like a public cloud; meaning service provisioning that’s repeatable, standardized, and straightforward to consume. We’ll also talk about how Apstra now works with Terraform to help streamline network self-service.

Episode Guest: Chris Marget | Senior Product Manager, Juniper Networks

Chris is long-time network engineer, network consultant, and product manager.

LinkedIn | Mastodon

Show Links:

Apstra Provider – Terraform

Juniper Terraform Apstra Examples – GitHub

Cloud Style On Premises Networking with Juniper Apstra – Tech Field Day via YouTube

As Kubernetes becomes more mainstream and overall “stable,” organizations need a way to get enterprise support and proper upgrade paths. Brendan Burns, co-founder of Kubernetes, joins the show to discuss Kubernetes LTS—long-term support. Brendan shares how he and his team are bringing this to life at Microsoft with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), and what you can expect moving forward for upgrades and overall support.

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Kubernetes Unpacked is part of the Packet Pushers network. Visit our website to find more great networking and technology podcasts, along with tutorial videos, the Human Infrastructure newsletter, and loads more resources for building your IT career. https://packetpushers.net

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In this episode Ed, Scott, and Tom discuss the Customer-Side Translator (CLAT) function and its role in enabling client connectivity in IPv6-only networks.

Topics discussed include:



* Traditional use of the CLAT and 464XLAT by mobile service providers

* How the CLAT may be used in enterprise IPv6-only networks

* Where DNS64/NAT64 doesn’t work and drives the need for a CLAT-based solution

* Current host OS support for CLAT



Thanks for listening!

Show Links:

RFC 6877: 464XLAT: Combination of Stateful and Stateless Translation – IETF

Additional Deployment Guidelines for NAT64/464XLAT in Operator and Enterprise Networks (RFC 8683) – IETF

Deploying IPv6-Mostly Access Networks – RIPE

From using hollow core fiber to building networks designed to support AI workloads and modern applications, there’s a lot happening  in Azure networking. In this sponsored Day Two Cloud episode, recorded live at Microsoft Ignite this November, we have a wide-ranging discussion about new and forthcoming features and capabilities.

My guest is Narayan Annamalai, who leads Product Management for Azure Networking services. We discuss announcements made at the conference as well as how Microsoft’s use of hollow core fiber will impact customers, the general availability of Virtual Network Manager, routing improvements, a tech preview of IPAM in vNet Manager, updates around containers and security, and more.

Show Links:

Azure Updates

Azure Virtual Network Manager Security Admin Rule generally available in select regions – Azure

Public preview: ExpressRoute Seamless Gateway Migration – Azure

Public preview: ExpressRoute Scalable Gateway – Azure

General availability: ExpressRoute Direct and Circuit in different subscriptions – Azure

General availability: ExpressRoute as a Trusted Service – Azure

Public preview: Confidential containers on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) – Azure

Isovalent Cilium Enterprise in Azure Marketplace – Azure

The Concept of Cognitive Load in Platforms

Our conversation began with an exploration of the concept of cognitive load in relation to platforms. David, despite being an IT professional and not a psychiatrist, brought an intriguing perspective to the table. He emphasized how platforms, such as VMware, Kubernetes, and Cloud Foundry, are designed to remove effort from users, making it easier for them to build and accomplish tasks.

However, he pointed out that while everyone is focused on making the developer experience easy, they often overlook the impact of cognitive load on the entire organization. This cognitive load, or mental workload, encompasses the challenges of getting tasks done.

The Purpose of Platforms in IT

We then shifted our discussion to the purpose of platforms in IT, which is to reduce the cognitive burden and allow humans to focus on the business problem rather than the underlying technology. As platforms become more complex, it becomes impossible for developers to be conscious of every technical detail. The goal is to abstract away the complexity and allow developers to focus on their tasks.

While it’s important to learn the basics, when working, developers should not actively think about them unless it’s necessary. We concluded this part of our discussion by emphasizing the importance of finding platforms that are appropriate for the organization’s capabilities and needs.

Managing Complexity in Platforms

Our conversation then moved to the concept of managing complexity in platforms. We highlighted that building a platform does not eliminate complexity, but rather manages it for a specific consumption of services. We drew parallels between the simplification of hardware infrastructure with the introduction of VMware for virtualization and the restricted choices in microservices with containers and immutable infrastructure.

We also touched on the shift in responsibility from IT groups to developers in terms of managing platforms. We discussed how the level of support and access to abstractions can vary depending on the organization. We mentioned the cognitive load involved in load balancing and how the cost of elastic load balancing in AWS has become a significant expense for customers.

Practical Implications of Understanding Cognitive Load

We explored the practical implications of understanding cognitive load in platforms. We suggested evaluating the effectiveness of the platform and its usability by considering the activities and mental workload required for different tasks. We emphasized the importance of treating platforms as businesses with customers and gathering feedback to improve the user experience.

We concluded our conversation with a mention of the potential role of AI in analyzing and optimizing cognitive load. We discussed the possibility of automating data collection and analysis to identify areas where time and effort are being spent and make informed decisions about platform usage and optimization.

Cognitive Load and Its Impact on Problem-Solving and Decision-Making

Our conversation revolved around the concept of cognitive load and its impact on problem-solving and decision-making. We discussed how technology has evolved over the years, making it easier to analyze data and observe behaviors to optimize processes. However, we emphasized the importance of considering the subjective experience of individuals in the organization and understanding their feelings towards their work.

The Balance Between Experience and Innovation

We shifted to the balance between experience and innovation, with David mentioning the danger of engineers sticking to outdated solutions. We also discussed the importance of distributing cognitive load within a team and the concept of psychological capital, which includes personal efficacy and belief in one’s ability to get things done.

 

If you’re not paying attention to mDNS traffic, it might be hurting your Wi-Fi performance in a big way. Bryan Ward shares his research looking at the mDNS protocol on a higher ed network and its dramatic impact on Wi-Fi airtime. Bryan shares his experience of identifying and resolving network issues related to mDNS traffic and client isolation. He highlights the importance of airtime in Wi-Fi networks and the challenges of scaling mDNS technology in enterprise environments. Bryan also discusses his research methodology, the discovery of other protocols causing network congestion, and the need for additional filtering in network switches. He provides advice for network administrators and shares potential solutions to these issues.

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Heavy Wireless is part of the Packet Pushers network. Visit our website to find more great networking and technology podcasts, along with tutorial videos, the Human Infrastructure newsletter, and loads more resources for building your IT career. https://packetpushers.net

. . . . .

Love the show? Please leave us a 5-star review and share your favorite episodes with friends and colleagues. We really appreciate your support!

. . . . .

Find your tribe. The Packet Pushers Slack community is the place to be for making career connections, finding collaborators, getting help with an IT problem, or simply screaming your frustrations to people who understand. https://packetpushers.net/community