Cloud-Native Networking – Techstrong Research Review EP 15

here Hi everybody, Mike Rothman here general manager text from research. Welcome to another episode of extra research review. I'm here joined as always by my partner in crime Mitch Ashley Mitch.

How are you today? I'm doing very well Mitch Ashley both CTO with Textron group and also principal working with my contact strong research great to have you back in the States my friend. Yeah, you know and and surprisingly enough after spending 10 days in Asia.

I'm not that chat line. I was able to stay up until you know, maybe 11:30 last night. I slept through for the most part.

I don't get I you know, if I get five hours sleep tonight, that's a lot for me. So I was you know, kind of up and around, you know, 4:35 o'clock. Yeah, it's time until you just haven't seen sort of like out of pocket or wipe down.

Yeah, and that's the thing and that's kind of the strange thing and you know, obviously I do a lot of international travel always have but really it's kind of just when you take a step back it kind of blows your mind. You know kind of in the half, you know, two three hours a day where it overlaps between when you can talk to, you know, folks in the states and when you can, you know do stuff in Asia, you know, I mean, I just I pick up my phone, right it cost me 30 bucks. I think for the international data plan.

You know from T-Mobile I pick up my phone and I video with my parents or my kids from literally around the world and the other side of the world. They look like they're, you know, get right next to me. We're chatting it up and you know, I'm showing pictures, you know these exotic places and it really is just a totally different, you know perspective.

I remember going to Australia back in you know, kind of early or midnight meetings at that point. I mean, I was at a park right at my MCI car and I was trying to find a phone so I could check in with my mom right? You know.

Hey, yeah, we're okay, you know, we're kind of tooling around from that standpoint now, you know again I'm able to you know, kind of FaceTime with my stepfather on his 94th birthday that he had when we was away. It's really it's just it really is just kind of incredible in terms of how you know kind of this collaboration stuff works and how the world although is huge. Right?

I mean I was on a plane 18 hours, right the longest flight, you know in the world we did back and forth. Um, but right it's small in that, you know again, as long as the time zones, you know kind of match up, you know, we can really communicate pretty much at any time regardless of where you are. I mean, it really is amazing sure beats that internet cafe in the 56 Squad modem and that's cool.

Okay, you're not serve account, right? You know? Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. I did not debate ourselves, you know, so great trip, you know happy to be back and and looking forward to you know, again getting back out and and exploring some more because my life I really really love to do that.

That's the thing that that drives us. Like, I don't know any fancy cars don't need, you know, kind of opulence on that front, but we do love our international travel on that form. So so, you know, we talk on one hand right about, you know, kind of some of these, you know older experiences.

That we get and kind of having that context of how things have changed. I really, you know, I want to discuss today a little bit about you know, kind of the evolution of infrastructure we move into this, you know, kind of cloud native type of environment. Obviously, that's something that you spend, you know, a lot of time over the last couple of years, you know digging into and and really studying and now we're working with a client on a project, you know, kind of understand a little bit about where you know, kind of networking is is going to in this new, you know age so just kind of top of Mind from from my standpoint in terms of you know, kind of the program programmability right in terms of you know, kind of how a lot of these networks get design right?

Just when when I do, you know kind of cloud networking, you know kind of projects we talk about the minimum viable Network, right? That's the least amount of connectivity that you need in order for the application to work because the more content you have the more Tax Service you have Security best practices, you know try to reduce attack service work you can so think about things like the minimum viable Network. So all these things coming together, you know from from the perspective of really again this generational upgrade to you know, how we build out and and provision the connectivity aspect of a lot of these new modern applications.

It's been interesting to watch The Evolution because before working with tech strong as part of a well part of it and a security startup and we're just in the early days of virtualization some of it that Network and of course then being part of a research and running it and that environment and watching the network go from. Oh we can use these white box right called general purpose computers and things are starting to virtualize and this is includes everything from just normal networks to even Telecom cable infrastructure out to the edge right all moving to software and I remember the sort of the one conversation I had with my best network engineer saying like what should I work on? What kind of skills would be good for me.

Do you think I should add and I said, well I'd take up take a python class. He's like, what's python I said? Well, it's it's a scripting language and here's why and he's kind of looked at me like I had four eyes.

Did that my glasses on so it was it was accurate and then he went to a Cisco The Cisco big conference and came back as you're right. They have this thing called devnet. They're telling us we should learn software and how to program networks and now the whole infrastructure right the network and we're talking about Network observability and all these software ideas an automation, you know, we called it orchestration earlier, but it's really it's really evolved.

It's kind of interesting to watch How It's involved maybe not quite as fast as the the infrastructure of the cloud itself, but the network seems now to really be on a fast path it is and and I think from a couple of different perspectives, right, you know, at first we kind of just use the network constructs that providers offered so you have your vpcs or your vmats, you know, depending on the cloud platform that you were there. You would kind of design them based upon the structure that was there. Because there was just the way you did it, right?

I mean you were building for one Cloud environment and he didn't really think about you know kind of other stuff and and now that we've moved into a really a world where we can't assume just one Cloud platform, right and we need to be able to you know, offer consistency in terms of again controlling that attack surface really making sure that we're not, you know offering up connectivity and and services that are really unnecessary from that state which we have to think a little bit differently. Now. Is it a I want to get rid of kind of the existing constructs and use a different type of network plane and data plane something like 88 tricks gives you is it, you know, when it observerability thing, you know Network observability thing like our Palace over a kentik and thousand eyes and a number of these other, you know tools that are really about Gathering the Telemetry and giving you, you know, kind of a lot more about the the why things are happening as opposing.

Just what is actually happening. There's just a lot of different ways, but You know, I think the Central Point here is that it starts to get integrated into kind of these Dev motions, right? You know, you're going to be programming your network.

So it's gonna run through a pipeline. We're going to be doing testing on it. We're going to you know, kind of have at least some measure of scrutiny from a security policy standpoint before you start changing things and deploying new stuff and again for Network Engineers that's going to be a significant change in terms of how they have to do things.

So or our devs the new network Engineers, I don't think so. Right but our Network Engineers is you kind of said years ago, right? You better get pretty good at python because you're gonna be programming your networks in the future not you know plug gonna mean, you know, using patch cables and and the life remember patch cables man.

Oh good old days a good old days, you know, you're like, oh that Sports, you know, just Fine connecting those devices exactly, you know, so it really it's going to require this Evolution and I think a lot of folks like again like when we went from, you know token ring to ethernet, you know back in the day, there were a lot of folks that did I date myself with that one, but there were a lot of oh, no, I just had a little pain in my side. We just that's a different that's age b****. That's that's nothing.

Oh great. Thank you. I'll see my doctor about that.

So, you know, there's initially there was resistance to that. It was resistance to folks using a graphical interface to configure your networks right as opposed to the command line. Well, we're getting the pendulum swinging back and forth like we're using the command line, but we're programming towards it, right.

So again pendulum swings back and forth But ultimately the thing that really resonates here is that they're gonna be significant changes and how networks get build in this new, you know this new world. Yeah, did we talk about Paradigm changes? Right?

And it's never rarely is it a here's a which is completely different than b and now a never doesn't apply anymore. I think it's more of an evolution in this case and it to me the two big trends. That have in our influencing how we think about networking first of all, because we've brought a cloud native and we're talking about that in terms of networking.

The the software the applications the infrastructure there at this big blobs of things that do stuff and have apis on the outside that managing grass and egress to like a network way. You know, we had apis to kind of control the heart out or just the application, right and what happens inside. Nobody saw now with microservices and service mesh.

It's all apis and a lot of it is exposed. So what used to be kind of libraries and linked code and all those kind of internal RPC Communications and all that kind of stuff is really Now API is going through an API Gateway that might be managed by kubernetes cluster or clusters. It's a network inside the application and I think that's it isn't something you can easily put your arms around because the other thing that's happening is it's not static.

It's not this quarter. We're releasing this right? Maybe you are in some environments there are those but you know, we're we're moving to and doing more.

Semi or regular continuous delivery. And so the Network's changing underneath it because also the stack the terraform code the cloud environment. All the vendors are upgrading stuff.

It's a moving Target. It's not like the days where we could rack 'em stack them. We know what version of Cisco as we're running for.

Whatever OS it's it's a very much a moving Target and I think that sometimes can be a big head fake to folks to really like, okay. This is this that is different. And now how do I think about things in this environment?

Yeah, and you know, I've seen a couple of different deployment models there one is, you know, again what you describe could be Brain is anarchy right to these folks because they're they're building different things. You know, there's a network happening. There's service mesh their sidecars.

There's you know, a bunch of different mechanisms to again, you know, kind of manage operate and and monitor, you know, kind of the connectivity that happens with these application structures and then you have the folks that let's call them the nostalgians, right? So the nostalgians build a Walled Garden that looks an awful lot like their data center in the cloud right and and you know, they've got this and they use the same IP addressing scheme and they have you know, get all the same, you know kind of traffic flows and you know, they don't use the term Transit networking, right they call it hybrid and they've got, you know kind of there big firewalls on both things of them and Lord knows what it costs to run up for, you know, huge firewall on a cloud. It's Yeah, I mean, you know, you're just like really that you're gonna do that.

Okay, um, you know, because that's what they're comfortable with, right? That's what they understand. They're most of their world still resides within this on-prem environment and they're really extending to Cloud as opposed to rethinking what cloud looks like and then leveraging a Transit infrastructure in order to get access to the resources that you need on-prem.

So in again, we're kind of in this weird, you know kind of time frame where we're still trying to figure it out. The best practices aren't really defined at this point, which means you know, again everything continues to be you know up for Grant but what we'll be interesting is we still got to do a couple things right? We got all for connectivity the resources that we need many of which are not in kind of the traditional data center.

So we've got to include sass we've got to include past Services. A lot of folks are embracing a lot of these managed data platforms your Snowflake and you're you know bricks and the like and we've got to figure out How we're going to monitor what's happening, right? Because at the end of the day the application people have application problems.

It's really easy to blame the infrastructure folks whether it's the workload folks whether it's the identity folks or the network folks and you as a networking person better have your act together to go not me, right? And here's why here's why I'm telling you're not me right, you know kind of probleming your application not me, right and you have to be able to have that level of understanding and situational awareness within your environment to be able to definitively in a data Centric way through that, you know what, you know kind of activities fine through put his fine latency is fine. Yes, we have problems with the application but it ain't me right.

I think that that level of you know, understanding just isn't there yet. So we've got a lot of work to do. But again, it's very exciting from the standpoint of being able to build out the network that the application needs as opposed to the network that we have.

And when we were growing up, we built the applications and the infrastructure on top of the network that we had not the network that the application needed and we made all sorts of compromises that we don't have to do. Absolutely. It's it's almost like thinking about the network as a platform.

Right? It's it's something that you're managing is something that you're monitoring is something that you've got Telemetry and data maybe even using open Telemetry or moving to that. In a significant way and you're it isn't a Change Control process.

It's a change flow process, right? Because it's continually changing based on your applications customers business type needs and you know, it it may be tied to one cloud in your private data center. Maybe tied to multiple clouds.

So, you know, there are products to go across clouds or things that you do Within These Cloud providers that are unique to them but you try to find consistent ways to at least manage it so it's not Anarchy in every cloud if you will, but I think that's the biggest thing is thinking about it. Not as the static object and that static that never changes but static that I have a ultimate control over what I put into my data center. Mmm, not so much developers and their platform engineers and sres and and security engineers and operations folks Engineers Etc are going to go out and do things that you're not going to know about.

That's right. That's right. And it's really about being able to be flexible right and adaptable to you know, getting what the needs of the application are at any given time right?

So that's interesting. You know, again, we can chat about this for a ride among all networking guy. I grew up, you know kind of doing this stuff.

I know, you know you did as well. So it is really just fascinating to you know, see the evolution of this and have a practice, you know continues to evolve so I'm excited but I got excited my cloud right? I got excited by a lot of these things because it does provide a lot more granularity and capability relative to what it is that we can do.

So, you know, keep keep an eye out on a lot of these technology. We're doing some research on that. So you will see that, you know kind of showing up in some way shape or form in the you know, Relatively near term and and that's what I got on that mention any other thoughts you have things things in your car.

Yeah, let's what's what's bothering me this week that I've had a good week. So I guess I don't have anything to to complain about I shouldn't be anyway. But yeah, so what I do want to talk about next week, right so one we're all getting together.

You know, we're having a big Tech strong. He's at meeting, you know early next week. So I'm excited to see everybody that's gonna be a lot of fun.

But I do want to dig in to go do a little you know, little preview but you know you and and bizarre had a conversation at AI insecurity and I want to dig into that because you know one that's gonna be something that we talk about at Tech strong calm. So text wrong on March 16th. I am going to be hosting a panel focusing specifically on AI insecurity.

So so I'm obviously want to pick your brain a little bit but As this is our research meeting right? I may as well pick your brain in front of everybody else. So well, I think we'll talk about that next week because you know, there's a lot of different, you know aspects a lot of threads to pull and really a lot of nonsense to to Wade through right now.

There's just a lot of sense about you know, kind of AI and where it fits into everything there is there's well we could do exactly we'd Hold Show because I have a lot of views on that and I want to pick your brains on because I have a cloud native session. It takes strong con as well and You know, I think the we always rest to the it's going to replace humans part of it or replace what we do and there are times Robotics and things like that. Do do have productivity gains, but I think we if we push AI to the right kind of problems.

They could make a massive Improvement how it developers and help managing these environments and changes a lot of great things you could do with it. If we don't you don't get too concerned about the robot overloads gonna take us enslave us and you know, push to work in The Matrix. Oh that's coming.

But well, we won't know that it happened. That's why we're not the whole thing about the Matrix. You don't know we were you know, and we happily had our desk Mr.

Anderson so good. All right. So with that Wrap up.

We will see everybody next week. We're going to talk a little bit about Ai and security next week. Remember register for Tech strong con.

So March 16th do that. Now, we've got a whole mess of cool, you know webinars and webcasts check out text strong learning to figure out what's happening there and a number of the research documents that we've been working on both meters and surveys. You're gonna be showing up on the research site in the near term if I can get 15 minutes to tell our web folks where it needs to go and what it needs to say, which has been problematic but things are moving along right?

We are we are making progress. So so keep an eye on it appreciate everybody listening and no other further things we can we can wrap everything up. We'll see you next week.

com and visit the site as well a lot of great stuff. They're already so even more to come and Tech strong TV where we appear here so Tech strong dot TV All right. We'll see everybody later on.

Have a great week. Take care.