Software Gone Wild by ipSpace.net

Latest Episodes:

From Excel to Network Infrastructure as Code with Carl Buchmann Nov 23, 2018

Show notes

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 Oct 26, 2018

Show notes

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 coming back on track and started discussing cool stuff like:

Smart or Dumb NICs on Software Gone Wild Sep 21, 2018

Show notes

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 of Software Gone Wild.

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Is BGP Good Enough with Dinesh Dutt on Software Gone Wild Aug 31, 2018

Show notes

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 Jun 08, 2018

Show notes

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 out the details, listen to Episode 91 of Software Gone Wild in which Luke Gorrie explained how far the Snabb project has progressed in the last four years.

Network Automation with Nornir (formerly Brigade) on Software Gone Wild May 04, 2018

Show notes

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 Apr 20, 2018

Show notes

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 Mar 30, 2018

Show notes

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 Mar 09, 2018

Show notes

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 logical interfaces that are associated with ASIC front-panel physical ports.

Packet Forwarding on Linux on Software Gone Wild Jan 19, 2018

Show notes

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 fundamentals of packet forwarding on Linux, and the differences between Linux and more traditional network operating systems.