Heavy Networking
Packet Pushers
Heavy Networking is an unabashedly nerdy dive into all things networking. Described by one listener as "verbal white papers," the weekly episodes feature network engineers, industry experts, and vendors sharing useful information to keep your professional knowledge sharp and your career growing. Hosts Ethan Banks & Drew Conry-Murray cut through the marketing spin to explore what works—and what doesn't—in networking today, while keeping an eye on what's ahead for the industry. On air since 2010, Heavy Networking is the flagship show of the Packet Pushers podcast network.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Mar 27, 2026 • 39min
HN820: Cyber Week 2026 Wrap Up with Palo Alto Networks: Agents, Prisma AIRS and NGTS (Sponsored)
Rich Campagna, SVP of Product Management at Palo Alto Networks, talks certificate lifecycle automation and NextGen Trust Security. Ian Swanson, VP of AI Security, covers securing AI workflows and Prisma AIRS. They discuss AI supply-chain and runtime risks. They explain agent discovery, behavioral testing, certificate lifetime challenges, and automated remediation.
Mar 20, 2026 • 1h 2min
HN819: Recipes for Automation – A Look Inside Eric Chou’s AI Networking Cookbook
Eric Chou, author of the AI Networking Cookbook and host of Network Automation Nerds, joins Ethan and Drew to discuss adding artificial intelligence to your network automation toolbox. The AI Networking Cookbook is aimed at network engineers and provides a systematic approach to learning AI for network automation. Together they break down pros and cons... Read more »
Mar 13, 2026 • 59min
HN818: Introducing LIM: A Large Infrastructure Model for Multi-Cloud Terraform Migration (Sponsored)
One of the early promises of public cloud was that, in theory, you could move workloads from Cloud Provider A to Cloud Provider B for any number of reasons: lower costs, new capabilities, better uptime, and so on. In practice, once a workload goes into a public cloud and you build out all the other... Read more »
4 snips
Mar 6, 2026 • 57min
HN817: Is There a Better Way to Do Software Defined Networking?
Alex Krenzel, a Google systems research engineer and UC Berkeley Netsys PhD student, explores Distributed SDN (DSDN) for large-scale WANs. He explains running controller logic on routers, flooding state for a shared view, and using source routing to avoid consensus. They discuss convergence under churn, implementation tradeoffs, rollout strategies, and how DSDN could bring SDN benefits to smaller operators.
Feb 27, 2026 • 59min
HN816: Inside the Case: A Hardware Deep Dive with Meter (Sponsored)
Our topic today is the designing and building of high-performance networking hardware. If you assume the hardware details don’t matter, you’re missing the intentional engineering required to build truly reliable and quiet infrastructure. In this sponsored episode, we discuss Meter’s hardware philosophy with our guest, Joshua Markell, Head of Hardware at Meter. Joshua walks us... Read more »
Feb 20, 2026 • 1h 14min
HN815: All About PCE
Traditional routing protocols like OSPF simply choose the “shortest” path. If the shortest path is full of traffic and there are alternate paths carrying nothing, OSPF can’t help you. Path Computation Element (PCE) along with Path Computation Element Protocol (PCEP) is a way to construct forwarding paths through the network based on factors that distributed... Read more »
Feb 13, 2026 • 48min
HN814: Automating Your Network with Cisco Crosswork Workflow Manager (Sponsored)
Jay Kurji, Cisco architect on Crosswork Workflow Manager, explains workflow specs, adapters, and integrations. Lou Mandito, Cisco product manager, covers product capabilities, prebuilt use cases, and customer scale. They discuss multi‑vendor support, triggering Ansible, Serverless Workflow JSON, designer vs coder experiences, AI assistance, error handling, secrets, RBAC, and how to trial the product.
Feb 6, 2026 • 58min
HN813: What Should Networkers Know About Software Development (and Vice Versa)?
What should network engineers know about software development? What should software developers know about networking? Ethan and Drew sit down with Chris Rapier and Nick Buraglio to discuss why crossing these silos can improve outcomes for everyone. They break down why being a little curious about the infrastructure can help software developers write better code,... Read more »
7 snips
Jan 30, 2026 • 51min
HN812: Nokia EDA: AI Ops You Can Trust (Sponsored)
Stephen Butler, product line manager at Nokia for Event-Driven Automation, brings a short practical bio and tech focus. He discusses multi-vendor abstractions and combined config/state models. He explains schemas as an LLM decoder ring and workflow-driven troubleshooting. He outlines digital twin testing and modular apps that extend trustworthy AIOps.
Jan 23, 2026 • 57min
HN811: What AI Startups Get Wrong
Carlos Pignataro, founder of Blue Fern Consulting and long-time networking veteran, cuts through AI hype with a pragmatic view. He critiques intent-based networking and champions architectural decomposition into modular agents. He discusses where humans belong in autonomous systems, common AI misconceptions, and high-value telemetry and metadata use cases.
