N4N000: Announcing N is For Networking – A New Podcast for the New Network Engineer
Ethan Banks and Holly Metlitsky introduce "N is For Networking," a new podcast designed to explain networking jargon, acronyms, and concepts in plain language for newcomers and students. The episode features their backgrounds, how they met, and previews of future topics they plan to cover.
Summary
In this pilot episode (N4N000), co-hosts Ethan Banks and Holly Metlitsky introduce their new podcast series aimed at demystifying networking terminology and concepts. Ethan is a veteran network engineer with nearly three decades of experience, while Holly is a recent entrant to the field with a master's degree in operations research and information engineering from Cornell Tech. Holly shares her journey from South Africa, her non-networking academic background in industrial engineering and operations research, her career pivot into networking as a sales engineer, and her work as a touch rugby player. She explains how her master's degree in operations research actually formed the theoretical basis for routing protocols, providing an unexpected connection to networking. Holly articulates the podcast's dual mission: attracting younger generations back to networking as a career path (which she observes is aging and losing appeal to computer science-focused students) and creating a resource for those new to the field who find the industry overwhelming. The hosts discuss several potential future episode topics, including the fundamental nature of packets and how data travels across copper and fiber optic cables, the history and current relevance of protocols like MPLS and MC-LAG, and the concept of tunneling in modern networks like VXLAN. Ethan shares the origin story of Packet Pushers, the popular networking podcast he co-founded in 2010 with Greg Farrow, explaining how it evolved from their popular blogs into a weekly show that continues today. He notes the challenge of distilling complex networking concepts into short, accessible 10-15 minute episodes while maintaining technical accuracy and providing historical context. The hosts discuss how understanding the 'why' behind protocols and technologies is as important as knowing how to configure them, and they invite listeners to submit topic requests via packetpushers.net/followup.
About this episode
Welcome to N Is For Networking, the newest podcast on the Packet Pushers network, where we explain the jargon, acronyms, and concepts of the networking industry in plain language. Your hosts are Holly Metlitzky, an industrial engineer and now a network sales engineer; and Ethan Banks, a veteran network engineer. Together, they’ll educate and help<a class="excerpt-read-more" href="https://packetpushers.net/podcasts/n-is-for-networking/n4n000-announcing-n-is-for-networking-a-new-podcast-for-the-new-networker-engineer/" title="ReadN4N000: Announcing N is For Networking – A New Podcast for the New Network Engineer">... Read more »</a>
Key Insights
- Holly observes that networking is an aging career path with a significant generational gap, with younger generations being pulled toward AI, ML, and computer science-focused degrees instead of fundamentals like networking.
- Holly's master's degree in operations research unexpectedly provided the theoretical foundation for understanding routing protocols, which are based on operations research algorithms.
- Ethan explains that modern networking has shifted from tunneling being a special-case solution (used for encryption or specific problems) to tunneling being ubiquitous across data center fabrics, often tied to security requirements.
- Holly identifies that she has skipped foundational protocol knowledge (like MPLS and MC-LAG) by jumping directly to modern implementations (EVPN and VXLAN), creating gaps in understanding why newer protocols replace older ones.
- Ethan and Holly agree that providing high-level context and historical perspective on networking concepts solves half the problem of understanding them, allowing listeners to know what something is for before diving into configuration details.
Topics
Transcript
Welcome to N is for Networking, the short, sharp podcast where we explain the jargon, acronyms, and concepts of the networking industry in plain language. I'm your co-host, Ethan Banks, a grumpy old network engineer who's been pushing packets around since the 90s. And with me is co-host Holly Metlitsky, who is a university grad with a master's degree working in the networking industry, but pretty new to the scene. And in this very first episode of N is for Networking, you'll meet Holly and me, and we'll share with you some of the topics we'll cover in future episodes. So Holly, it is lovely to be recording our very first episode together. Would you tell the nice people listening…
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