Hedge 205: Old Engineering Books (2)
For this month’s roundtable, Eyvonne, Tom, and I return to Addresses to Engineering Students by Harrington and Waddell. This book, published in 1912, is a “product of its time,” and hence deserves some trigger warnings. But it is also interesting to see how advice given to engineering students over 100 years ago holds up for today. Have engineering challenges, and the engineering life, changed all that much? What kinds of advice stand the test of time, what kinds do not?
Upcoming Pearson Class: Modern Network Troubleshooting
On the 26th of January, I’ll be teaching a webinar over at Safari Books Online (subscription service) called Modern Network Troubleshooting. From the blurb:
The first section of this class considers the nature of resilience, and how design tradeoffs result in different levels of resilience. The class then moves into a theoretical understanding of failures, how network resilience is measured, and how the Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) relates to human and machine-driven factors. One of these factors is the unintended consequences arising from abstractions, covered in the next section of the class.
The class then moves into troubleshooting proper, examining the half-split formal troubleshooting method and how it can be combined with more intuitive methods. This section also examines how network models can be used to guide the troubleshooting process. The class then covers two examples of troubleshooting reachability problems in a small network, and considers using ChaptGPT and other LLMs in the troubleshooting process. A third, more complex example is then covered in a data center fabric.
Hedge 204: Terry Slattery on Network Automation
Terry Slattery joins Tom and Russ to continue the conversation on network automation—and why networks are not as automated as they should be. This is part one of a two-part series; the first part of this conversation was posted as episode 203.
Hedge 203: Terry Slattery on Network Automation
Terry Slattery joins Tom and Russ to continue the conversation on network automation—and why networks are not as automated as they should be. This is part one of a two-part series; the second part will be published in two weeks as Hedge episode 204.
Hedge 202: Internet Governance with George Michaelson
How is the Internet governed? Who sets the rules for the Internet, civil society, and government control? How much input should techies have, and how much should government control things? These are questions we don’t often ask, and yet are crucial to building and operating networks connected to the global Internet. George Michaelson joins Toms and Russ to talk about Internet governance—including contrary views of where things should be versus where they are.
On the ‘net: Two on AI
I occasionally write over at Mind Matters on topics “other than technical.” Here are my two latest posts over there.
On the ‘net: Model Based Thinking
Running a little late on cross posting stuff from Packet Pushers … but I suppose better late than never. 🙂
Hedge 201: Roundtable
It’s time to gather round the hedge and discuss whatever Eyvonne, Tom, and Russ find interesting! In this episode we discuss business logic vulnerabilities, and how we often forget to think outside the box to understand the attack surfaces that matter. We also discuss upcoming network speed increases like Wi-Fi 7 and 800G Ethernet. Do we really need these speeds, or are we just getting caught up in a hype cycle?
Hedge 200: Automation with Ethan Banks
We’ve been on a long streak of discussions about automation, why it works, why it isn’t working, and what the networking industry can do about it. For this episode, we’re joined by the indubitable Ethan Banks. f you don’t think there’s anything left to say, you’ve not yet listened to Ethan!
