Heavy Networking 688: Packet-Level Fundamentals With Chris Greer

Today on Heavy Networking, networking fundamentals. By that, I’m getting at skills that were once taken for granted. If you were a networker back in the day, you understood TCP reasonably well. Probably not every detail off the top of your head, but you could hold a conversation about the three-way handshake, packet sequences to close a socket, sliding windows, acknowledgements, the problem of long fat networks, and the performance implications of retransmissions. Over the last couple of years, I’m hearing that fundamental knowledge is hard to come by. I’ve heard this in three different venues. First, I’m hearing from you folks out there. You’re asking for instruction on networking fundamentals because you’re not getting it from the training you’ve been taking. Second, I’m hearing it from presenters and instructors who are finding that the networkers in their audience don’t know much about what’s happening at the packet level. Third, I’m hearing it from vendors who are hearing from businesses that they want networks that are simple to operate–they want push-button operations to deliver a fast, secure network. From my perspective, not knowing how the network functions at a fundamental level–down deep where the packets live–is frightening. Application stacks are complicated. Abstraction layers are everywhere. Performance problems are commonplace. To not know what’s really going on, or even how to interpret the data, is a scary thought. I don’t want to be the business with a mission critical app that can’t figure out why their app is in a bad state. I want to be the human that can figure out what’s really going on–to identify the root cause because, if that’s what it took, I could look at the packets and come up with the answer. Our guest today is Chris Greer. He is one of those folks that can teach you networking fundamentals, right down at the packet level. The packet level is important. Sponsor: Paessler You probably don’t think about infrastructure monitoring often, but it’s one of your most important decisions as an IT professional. Get your monitoring hosted in the cloud with Paessler PRTG Hosted Monitor, now with 50% off monthly subscriptions for new customers for the first three months. Go to Prtg.com and use the promo code “packetpushers.” Show Links: @packetpioneer – Chris Greer on Twitter Chris Greer on YouTube Chris Greer on LinkedIn Chris Greer Udemy Wireshark.org Wireshark SharkFest