NB582: Infoblox Adds Network Observability with Kentik Buy; Satellite Data Centers vs. the Environment
Network Break covers major tech news including Infoblox's acquisition of Kentik for network observability, alarming electricity consumption by data centers (especially in Ireland), security advances in AI agent detection, and developments in space infrastructure including Rocket Lab's acquisition of Iridium and environmental concerns about orbital data centers.
Summary
The episode opens with a critical security alert regarding CVE-2026-48316, an improper input validation vulnerability in Adobe ColdFusion affecting versions 2025.9, 2023.20, and earlier that allows arbitrary code execution. The U.S. CISA has mandated federal agencies update by July 8th. Infoblox is acquiring network observability vendor Kentik for an undisclosed amount, combining Kentik's telemetry analysis capabilities (flow records, SNMP, streaming telemetry) with Infoblox's DDI and IPAM platform, while gaining an AI story for competitive positioning. Hosts note this is a logically sound acquisition that should benefit customers if integration is executed well. Ireland's data centers consumed 23% of the nation's electricity in 2025, up 10% from 2024 and nearly 5x increase since 2015. Gartner forecasts global data center electricity consumption will increase 26% in 2026, with AI-optimized servers accounting for nearly one-third of consumption and expected to overtake conventional servers by 2027. Hosts discuss concerns that electricity costs are being passed to consumers despite claims that data centers provide net benefits. Exabeam has doubled AI-focused detections in its agent behavior analytics platform, now identifying suspicious interactions between humans and AI agents, unauthorized autonomous activity, and shadow AI. The company also released Observa, an open-source telemetry platform for agents, and Praxen, an open-source project for agent behavior verification. WhiteFiber and DriveNets announced the first commercial long-distance AI supercluster, connecting two H200 GPU clusters 52 miles apart at 111.2 terabits per second with sub-millisecond latency using DriveNets fabric-scheduled Ethernet technology, demonstrating that distributed data centers can function as a single cluster. AT&T announced it will offer Everbridge Critical Event Management Solution to enterprise and public sector customers, combining software with AT&T wireless connectivity for multi-channel emergency notifications and real-time location awareness. Rocket Lab is acquiring Iridium Communications for $8 billion, creating full vertical integration of launch vehicles, satellites, and satellite-based services; Iridium has 2.5 million active subscribers and has operated since 1997. Blue Origin is raising outside capital for the first time, seeking $10 billion at a $130 billion valuation, with Kotu Management leading a round and Bezos contributing $2 billion. A coalition of environmental groups petitioned the FCC to study the environmental impact of satellite-based data centers, citing concerns about light pollution affecting astronomy, atmospheric pollution from rocket launches, ozone depletion, and orbital debris creation; the coalition requests a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement before permitting launches.
About this episode
Take a Network Break! We start with a critical vulnerability in Adobe Coldfusion. On the news front, Infoblox acquires Kentik to add network observability to its portfolio, data center electricity consumption jumps worldwide, and Exabeam rolls out AI-agent focused detection in its Agent Behavior Analytics platform. DriveNets and WhiteFiber connect two AI data centers over<a class="excerpt-read-more" href="https://packetpushers.net/podcasts/network-break/nb582-infoblox-adds-network-observability-with-kentik-buy-satellite-data-centers-vs-the-environment/" title="ReadNB582: Infoblox Adds Network Observability with Kentik Buy; Satellite Data Centers vs. the Environment">... Read more »</a>
Key Insights
- Ireland's data center electricity consumption increased from 5% in 2015 to 23% in 2025, demonstrating a dramatic 5x increase driven primarily by AI infrastructure buildout in the past five years.
- Hosts argue that despite claims by data center developers that they provide net benefits to regions, evidence suggests electricity costs are actually being passed on to consumers in many cases, with some regions experiencing dramatic increases.
- Exabeam repositioned its user and entity behavior analytics platform to detect AI agent behavior specifically, recognizing that 'entity' in the original term now refers to autonomous AI agents rather than other types of system entities.
- WhiteFiber and DriveNets demonstrated that geographically distributed AI data centers connected via fiber can maintain performance parity with co-located clusters through fabric-scheduled Ethernet technology, potentially enabling mitigation of environmental and quality-of-life concerns from massive centralized data centers.
- Gartner forecasts that AI-optimized server electricity consumption will overtake conventional server consumption by 2027, reflecting a fundamental shift in data center power dynamics driven by the AI boom.
- Blue Origin is seeking $10 billion in funding at a $130 billion valuation after SpaceX's public market success, suggesting market appetite for competition in commercial space launch despite Elon Musk's demonstrated fundraising advantage.
- Environmental groups argue that the FCC has a legal obligation under federal law to conduct a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement before permitting satellite launches, citing light pollution, atmospheric pollution from rocket soot, ozone depletion, and orbital debris as legitimate concerns.
- Hosts debate whether orbital data centers represent a viable long-term solution or a signal of peak AI infrastructure bubble behavior, with one arguing space-based data centers make logical sense due to unlimited solar power and vacuum cooling advantages, while the other remains skeptical about when the AI bubble will burst.
Topics
Transcript
Take a network break. I'm Drew Comrie-Murray. I'm Jonna Johnson. Grab a virtual donut and a cooling beverage as we speedwalk through this week's tech news. We've got news from Infoblox, Exabeam, WhiteFiber, DriveNets, and AT&T. Lots of updates on data center construction and a nice, cool, refreshing dollop of space networking news. John, I've been away for a while. I'm happy to be back. It feels like I was gone forever. Thanks to you and everybody else who guest hosted to keep the show going. Much appreciated. And I've been gone so long, I feel like we're all we're all living on Mars now. Right. And it's all orbital data centers and everything. All that has come to fruition.…
Full transcript available for MurmurCast members
Sign Up to AccessMore from The Everything Feed - All Packet Pushers Pods
TCG079: Why Your State File is Actually a Distributed Systems Problem
Malcolm Matalka argues that Terraform's value lies not in its HCL syntax but in its state management, which is fundamentally a distributed systems problem inadequately solved by file-based locking. He discusses how StateGraph reimagines infrastructure state as a database rather than a JSON file, enabling concurrent operations, better queryability, and solving the scalability issues that plague teams as they grow.
NAN126: Fine-Tuning Open Source LLMs for Network Engineering
Edward Tuharu, founder of VXpert AI, discusses his career pivot from pursuing CCIE certification to building AI-powered NOC/SOC systems after recognizing the transformative potential of transformer architecture in 2022. He outlines the progression of AI technologies from prompting to RAG to fine-tuning to agentic systems, drawing parallels with networking protocol evolution and emphasizing the importance of domain-specific knowledge and fundamentals.
D2DO306: Platform Engineering in the Agentic Era (Sponsored)
Jad Elzane and Miles Gray from VMware by Broadcom discuss how platform engineering evolved from DevOps to address developer cognitive overload, and how Platform Engineering 2.0 must now accommodate AI agents as consumers alongside human developers, requiring new security guardrails and observability controls.
PP116: News Roundup—FortiBleed Reveals Password Cracking Is Alive and Kicking, Accenture Goes All-In on OT, and More
Jennifer Jabush and guest co-host Wolf Gerlich discuss major cybersecurity incidents including the SearchLeak Copilot vulnerability, the FortiBleed password-cracking infrastructure, North Korean NPM package compromises, and organizational acquisitions in the OT security space. They also cover concerns about age verification systems and a FIFA World Cup broadcast vulnerability involving weak client-side authentication.
HS137: Did AI Turn “Everybody Codes” into “Nobody Codes”?
John Attil-Johnson and John Burke discuss how AI coding tools have fundamentally changed the "everybody codes" strategy, arguing that while AI can generate code quickly, logical thinking and code comprehension remain essential skills. They contend that the focus should shift from teaching everyone to code to ensuring everyone can read code and think logically to catch AI-generated errors.