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  • Human Infrastructure 393: Looking Abroad, Reader Feedback, Quantum Skepticism, and More

Human Infrastructure 393: Looking Abroad, Reader Feedback, Quantum Skepticism, and More

AuthorAuthor

Ethan Banks & Drew Conry-Murray
March 20, 2025

A quick note, especially for our non-US readers. Occasionally, Drew and I field a complaint that our coverage of networking & tech news isn’t global enough, or even feels US-centric. We try to avoid this, but based on the news sources we come across, it can be difficult. US-based companies & news tend to dominate tech headlines.

We don’t mean to be US-centric. There’s nothing more cosmopolitan than the Internet connecting us all, and diverse viewpoints matter to us.

You can help improve the global vibe of Human Infrastructure. Send us non-US tech content you think might be worth a worldwide mention by using the Packet Pushers follow-up page. Don’t submit purely political content. Use your discretion here, as tech and politics are deeply intertwined these days. If the content is tinged with politics, ask yourself whether or not the information will impact an IT engineer in a technical way.

When on the follow-up page, select Human Infrastructure Newsletter in the dropdown so that our automations do the right thing. Thanks, all! 🌐 - Ethan

Reader Mailbag

Dear pushers of packets,

I noticed a piece about quantum computing in a recent newsletter. For a different perspective on its future, Gerben Wierda has a very good piece on his blog: https://ea.rna.nl/2019/03/13/to-be-and-not-to-be-is-that-the-answer/

Anything quantum is way over my head, but these pieces are accessible enough to understand. One of the main arguments is that there are basically no useful algorithms available for any quantum computer, outside of a niche use case. That sounds rather big to me. I wonder why Gerben seems to be the only one mentioning this. Or maybe I don't.

Kind regards,

Jaap de Vos

THIS WEEK’S MUST-READ BLOGS 🤓

The Trump administration solicited public comments for an AI Action Plan to help guide the administration’s policies toward AI development. Casey Newton read through responses from several tech giants, including Meta, OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. He shares highlights from each of these companies’ statements, but the general conclusion is that their aim is for a policy that enables them to be unfettered by anything resembling rules, restrictions, or responsibilities. I didn’t expect anything better, but it’s important for the rest of us to think about whose needs AI is being built to serve. - Drew

Virtual networking labs use virtual machines and containers and stitch them together in way that vary and can be decidedly complex for the uninitiated. That’s why most of use labbing software to handle that complexity for us. What if we want to capture & analyze traffic flowing through our virtual lab? Because of course we do. In this post, Ivan Pepelnjak walks through what’s going on in various scenarios, and how his labbing platform netlab gets the job done. - Ethan

Mark Houtz highlights the POE++ and 2.5Gbps ports offered in the EX4000 line. Other vendors offer this, but if are all-in on the Juniper Mist ecosystem, these are the switches you’ve been waiting for to uplink your 6GHz-capable WiFi 6E & 7 APs. - Ethan

Pieter-Jan attended a Tech Field Day presentation on Cisco’s Hyperfabric offering, which the company positions as a solution for quickly building and scaling data center fabrics. Pieter-Jan looks at the design, build, and validation phases. He also notes two significant drawbacks: Hyperfabric limits you to the Nexus 6000 series switches, which run an embedded OS based on Sonic, not NX-OS. That means a wholly new and separate environment if you’ve already invested in other Cisco platforms. Second, it has to be managed from the cloud, which may hold less appeal for folks working in sensitive or highly regulated environments. - Drew 

Pat Allen provides an overview of the challenges of security AI-related traffic flows within an enterprise (figuring out what data should and shouldn’t leave the enterprise to be used by AI is another problem entirely!). He outlines key traffic characteristics, common threats, protection strategies, and more. - Drew  

MORE BLOGS

SPECIAL SECTION - FROM US TO EU SERVICES

Infrastructure automation survey reveals overconfidence — and speed coming at the cost of control

The 2025 Infrastructure Automation Report—a research survey commissioned by Spacelift—suggests teams are very confident of their capabilities, with 45% claiming to ace infrastructure automation.

However, a closer look reveals that only 14% have actually achieved superior automation capabilities. Yikes!

For many, speed has been prioritized over control: 43% of teams regularly rerun their infrastructure deployments at four times or more.

Read the full report to find out what infrastructure automation leaders are doing differently, or take the self assessment to see how you stack up.

TECH NEWS 📣

TL;DR. Co-packaged optics (CPO) = less power & heat when compared to pluggable optics. CPO tech is finally coming to market and has a clear ROI. Expect to hear lots of noise about CPO from lots of manufacturers going forward. If you care about details & nuance, this article is well worth the click. Timothy Prickett Morgan gets right into the weeds and parks there for a while with diagrams, tables and analysis of what NVIDIA has announced. - Ethan

RIPE reports, “Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are fundamental resources for the digital economy. The deployment of IPv6 in all countries is needed to meet the growing demands for world connectivity, but there are a number of developing countries that still require expert technical assistance to make this deployment effective.

Through the joint declaration, BDT and RIPE NCC will work together on the following:

  • Capacity-building initiatives, including training programmes on IPv6 deployment and secure Internet operations.

  • Joint advocacy for a sustainable and inclusive internet ecosystem aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals.

  • Promoting internet resilience and connectivity in underserved regions, particularly in the least developed countries.”

More information can be found at the link above, or this PDF. - Ethan

Patch patch baby [sung to the tune of Ice Ice Baby]. Thanks to Jaap de Vos for the heads up. - Drew

MORE NEWS

FOR THE LULZ 🤣

Shared on the Packet Pushers Slack by Kaj Niemi

RESEARCH & RESOURCES 📒

Chris walks through how to configure Nerd Fonts, Oh My Posh, Windows Terminal + VS Code, and your PowerShell profile to make a terminal that’s just…beautiful. - Ethan

In the repo README, Nick Buraglio says, “The IPv6 Subnet Planner is nothing more than a simple Python script designed to help network engineers, IT administrators, or zealous hobbyists to plan and allocate IPv6 subnets. It really just takes an IPv6 prefix as input and generates subnets of a user-specified prefix length. This can be useful for visualizing the subnets and for importing them into other things for more effective use.”

By the way, you can hear Nick on the IPv6 Buzz podcast along with Tom and Ed. - Ethan

Ivan Pepelnjak reports, “The Queuing Theory webinar by Rachel Traylor is now available without a valid ipSpace.net account. Enjoy!” Thanks, Ivan. If you don’t know of Dr. Traylor, she’s a hardcore math nerd. I haven’t screened this yet, but fully expect it to go deep. Probably deeper than I can get my head around without repeated viewings. - Ethan

MORE RESOURCES

AutoCon3 Conference Registration Is Open!
Conference registration is now open for AutoCon3, the premier live event for network automation professionals. Join us in Prague, CZ May 26-30 for a full program of hands-on workshops and lively conference presentations.
More details here: https://networkautomation.forum/autocon3

INDUSTRY BLOGS & VENDOR ANNOUNCEMENTS 💬 

Fortinet has announced new additions to its portfolio of OT security devices that aim to help protect industrial control systems. New products include ruggedized next-gen firewalls, which Fortinet says can detect threats that target OT protocols, and includes OT-specific IPS rules and virtual patches to help filter attacks against industrial controls that have very long maintenance windows. The company also announced two new ruggedized, small form factor switches, which can help segment OT networks and enforce port-level access. It also announced two ruggedized 5G products: a 5G WAN gateway, and a 5G extender designed for fleet vehicles. - Drew

Meter is a Network as a Service (NaaS) vendor that builds, installs, and operates switches, wireless APs, and other networking gear on behalf of its customers. The company is now adding Power Distribution Units (PDUs) to its lineup. These cloud-managed devices provide monitoring and control for the power management of its networking gear. Network engineers can get PDU metrics in the same dashboard that measures wired and wired network performance. Meter says adding PDUs to the portfolio should improve reliability and uptime, and help customers better measure and optimize power use. - Drew

RtBrick makes routing software that can run on whitebox hardware. The company recently announced that it’s now supporting Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT) on switches running Broadcom’s Qumran2c chipset. RtBrick is positioning this as a lower-cost alternative to CGNAT appliances.  - Drew 

AVTECH’s Room Alert is an environment monitoring platform. The company has announced a MAX version of the product line. From the press release: “This new product line offers complete versatility, allowing users to install Room Alert MAX as a standalone wireless monitoring solution, or they can integrate it seamlessly with Room Alert PRO monitors, sensors, and accessories. This flexibility allows customers to strategically place Room Alert MAX in areas such as offices, large warehouses, and customer-facing locations, while maintaining Room Alert PRO in spaces with existing wired infrastructure such as server rooms and telecom closets.” - Drew  

TL;DR. Fiber doesn’t reach everywhere, so wireless fills in the gap. But what if there’s not enough bandwidth or spectrum available over wireless frequencies? Enter Taara Lightbridge.

“Taara uses narrow, invisible light beams to transmit information through the air, at speeds as high as 20 gigabits per second and across distances up to 20 kilometers. Taara’s Lightbridge units deliver high speed, high quality internet and require only a few hours to set up, without the time and cost associated with digging trenches or stringing cables.”

Taara is looking for more partners if you’d like this product in your portfolio of customer offerings. - Ethan

Google is acquiring Wiz. What does Wiz do? They are makers of fine Cheez Whiz. No, wait. They are the copyright keepers of the Wizard of Oz and related intellectual property. Uh…no. That isn’t it, either.

GOOG reports that Wiz, “delivers a seamless cloud security platform that connects to all major clouds and code environments to help prevent incidents from happening in the first place.

Wiz’s solution rapidly scans the customer’s environment, constructing a comprehensive graph of code, cloud resources, services, and applications – along with the connections between them. It identifies potential attack paths, prioritizes the most critical risks based on their impact, and empowers enterprise developers to secure applications before deployment. It also helps security teams collaborate with developers to remediate risks in code or detect and block ongoing attacks.”

For a little more background on Wiz, check out this blog by Richard Kong from 2023. - Ethan

MORE INDUSTRY NOISES

DYSTOPIA IRL 🐙

TOO MANY LINKS WOULD NEVER BE ENOUGH 🐳

LAST LAUGH 😆

Created by a slightly disturbing prompt from Steinzi

The Packet Pushers got a van! Anyone need a ride?