rule 11 reader: Recent Episodes
Russ White
This Friday, Marlon Bailey and I will be teaching a new four-hour class on coding skills for network engineers over on Safari Books Online through Pearson. From the course description:
Network engineers are increasingly expected to know how to perform basic coding, like building scripts to gather information and build or maintain an automation system. In larger organizations with full-time coders, network engineers are expected to effectively work with coders, on their own turf, to build and maintain network automation systems. All of these tasks require a basic knowledge of the structure and terminology of programming. There are a lot of courses that show you how to build your first program, or how to perform basic tasks using common programming languages—this course is different. This course will help you build a “mental map” of the software development space, gathering ideas and patterns learned across years into a simple-to-understand format. In this course you will learn data structures, program flow control, and—most importantly—how to structure software for efficiency and maintainability over the long haul.
For anyone who doesn’t know Marlon, you can find his LinkedIn profile here.
Register for the class here.
I’ve reformatted and rebuilt my network troubleshooting live training for 2023, and am teaching it on the 26th of January (in three weeks). You can register at Safari Books Online. From the site:
The first way to troubleshoot faster is to not troubleshoot at all, or to build resilient networks. 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.
A short section on proving causation is included, and then a final example of troubleshooting problems in Internet-level systems.
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.
Register here.
Join me for How the Internet Really Works on the 27th! This four hour live webinar on Safari Books Online:
… de-mystifies the overall structure and “moving parts” of the global Internet. The class begins with a user connecting to a web site, and the process of translating the name of the service the user is seeking to a logical location (a server) where the service is actually located. From there, the path of the packets between the user and the server is traced, exposing each of the different kinds of providers that carry the packet along the way.
Register here.
Might I suggest a name for anyone building yet another Large Language Model (LLM)? Mediocrates would be a far more honest name than the ones big tech companies choose.
Have you ever wondered exactly how a router moves a packet from input to output interface? Or what the difference between is between a router’s and host’s operating system? Or why forwarding engines are built in classes, and one forwarding engine cannot “do it all?” Join me on the 22nd at 1pm ET for How Routers Really Work, a three-hour tour through router guts. I’ve replaced about 10% of the slides since the last time I taught this course.
If you register, you can watch the recording at a later date.
Register here.
This coming Friday I'm teaching a course in BGP policy over at Safari Books Online. It's three hours of straight-up BGP policy goodness. From the description:
This course begins by simplifying the entire BGP policy space into three basic kinds of policies that operators implement using BGP—selecting the outbound path, selecting the inbound path, and “do not transit.” A use case is given for each of these three kinds, or classes, of policies from the perspective of a transit provider, and another from the perspective of a nontransit operator connected to the edge of the ‘net.
Please register here.
On July 21st I'll be teaching BGP Policy over at Safari Books Online. From the description:
This course begins by simplifying the entire BGP policy space into three basic kinds of policies that operators implement using BGP—selecting the outbound path, selecting the inbound path, and “do not transit.” A use case is given for each of these three kinds, or classes, of policies from the perspective of a transit provider, and another from the perspective of a nontransit operator connected to the edge of the ‘net. With this background in place, the course will then explore each of the many ways these classes of policy may be implemented using local preference, AS Path prepending, various communities, AS Path poisoning, and other techniques. Positive and negative aspects of each implementation path will be considered.
Please register here.
I’m teaching How the Internet Really Works over on Safari Books Online on the 24th of March—in a couple of weeks. From the description:
This live training will provide an overview of the systems, providers, and standards bodies important to the operation of the global Internet, including the Domain Name System (DNS), the routing and transport systems, standards bodies, and registrars. For DNS, the process of a query will be considered in some detail, who pays for each server used in the resolution process, and tools engineers can use to interact DNS. For routing and transport, the role of each kind of provider will be considered, along with how they make money to cover their costs, and how engineers can interact with the global routing table (the Default Free Zone, of DFZ). Finally, registrars and standards bodies will be considered, including their organizational structure, how they generate revenue, and how to find their standards.
Register here.
I’m teaching a course on router internals over at Safari Books Online on the 24th (in 10 days). From the descriptions:
A network device—such as a router, switch, or firewall—is often seen as a single “thing,” an abstract appliance that is purchased, deployed, managed, and removed from service as a single unit. While network devices do connect to other devices, receiving and forwarding packets and participating in a unified control plane, they are not seen as a “system” in themselves.
The course is three hours. I’m in the process of updating the slides … or rather, I need to get to updating the slides in the next couple of days.
Register here.
I’m teaching a three-hour webinar on infrastructure privacy this coming Friday. From the description—
Privacy is important to every IT professional, including network engineers—but there is very little training oriented towards anyone other than privacy professionals. This training aims to provide a high-level overview of privacy and how privacy impacts network engineers. Information technology professionals are often perceived as “experts” on “all things IT,” and hence are bound to face questions about the importance of privacy, and how individual users can protect their privacy in more public settings.
There is a recording for anyone who registers.
Register here.
November update on upcoming shows and training. My upcoming training on Safari Books Online is here.
I've rebuilt my data center fabrics live training class, adding a lot of new material across the board, and adding a few new topics. To cover all this new material, the class has been expanded from three to six hours. I'm teaching it for the first time on the 29th and 30th of this month.
Register here.
Lots of interesting stuff coming up this month on the Hedge, and here at Rule11 ... listen here to find out all about upcoming episodes and training.
You can register for the DC fabric training I mention in this update here.
Gentle reminder that I'm teaching a three-hour webinar on Safari Books this coming Friday on Internet operations. The course is roughly divided into three parts.
The first part covers DNS operations, including a high-level overview of how DNS works and some thoughts on how DNS providers "work" financially. The second part is a high-level overview of packet transport, focusing on routing, the different kinds of providers, and how each of of the different kinds of providers "work" financially. The third part is a collection of other odds and ends.
You can register here.
Anyone who registers is able to watch a recorded version of the training afterwords.
I'm teaching part 2 next month, which I call Navigating the DFZ.
A short update on upcoming classes and episodes of the Hedge for May, as well an update on what I'm working on and other places where I'm publishing material.
On the 27th of May, I'll be teaching a three-hour course called How Routers Really Work? From the course description:
This training will peer into the internal components of a router, starting with an explanation of how a router switches packets. This walk through of a switching path, in turn, will be used as a foundation for explaining the components of a router, including the various tables used to build forwarding tables and the software components used to build these tables.
Sign up here.
Sorry for the short notice ... I'm teaching a three-hour webinar on DC fabrics and control planes this coming Friday, the 25th, through Safari Books Online. This course covers the basics of spine-and-leaf fabrics, as well as some high level information on various DC fabric control plane options (BGP, RIFT, and IS-IS). Please register here.
I'm teaching a three-hour webinar on privacy over at Safari Books on Friday. From the description there—
Privacy is important to every IT professional, including network engineers—but there is very little training oriented towards anyone other than privacy professionals. This training aims to provide a high-level overview of privacy and how privacy impacts network engineers. Information technology professionals are often perceived as “experts” on “all things IT,” and hence are bound to face questions about the importance of privacy, and how individual users can protect their privacy in more public settings.
Please join me for this—it's a very important topic largely ignored in the infrastructure space.
I'm a little late in posting this, but I thought I'd put it out here anyway. Tomorrow I'm teaching through a three-hour webinar, How the Internet Really Works part 2. From the session description—
This training will provide short reviews of many of these systems and a deeper look at the many tools network engineers can use to discover the information they need to navigate through the DNS and routing systems on the global Internet. This training will be arranged as a set of case studies posing a problem, and then working through tools available to gather the information needed to understand the problem.
You can register here.
This live training will provide an overview of the systems, providers, and standards bodies important to the operation of the global Internet, including the Domain Name System (DNS), the routing and transport systems, standards bodies, and registrars. For DNS, the process of a query will be considered in some detail, who pays for each server used in the resolution process, and tools engineers can use to interact DNS. For routing and transport, the role of each kind of provider will be considered, along with how they make money to cover their costs, and how engineers can interact with the global routing table (the Default Free Zone, of DFZ). Finally, registrars and standards bodies will be considered, including their organizational structure, how they generate revenue, and how to find their standards.
This Friday (the 12th) I'm presenting a live webinar on How Routers Really Work over at Pearson. From the description:
This training will peer into the internal components of a router, starting with an explanation of how a router switches packets. This walk through of a switching path, in turn, will be used as a foundation for explaining the components of a router, including the various tables used to build forwarding tables and the software components used to build these tables.
Please join me by registering here.
I've changed just a few of the slides from the last time I gave this talk and reordered some things.
In the aftermath of a major network outage, the natural reaction of most network engineers is to find some way to avoid all future outages—regardless of the cost. The first line of defense against is future outages is redundancy, whether in the form of additional parallel links, new routers, new firewalls, new … whatever, so long as there is more of it so packets have more paths to make it from source to destination.
Please join me for this live webinar.
I'm sitting with Jeff Doyle and Jeff Tantsura to talk about network complexity on the Between 0x2 Nerds podcast today at 1PM ET today. The link is here—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTac5q5SoN0
Join us if you can.
I'm teaching my troubleshooting webinar this Friday. I've revamped the slides entirely, so this will likely be a big change for anyone who's attended previous versions of this. Three hours, 109 slides, and interaction through the chat window ... all to develop some really good skills in how to troubleshoot. For those who are curious, I was taught formal troubleshooting skills in my early life in electronics, learning my lessons on ILS, RADAR, and radio systems of various kinds. This webinar is my adaptation of those skills for network engineers.
You can register here.
The Hedge is over 90 episodes now ... I'm a little biased, but I believe we're building the best content in network engineering—a good blend of soft skills, Internet policy, research, open source projects, and relevant technical content. You can always follow the Hedge here on Rule 11, of course, but it's also available on a number of services, including—
I'll be teaching a three-hour live webinar on data center fabrics on the 20th of August—
Data centers are the foundation of the cloud, whether private, public, on the edge, or in the center of the network. This training will focus on topologies and control planes, including scale, performance, and centralization. This training is important for network designers and operators who want to understand the elements of data center design that apply across all hardware and software types.
Register here.
I'm teaching a webinar on router internals through Pearson (Safari Books Online) on the 23rd of July. From the abstract—
A network device—such as a router, switch, or firewall—is often seen as a single “thing,” an abstract appliance that is purchased, deployed, managed, and removed from service as a single unit. While network devices do connect to other devices, receiving and forwarding packets and participating in a unified control plane, they are not seen as a “system” in themselves.
Register here.
I'm a bit late posting this ... but this Thursday (an odd day for me) I'm running How the Internet Really Works, Part 1, over at Safari Books Online. From the page:
This live training will provide an overview of the systems, providers, and standards bodies important to the operation of the global Internet, including the Domain Name System (DNS), the routing and transport systems, standards bodies, and registrars. For DNS, the process of a query will be considered in some detail, who pays for each server used in the resolution process, and tools engineers can use to interact DNS. For routing and transport, the role of each kind of provider will be considered, along with how they make money to cover their costs, and how engineers can interact with the global routing table (the Default Free Zone, of DFZ). Finally, registrars and standards bodies will be considered, including their organizational structure, how they generate revenue, and how to find their standards.
Those who follow my work know I've been focused on building live webinars for the last year or two, but I am still creating pre-recorded material for Pearson. The latest is built from several live webinars which I no longer give; I've updated the material and turned them into a seven-hour course called How Networks Really Work. Although I begin here with the "four things," the focus is on a problem/solution view of routed control planes.
I'll be joining Jeff Tantsura, Nick Buraglio, and Brooks Westbrook for a roundtable on March 16, 9 am PST (that's tomorrow if you're reading this the day it publishes) about the development of wide area networking technologies up until today. This is the first part of a two part series on changes in the wide area network.
You can join the roundtable here.
I'm teaching another master class over at Juniper on February the 10th at 12 noon PT (3PM ET):
It’s typical to think about scale, speed, oversubscription, and costs when designing a data center fabric. But what about security in a world increasingly focused on privacy, data protection, and preventing downtime caused by cyber breaches? This session will consider how data center fabric software and control plane components can impact security, including the ability to effectively manage segmentation policy, controlling failure domains, and the impact host-based routing has on fabric security.
On the 22nd, I'm giving a three hour course called How the Internet Really Works. I tried making this into a four hour course, but found I still have too much material, so I've split the webinar into two parts; the second part will be given in February. This part is about how systems work, who pays for what, and other higher level stuff. The second part will be all about navigating the DFZ.
I'm teaching another master class over at Juniper on the 13th at 9AM PT:
Spine-and-leaf fabric is the "new standard," but how much do you know about this topology, its origins, and its properties? This session will consider the history of the Clos, explain the butterfly and Benes, look at why a fabric is a fabric and why "normal networks" are not, and cover some key design considerations when building a fabric.
You can register here.
Just a gentle reminder that on Monday (just a few days from now) I'm teaching a three hour webinar over at Safari Books on How Routers Really Work. From the course description—
This training will peer into the internal components of a router, starting with an explanation of how a router switches packets. This walk through of a switching path, in turn, will be used as a foundation for explaining the components of a router, including the various tables used to build forwarding tables and the software components used to build these tables.
Register here if you're interested.
The first hour of material in my new BGP course over at Ignition dropped this week. I'm not going to talk about configuration and other operational things—this is all about understanding how BGP works, why it works that way, and thinking about design. This course will apply to cloud, Internet edge, DC fabric, and other uses of BGP.
My next upcoming live webinar on Safari Books is How the Internet Really Works. This was originally a three-hour webinar which I've added some material to so it's now four hours... I'm working with Pearson to add further material and break this into two three-hour webinars, so this will probably be the last four-hour version of this I teach.
Sign up here.
Safari Books Online just published my latest Livelesson—eight hours of technical yet fundamental training on network transports. I co-authored this one with Ethan Banks (yes, that Ethan Banks). I consider this video series a compliment to the transport chapters in Computer Networking Problems and Solutions.
If you ever wanted to really understand transport protocols ... this is your chance.
Troubleshooting is a fundamental skill for all network engineers, from the least to most experienced. However, there is little material on correct and efficient troubleshooting techniques in a network engineering context, and no (apparent) live training in this area. Some chapters in books exist (such as the Computer Networking Problems and Solutions, published in December 2017), and some presentations in Cisco Live, but the level of coverage for this critical skill is far below what engineers working in the field to develop solid troubleshooting skills.
I’m teaching a live webinar, How the Internet Really Works, next Friday on Safaribooks.com. You can register here. I’ve expanded this from a three-hour webinar to a four-hour webinar, which means I’m adding about 30’ish slides, and redoing a few bits and pieces of the presentation. In fact, I’m revamping a few of my webinars,…
I am teaching a live webinar, How the Internet Really Works, on Safari Books Online on the 20th of March. I have expanded the material a bit, and plan to slow down a little, so it is now a four hour session. Generally, I start with DNS, then look at routing, then finally at organizations…
My next course on Safari Books is a data center design webinar. I'll talk about the history of the Clos fabric, fabric sizing with single-SKU designs, some of the pros and cons of single-SKU versus chassis based scaling, and underlay control planes. I generally go through these slides each time I give one of these webinars and rework various bits and pieces of it to smooth over things I remember being "rough" last time, and to update the material based on what I think is more relevant.
Sign up here.
On December 13, 2019, I'm giving a three-hour webinar over at Safari Books on How Routers Really Work. From the description:
This training will peer into the internal components of a router, starting with an explanation of how a router switches packets. This walk through of a switching path, in turn, will be used as a foundation for explaining the components of a router, including the various tables used to build forwarding tables and the software components used to build these tables.
I am teaching a three hour webinar on troubleshooting this coming Friday, October the 19th. This is a “deep theory” webinar focused on the half-split method of troubleshooting, a formal method used widely in electronics and other engineering disciplines. There are still seats available—sign up now!
I'm teaching a live webinar over at Sarafi Books on the 20th of September which gives a broad overview of the various parts of the Internet ecosystem. There are a few spots available yet.
There are just a few days left to register for my upcoming webinar on resilience and fast reroute on Safari Books. From the description—
This training will provide an overview of many different solutions in the resilience space, including redundancy, BFD, graceful restart, IP based local fast reroute, MPLS based fast reroute, PIC, and others. The positive and negative aspects of each solution will be considered, including the complexity tradeoffs, how these solutions can be combined.
Register here.
Now that the first post is up, there are two feeds you can use: http://rule11.tech/category/hedge/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheHedge I tried to get the feed listed in the iTunes listing, but there is something up with the image it doesn’t like… Until I have more time to mess around with iTunes’ silliness and lack of meaningful error messages,…
I am teaching a webinar on data center design this coming Friday, the 19th of July:
Data centers are the foundation of the cloud, whether private, public, on the edge, or in the center of the network. This training will focus on topologies and control planes, including scale, performance, and centralization. This training is important for network designers and operators who want to understand the elements of data center design that apply across all hardware and software types.
Sign up here if you are interested in spending three hours with me learning about data center design.