Human Infrastructure 430: Managing Through an Outage, Overlays and Underlays, Is MCP a Fad?

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 🥳 WELCOME BACK…

Lots of goings-on & interesting posts happened over the last three weeks while Drew and I (and hopefully you!) took a holiday break. Apologies if we overload you with our first newsletter for the new year. - Ethan

AI FOR NETOPS NEEDS AN EASY BUTTON

I have a (slow, boring, obvious) prediction for 2026. We’re gonna hear more about AI for network operations. Specifically, we’re gonna hear about handing off tasks to agentic AI. Trusting AI agents to change the functioning of the network on our behalf.

Here’s the challenge. Few of us believe we can trust AI. LLMs are great…until they hallucinate. Other AI techniques use massive amounts of compute for often underwhelming results. The AI juice hasn’t been worth the GPU squeeze for most companies thus far.

The companies that have adopted AI for network operations and built something useful for the business have done so by getting control of their data, understanding how that data interrelates, building an AI system to munge that data, and creating a custom application on top of that data, all while spending robust sums to make it happen.

These forays into AI have provided a result, but the success stories serve as a warning for the rest of us. AI for network operations is hard. There is no easy button…at least not so far.

This is where I believe the key AI netops opportunity will be found in 2026. The easy button. Who’s going to come up with the tools and techniques that make AI easy to adopt, clearly beneficial for the business, and trustworthy for network operators? This is what needs to happen for agentic AI to find its place in our packet herding toolkits.

I have the popcorn ready to go. - Ethan

THIS WEEK’S MUST-READ BLOGS 🤓

Managing Your Team Through a Major Outage: The Leadership Test Nobody Prepares You For - Layer 8 Packet 
https://www.layer8packet.io/home/managing-your-team-through-a-major-outage-the-leadership-test-nobody-prepares-you-for 

Pat Allen is writing a series on moving from a technical role into management. It’s a good series! His latest post looks into outages. If you’re in a technical role, you know what to do: dig in and start troubleshooting. But if you’re now in a leadership role, and this is your first outage, what should you do? 

His first point is pretty clear: fixing the outage is NOT YOUR JOB. He writes “This is about leading people through a crisis, managing organizational chaos, communicating effectively under pressure, and ensuring that you learn from the experience without compromising morale.”

He walks through an outage scenario and breaks it down by time intervals, from the first 30 minutes to post resolution. He covers decision-making, communication, protecting the team from burnout, handling the “Why isn’t this fixed yet?” demands, and more.  - Drew

Help, my OpenSSL CA expired! - SDN Clinic 
https://blog.sdn.clinic/2025/12/help-my-openssl-ca-expired/#more-768 

So, ten years ago you set up your own Certificate Authority to manage certs for some internal infrastructure. Once it was up and running, you set the certs to expire in 10 years. Then you got on with the rest of your life, knowing you wouldn’t have to worry about it for a long time.

This post starts ten years on, when the decade has passed and certs are about to expire. This happened to Maximilan, and this post is all about how he handled it. He writes “This article assumes that you’re using an openssl based CA, and that you know how to handle the openssl command line. If you’re using a tool like easyrsa, cfssl, etc., the same basic steps should likely apply, however, ideally the tooling has knobs or ways to guide you through this endeavor.”  - Drew 

Understanding Underlay and Overlay Networks in Modern Infrastructure - Ctrl+Alt+Route
https://ctrlaltroute.com/2026/01/04/understanding-underlay-and-overlay-networks-in-modern-infrastructure/

Dustin Demers delivers a solid summary of overlay and underlay networks explaining what they are and how they fit together. Read it to review for yourself, then ship it off to your colleagues getting a handle on networking. - Ethan

MCP is a fad - Tom Bedor’s Blog
https://tombedor.dev/mcp-is-a-fad/

Tom argues that Model Context Protocol’s rapid adoption is because it’s easy, not because it’s necessary. He believes that MCP is introducing headaches more than solving problems. As a result, he thinks MCP will be short-lived.

Tom’s not just ranting. His post explains what MCP does and describes other methods that get the same job done without MCP’s baggage. A thoroughly explained and thought-provoking point of view. - Ethan

MORE BLOGS

1. eduroam – Student Broadband Access - POTs and PANs

2. The European Cloud Situation at the end of 2025 - berthub.eu

3. Parsing IP addresses quickly (portably, without SIMD magic) - Daniel Lemire's blog

4. Write code that you can understand when you get paged at 2am (2024) pcloadletter

5. InfiniBand: An Inexpensive Performance Boost For Your Home Network (from 2016, did this age well??) - Pat Regan’s Blog

NANOG 96 is coming to San Francisco, Feb. 2–4, 2026

Who Should Attend?

• Network Engineers + IT Professionals

• Telecom Operators + ISPs

• Academics + Researchers

What Should You Expect?

• Cutting-edge talks from global leaders

• Hands-on workshops + tutorials

• Social events + hallway tracks that provide real knowledge exchange, mentorship + problem-solving.

👉 Learn more: https://nanog.org/events/nanog-96/

TECH NEWS 📣

North Korean infiltrator caught working in Amazon IT department thanks to lag — 110ms keystroke input raises red flags over true location [Updated] - Tom’s Hardware 
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/north-korean-infiltrator-caught-working-in-amazon-it-department-thanks-to-lag-110ms-keystroke-input-raises-red-flags-over-true-location 

This story isn’t quite as gripping as HBO’s “True Detective” series, but it’s an interesting look at how an Amazon security team realized they might have an imposter working at the company.  - Drew 

New D-Link flaw in legacy DSL routers actively exploited in attacks - Bleeping Computer 
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-d-link-flaw-in-legacy-dsl-routers-actively-exploited-in-attacks/ 

Jennifer Minella and I cover this story in an upcoming Packet Protector episode, but that’s coming out January 13th, and this seemed important enough to highlight sooner. The TL;DR is that router maker D-Link is warning of active exploits against four models of its DSL Gateway routers. The problem is that these models are End of Life or End of Support, and D-Link isn’t going to patch the vulnerability that enables the exploit. Here’s the models and vulnerable firmware versions to look out for:

• DSL-526B ≤ 2.01

• DSL-2640B ≤ 1.07

• DSL-2740R < 1.17

• DSL-2780B ≤ 1.01.14

Yes, these are legacy routers, but legacy gear has a habit of sticking around. - Drew

Bose open-sources its SoundTouch home theater smart speakers ahead of end-of-life - Ars Technica 
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/bose-open-sources-its-soundtouch-home-theater-smart-speakers-ahead-of-eol/ 

Rather than bricking expensive “smart” speakers that are entering End-of-Life (and angering a lot of customers), Bose says its SoundTouch speakers will still support Apple AirPlay and Spotify Connect. In addition, the company has released its API documentation to allow hobbyists and independent developers to create their own tools and features. - Drew  

MORE NEWS

1. Data center deals hit record $61 billion in 2025 amid construction frenzy (CNBC) but also Big Tech’s fast-expanding plans for data centers are running into stiff community opposition (AP News)

2. Google Cloud lands deal with Palo Alto Networks 'approaching $10 billion,' per source - Reuters

3. Wi-Fi 8 in 2026: Next-gen wireless standard prioritizes reliability over speed gains - NetworkWorld

4. Rex: Proposed Safe Rust Kernel Extensions For The Linux Kernel, In Place Of eBPF - Phoronix

5. Russian crew detained after undersea cable cut in ‘sabotage’ - The Telegraph

6. The Kimwolf Botnet is Stalking Your Local Network - Krebs On Security   

FOR THE LULZ 🤣

Shared by Anton in the Packet Pushers Community Slack.

RESEARCH & RESOURCES 📒

cloudflare-speed-cli - kavehtehrani via GitHub
https://github.com/kavehtehrani/cloudflare-speed-cli

From the README. “A CLI tool that displays network speed test results from Cloudflare's speed test service in a TUI interface.” - Ethan

snitch - karol-broda via GitHub
https://github.com/karol-broda/snitch

From the README. “a friendlier ss / netstat for humans. inspect network connections with a clean tui or styled tables.” - Ethan

AI Networking Cookbook Generally Available Now - Eric Chou via LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/choueric_ainetworking-networkautomation-genai-activity-7414091937839939584-vEEq/

Eric Chou, host of the Network Automation Nerds podcast, has authored a new book. AI Networking Cookbook: Practical recipes for AI-assisted network automation and development is available for pre-order right this very moment, and will be published on January 14, 2026.

Here’s the table of contents to whet your appetite…

1. The AI LLM Landscape and Key Parameters

2. OpenAI Recipes for Network Engineers

3. Prompt Engineering for Reliable Outputs

4. Local AI LLM Playground in Network Engineering

5. LangChain for Networking Tasks

6. Building an AI LLM Network Application Frontend with Streamlit

7. Building AI LLM Application Backends

8. Building a Network Co-Pilot

9. Network Monitoring and Performance Use Cases with MCP

10. Network Security through Vibe Coding

I just ordered my copy! - Ethan

Free AI Courses & Lectures From Harvard University - Basia Kubicka via LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/basiakubicka_the-most-prestigious-ai-degree-in-the-world-activity-7409956106740977664-aG92/

In her post, Basia shared several resources from Harvard University to help you learn about artificial intelligence. I clicked through her links and did a little more digging to consolidate down to these resources of likely interest to you.

• Course: The Science and Implications of Generative AI (3 units with 11 total sessions)

• YouTube Playlist: Generative AI in Teaching & Learning (30 videos)

So much material, so little time. But…it’s amazing how much information is available for free out there. - Ethan

How To Use Wireshark with UniFi for Real-Time Packet Capture - Lawrence Systems via YouTube 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_H1L0XC53g 

While dashboards can give you a view into what’s happening on a wireless network, packet captures are useful for deep troubleshooting and getting packet-level truth. In this video from Tom Lawrence, he shows how to set up real-time packet captures on a UniFi wireless network, including how to set up SSH access, address some common connectivity issues, and setting filters. - Drew 

MORE RESOURCES

1. OpenWrt 24.10.5 - Service Release - 19. December 2025

2. The Path of a Packet Through the Linux Kernel - Alexander Stephan, Lars Wüstrich   

INDUSTRY BLOGS & VENDOR ANNOUNCEMENTS 💬 

It’s Not Too Late to Roll Back MCP - Theory Ventures
https://theoryvc.com/blog-posts/its-not-too-late-to-roll-back-mcp

The premise of this piece is that giving AI agents autonomy is too risky at the moment. This why we haven’t seen agentic AI taking over for decisions that are at all consequential. We have the connectivity via Model Context Protocol, but we don’t have the logic to drive trust.

Adam Conway explains various checks and balances on traditional programming that facilitate roll back should a code deployment go badly. He then considers how MCP might be extended in a similar way to help us be able to trust agentic AI. Most of his focus in this piece is on using the model database transactions to make an agent’s decisions more easily reversible. - Ethan

Udemy and Coursera Agree to Combine - Udemy Blog
https://blog.udemy.com/udemy-coursera-combine/

TL;DR. Education platforms Udemy (where you collect $12.99 tech courses you’ll never watch 😂) and Coursera are merging. An eventual new learning platform is implied. For now, nothing changes…but assume it will. - Ethan

Making SONiC Enterprise-Ready with Aviz ONES - Solutional
https://solutional.com/blog/making-sonic-enterprise-ready-with-aviz-ones

Solutional’s Scott Robohn, host of the Total Network Operations podcast, makes the case for network operating system SONiC, citing freedom of hardware choice, cheaper switches, rapid feature development, and reliability.

Despite these advantages, SONiC hasn’t taken over in enterprises. Why? SONiC isn’t a turnkey solution. SONiC adoption has been by hyperscalers who can bend SONiC to their will and provider their own support. Enterprises need a turnkey network operating system. Scott says this is where Aviz Networks enters the chat.

“The core of Aviz’s SONiC offering is ONES (Open Networking Enterprise Suite), a management platform that sits above SONiC and provides a single interface for configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting.”

Scott later adds, “In practice, ONES puts SONiC in reach as a practical and powerful way for any enterprise to leverage open networking, something previously available only to the most technologically progressive and resource-rich organizations. It provides the management, automation, and visibility enterprises need to operate open networks confidently.”

I’m interested to see where enterprise SONiC adoption goes. There have been various attempts at making open network operating systems accessible to enterprises over the last decade, but none of them made much of an inroad against Arista, Cisco, Extreme, HPE/Juniper, and the other likely suspects enterprises favor.

Is that because there’s no cost benefit…or no confidence? I suspect it’s the latter aka “no one ever got fired for buying Cisco.” - Ethan

MORE INDUSTRY NOISES

1. VyOS Networks Announces VyOS 1.4.4 LTS Release, Reinforcing the Universal Networking Platform for Hybrid Cloud and Edge - VyOS Press Releases

2. Introducing Path Analysis: A New Way to Visualise Traceroute Changes in RIPE Atlas - RIPE Labs

3. Announcing General Availability of the Cisco Catalyst Center Integration for NetBox Enterprise and NetBox Cloud - Netbox Labs Blog

4. Ingress NGINX End of Life: Your Comprehensive Migration Guide for Ingress NGINX Controller Retirement (Kubernetes networking) - Traefik Labs

5. Remembering Lou Gerstner - IBM Newsroom

DYSTOPIA IRL 🐙

1. Waymo beats Santa Monica to the courthouse with surprise lawsuit - Santa Monica Daily Press

2. I’m a developer for a major food delivery app. The 'Priority Fee' and 'Driver Benefit Fee' go 100% to the company. The driver sees $0 of it. - r/confession

TOO MANY LINKS WOULD NEVER BE ENOUGH 🐳

1. HP-UX hits end-of-life today, and I’m sad - OS news

2. Colorado Windstorm Causes 4.8 Microsecond Glitch in Official US Time - Gizmodo

3. Netshell - 90s UNIX Hacking Simulation Game - Beyond Logic Labs

4. Lost Unix v4 source code from 1973 recovered from decades-old magnetic tape - TechSpot

5. Inside the Proton, the ‘Most Complicated Thing You Could Possibly Imagine’ - Quanta Magazine

6. LLMs’ impact on science: Booming publications, stagnating quality - Ars Technica

7. SCAMP (Suite for Computer-Assisted Music in Python) - Dr. Marc Evanstein

8. RFC F0UL: HONK - Hierarchical Object Namespace for Knowledge - Wanderland Woods

LAST LAUGH 😆

Created and shared by Jimmy Taylor in the Packet Pushers Community Slack.