• Human Infrastructure
  • Posts
  • Human Infrastructure 420: Salary Survey, Vibe Engineering, Nagios to Network Observability

Human Infrastructure 420: Salary Survey, Vibe Engineering, Nagios to Network Observability

AuthorAuthor

Drew Conry-Murray & Ethan Banks
October 09, 2025

Take the Packet Pushers Salary Survey!

Are you getting paid what you’re worth? What are other folks with similar experience making? What skills might lead to a salary bump? If you’d like answers to these and other pay-related questions, please take the Packet Pushers’ 2025 Salary Survey. It’s aimed at network engineering and other IT professions to get a sense of the current market for our community’s skills. As with all our surveys, we aren’t collecting any contact info, so your responses will be anonymous. If you have a few minutes, we’d love to get your input.

Once we get a sufficient number of responses, we’ll close the survey and share results via the Packet Pushers blog, our Slack channel, and this newsletter. Thanks in advance!

THIS WEEK’S MUST-READ BLOGS 🤓

Claudia de Luna writes about a new feature of Containerlab (an open labbing platform that makes it easy to run containerized instances of network OSs) that lets you spin up a lab right from the project’s GitHub repository. Claudia describes how this new option can save you some steps and walks through how to do it. - Drew 

If vibe coding means using AI to write sloppy code, Simon Willison wants to coin the phrase “vibe engineering” to apply to professionals who  “accelerate their work with LLMs while staying proudly and confidently accountable for the software they produce.” He says the rise of purpose-built coding agents has made certain LLMs more useful for software tasks. He also notes that using LLMs effectively is still a skill: “There’s a lot of depth to understanding how to use the tools, there are plenty of traps to avoid, and the pace at which they can churn out working code raises the bar for what the human participant can and should be contributing.”

While this post is aimed primarily at software developers, I suspect there are overlaps with other disciplines, including network engineering. If they haven’t already, network engineers should be experimenting with AI tools not to have these tools do their work for them, but to see where they can make engineers more effective. - Drew 

This is a good post for beginners who need a quick introduction to essential concepts of the firewall. - Drew 

First off, the fact that this is only part 1 is impressive. There’s a lot here! A detailed history of Nagios. How Nagios became no longer fit for purpose. The author’s pivot to Grafana and Prometheus. Detailed descriptions of how Prometheus works. Shifting one’s mindset to network observability. There’s a ton of good stuff in here, and no one’s going to blame you if you need to bookmark this and consume it over multiple sittings. - Drew  

MORE BLOGS

Lightyear is the only AI-driven ISP management platform built for Network Engineers. Automate and digitize the entire telecom lifecycle — from procurement to inventory to expense management.

No more manual ISP sourcing. No more network service spreadsheets.

  • Cut procurement time by over 70% through an automated RFP process driven by global ISP serviceability data to identify optimal providers (1,200+ vendors)

  • Save 20–30%+ on telecom costs using real-time pricing intelligence (1M+ price points)

  • Track 30+ data points per service in a digital system of record (circuit IDs, static IPs, contract terms & more)

  • Maintain 100% visibility across all vendors, sites, and services

  • Automate every step of the telecom lifecycle — including MACD ticketing, disputes, and renewals — in one closed system

With Lightyear, 400+ enterprises and 5,000+ network professionals, including those at Palo Alto Networks, Okta, Five Guys, Alo Yoga, and Teladoc, are simplifying telecom procurement, circuit implementations, network inventory management, bill payment, and more.

TECH NEWS 📣

The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to three researchers for groundbreaking experiments they conducted between 1984 and 1985 that demonstrated quantum tunneling at a macroscopic level using an electronic circuit built from layers of superconductors. Their experiments showed that quantum mechanical properties “could occur at larger scales than previously thought possible,” according to the article linked above. Their work helped spur further development in the field of quantum computing. - Drew 

Brian Krebs reports that a cybercriminal group is extorting victims of multiple breaches, including customers of Salesforce, Discord, and Red Hat. Krebs says the attackers will publish data stolen from Salesforce starting October 10th if ransoms aren’t paid. The same group has promised to publish data from an August attack that used a third-party AI chatbot to access Salesforce records. - Drew 

TL;DR. Why? Because LLMs confidently assert wrong answers. Calling them on their nonsense and them responding with, “You’re absolutely right. So sorry!” doesn’t fix anything.

I use general-purpose LLMs when researching tech topics, but have to double-check details against authoritative sources. My experience is that LLMs will tell me things that are mostly right, but mostly right isn’t right enough when discussing serious tech at an engineering level.

Increasingly, I have been using Google’s NotebookLM. My level of service with GOOG allows me to add 300 sources to a notebook, including book-length PDFs. That’s made for a much more trustworthy source, as I’ve got a LOT of book length PDFs thanks to resources like Humble Bundle’s book bundles. NotebookLM also cites sources, so I can click on the citation and get more context. - Ethan

AMD will give OpenAI an option to buy 160 million shares of AMD stock for 1 penny per share as part of a larger deal in which OpenAI commits to buying tens of billions of dollars’ worth of AMD GPUs. If the full deal goes through and OpenAI exercises its buy option, it could own as much as 10% of ADM. I’m still trying to work out in my head if this is a good deal for AMD; either way, the AI boom has led to some wild business deals. - Drew 

MORE NEWS

FOR THE LULZ 🤣

Shared on the Packet Pushers Slack by Anton. Sign up here if you’d like to join the group.

RESEARCH & RESOURCES 📒

CIDR IP - Ed Harmoush 
https://cidrip.com/ 

Networking instructor Ed Harmoush has released a free tool, CIDR IP, to help people learn subnetting. In a LinkedIn post, he said he originally developed this as a teaching tool for his students, but has decided to open it to everyone. The tool can help “visualize the relationship between CIDR, Binary Subnet Masks, and Subnet Masks” and “visualize how the CIDR/Subnet Mask affects an IP address.” - Drew

Enabling Silent Telemetry Data Transmission with InvisiFlow - Dangling Pointers
https://danglingpointers.substack.com/p/enabling-silent-telemetry-data-transmission

This post nicely summarizes a bit of research. In the research, a network telemetry technique called InvisiFlow is described where telemetry packets are sent across the network in a way that doesn’t disrupt the flow of application packets. That is, we ain’t gonna fill the pipe with data about how the network is doing and not have enough room left over for the actual business traffic. Cause that’d be dumb.

From the blog. “Here is the refreshingly elegant solution. Designate one or more servers in the network as telemetry collector sinks. These sinks are the ultimate destination for any packet containing telemetry data. Any device which produces telemetry data is called a source. Sources produce network packets which contain telemetry information, and those packets make their way through the network until they reach a sink which consumes them.

The magic of this system is that when a source produces a telemetry packet, the address of the sink is not known. The packet meanders through the network (on uncongested links) until it arrives at a sink.”

Okay, but don’t packets need destinations? How else would a switch know where to send the telemetry packets in this scheme? The answer lies in programmatic control of telemetry forwarding using P4. Ah ha!

The original work that this post is summarizing can be found here. - Ethan

From the README. “Automatically discover and visually document network topology. NetVisor scans your network, identifies hosts and services, and generates an interactive visualization showing how everything connects, letting you easily create and maintain network documentation. NetVisor scans your network, identifies hosts and services, and generates an interactive visualization showing how everything connects, letting you easily create and maintain network documentation.” Looks interesting, although I haven’t had a chance to fire it up yet. - Ethan

I spotted this one due to a Cloudflare article I cover a little further down in the newsletter. From the README. “The bgpq4 utility is used to generate configurations (prefix-lists, extended access-lists, policy-statement terms and as-path lists) based on IRR data.”

Configuration syntaxes supported include various flavors of Cisco, OpenBGPd, BIRD, Arista, Juniper, Mikrotik, Nokia, and Huawei. - Ethan

INDUSTRY BLOGS & VENDOR ANNOUNCEMENTS 💬 

Cloudflare discusses AS-SETs, which are a way to group networks and store them as a single object in an Internet Routing Registry database. The post cites a common use case of grouping together customer networks that your ASN provides transit service for, mentioning the bgpq4 tool. Bgpq4 can reference lots of IRR data, but can use AS-SETs specifically to generate prefix lists for a router config to implement filtering.

The problem with AS-SETs is that they’re based on trust. Trust that there’s no malicious intent. Trust that the creator knew what they were doing. Trust that they’ve been kept up to date. Since the weak link there is people, Cloudflare is pushing for wider adoption of RFC9234, Route Leak Prevention and Detection Using Roles in UPDATE and OPEN Messages. Cloudflare has other recommendations for folks who are maintaining AS-SET records for their shops, too. - Ethan

Broadcom is shipping the Tomahawk 6-Davisson silicon, which it claims provides 102.4Tbps of Ethernet throughput with co-packaged optics. Aimed at AI infrastructure, where performance is critical and power consumption is monstrous, Broadcom is touting both the total throughput and higher efficiency of this new switch. From the press release: “By heterogeneously integrating TSMC Compact Universal Photonic Engine (TSMC COUPE™) technology-based optical engines with advanced substrate-level multi-chip packaging, the switch dramatically reduces the need for signal conditioning and minimizes trace loss and reflections. The result is a 70% reduction in optical interconnect power consumption—more than 3.5x lower than traditional pluggable solutions…”.  - Drew 

Qualcomm is acquiring hardware and software maker Arduino, which is popular among makers and hobbyists, as well as used in commercial IoT and home automation products. It sounds like Qualcomm is hoping to tap into Arduino’s community to get them onto Qualcomm’s own hardware and software stacks. From the press release: “By combining Qualcomm Technologies’ leading‑edge processing, graphics, computer vision, and AI with Arduino’s simplicity, affordability, and community, the Company is poised to supercharge developer productivity across industries. Arduino will preserve its open approach and community spirit while unlocking a full‑stack platform for modern development…”. Qualcomm says Arduino will retain its independent brand and mission. 

Arduino also announced a new board: the UNO Q has a Linux-Debian microprocessor as well as Qualcomm’s Dragonwing QRB2210 processor. Also from the press release: “UNO Q is designed to help enable AI-powered vision and sound solutions that react to their environment, ranging from sophisticated smart home solutions to industrial automation systems.” - Drew

In a straightforward, simple post, Nathan Sherrard points out the incomprehensible vastness of the IPv6 address space. See also: Total Perspective Vortex. So vast, in fact, that standard practice is to assign /64s and stop worrying about efficient use of the space. IPv4 address planning just doesn’t apply in a v6 context. - Ethan

Nokia has released its 2025 threat report, which looks at cybersecurity threats affecting network and telecoms infrastructure. Threat actors such as Salt Typhoon have had a good 12 months (and more) when it comes to its telecoms targets, with 63% of respondents having faced at least one “living off the land” attack in the past year, and 32% experiencing four or more. Other threats include an increase in terabit-scale DDoS attacks. And of course, telecom operators are struggling to keep up with vendor software flaws: the report finds 76% of vulnerabilities stem from missing patches. You can get the full report here in exchange for giving Nokia your contact details. - Drew

MORE INDUSTRY NOISES

DYSTOPIA IRL 🐙

TOO MANY LINKS WOULD NEVER BE ENOUGH 🐳

LAST LAUGH 😆

Shared on the Packet Pushers Slack by Kaj.