Cables2Clouds

Send us Fan Mail

Trillion-dollar numbers start sounding fake until they show up in an S-1. We kick off our October monthly news recap by unpacking Anthropic’s IPO move and what its public filing suggests about the real economics of frontier AI: staggering losses, massive compute commitments, and a business model that may depend on the market staying patient for a long time.

From there we connect it to Gartner’s warning that a huge chunk of AI infrastructure spending could be impaired by 2030 if application revenue doesn’t materialize. That’s where “neo cloud prov...

Send us Fan Mail

A seasoned cybersecurity engineer with a federal background, an active network, and a clearance should not have to fire off 200 to 300 applications to get hired. Yet that’s exactly what happened to Spud, and the story exposes how broken tech hiring and cybersecurity recruiting have become in the post-layoff market.

We walk through what it feels like to go from protecting critical systems to months of unemployment, repeated ghosting, and interview loops that never close. We talk candidly about the modern hiring process: applicant tracking systems, AI resume screening, recruiters who ca...

Send us Fan Mail

AI isn’t just changing software. It’s changing laws, infrastructure, and the day-to-day reality of work, and California is becoming one of the clearest previews of what comes next. We dig into a flurry of new California AI regulations aimed at worker rights and accountability, from requiring human review when AI influences disciplinary action or termination decisions to increasing transparency when layoffs are linked to automation. We also talk privacy, including why “surveillance” can mean Wi‑Fi telemetry and phone location tracking, not just cameras, and why the state is drawing lines employers...

Send us Fan Mail

Agentic AI is changing what “normal” traffic looks like, and that forces a hard question: if most connections are workloads talking to workloads, why are we still designing network security around users accessing apps? We bring on Dan Sheldon (CEO) and Paul Carvill (CTO) to unpack their answer: Ephemeral Virtual Access (EVA), a just-in-time approach to cloud networking that creates encrypted connectivity only when a task has validated intent, then tears it down before it becomes permanent risk.

We talk about why the zero trust networking label has drifted, how ZTNA fits...

Send us Fan Mail

AWS and Azure just did the thing everyone argued would never happen: a managed, first party multi-cloud interconnect between the two biggest cloud platforms. We break down what’s actually new here, what’s simply being productized, and why this matters for enterprise cloud networking, identity driven architectures, and outage aware design. We also talk honestly about the current limitations and where high throughput connectivity still depends on ExpressRoute, Direct Connect, and established data centre cross connect ecosystems. 

Then we pivot to the AI platform earthquake: NVIDIA’s planned $12.9B acquisition of Hugg...

Send us Fan Mail

Space internet is no longer a science project, and the gap between “cool demo” and “usable enterprise transport” is closing fast. We sit down with Tom Kunath from Cisco to unpack what’s actually happening behind the hype: low Earth orbit constellations that hand off satellites every few seconds, improving latency that can land in the tens of milliseconds, and the messy networking realities that show up as loss, jitter, and unexpected performance drops.

We walk through the multi-orbit picture in plain terms: why GEO is stable but slow, why MEO sits in th...

Send us Fan Mail

AI isn’t just changing software, it’s rewriting the rules around hardware, regulation, and power. We start with a report that the FCC is moving to restrict Chinese-made optical transceivers used in US AI data centers, and we unpack the real-world tradeoff between supply chain security concerns and the very practical problem of capacity. If you pull a key part out of the 800G optics market overnight, who actually fills the gap, and what breaks first?

From there, the geopolitical mirror flips: China announces a cybersecurity review of Palo Alto Netw...

Send us Fan Mail

“Secure AI agents” is a comforting phrase, and it’s also one of the most abused. We sit down with Zach Korman, a builder and security researcher known for stress-testing AI agent frameworks, to talk about what actually breaks when you connect LLM agents to tools, plugins, skills marketplaces, and live production systems. The punchline is not a single bug or a clever jailbreak, it’s a bigger design problem: agents can be influenced by untrusted content while holding real authority through API keys, SaaS access, and automation hooks.

We dig into why...

Send us Fan Mail

Two competitors deciding to stop fighting and build together always raises one question: what changes for the customers the next morning. We start with the BT and Verizon International joint venture and dig into what a shared global network footprint could mean across SD-WAN, MPLS, Ethernet and cloud connectivity, including the uncomfortable parts like orchestration changes, duplicated POPs and the possibility of forced migrations. If you run global sites, this is the kind of deal that can quietly reshape your WAN roadmap.

Then we shift to the money and physics behind...

Send us Fan Mail

Network automation doesn’t fail because engineers can’t code. It fails because teams can’t turn one-off wins into a repeatable way of operating. We sit down with Scott Robohn of Solutional, co-founder of the Network Automation Forum and one of the people behind Autocon, to unpack why Autocon keeps growing and why a “production-first” mindset changes the entire conversation.

We talk about what makes the Autocon room feel different from traditional tech conferences: a grassroots vibe, a tough selection process that rewards what’s actually running, workshops that go deep, and a...

Send us Fan Mail

We react to the biggest stories from Cisco Live, focusing on why Cloud Control and Multi-Cloud Fabric could simplify how teams manage multi-domain infrastructure. We also unpack the Mythos export control shockwave and the growing backlash to AI data centers as efficiency claims collide with real community costs. 

• Cloud Control as a manager of managers, bringing consoles, telemetry, and logs closer together 
• Early-stage reality of “unified” platforms, plus the longer-term need for a shared policy engine 
• AI Canvas and cross-product troubleshooting, pulling signals without console hopping 
• Multi-Cloud Fabr...

Send us Fan Mail

A $435 million all-cash acquisition doesn’t happen just to add another logo to a portfolio. We break down why Lumen is buying Alkira to become the control plane for cloud connectivity, and what that signals about where multicloud networking is headed. Alkira’s POP-based backbone and marketplace approach made cloud interconnect feel like a service. Plug that into a telco-sized footprint and you can imagine faster turn-ups, better orchestration, and smarter last-mile connectivity. You can also imagine a lot of painful integration work and real uncertainty for current Alkira customers.

Then we p...

Send us Fan Mail

If you still picture “hackers” as hoodie stereotypes and fast typing in a dark room, this conversation resets the story with real, practical detail. We sit down with Kyle Winters from Learn with Cisco to define ethical hacking and penetration testing the way security teams actually use it: as a sanctioned, scoped way to think like an attacker so you can fix weaknesses before a real threat actor finds them. The heart of the episode is simple: defence tools are not enough unless you test them with an offensive mindset.

We dig...

Send us Fan Mail

“Too dangerous to release” is a bold claim in cybersecurity, so we treat it like any other security headline: we interrogate it. We kick off our monthly news round-up by welcoming Catherine McNamara as a permanent co-host, then dig into Anthropic’s Mythos preview model and Project Glasswing, positioned as an AI security and threat intelligence leap that can allegedly find zero-day vulnerabilities at a level the public shouldn’t have yet. We ask the uncomfortable questions: where’s the independent evidence, what does high-fidelity vulnerability discovery actually look like, and how do we avoid d...

Send us Fan Mail

Your AI can write code fast, but it can also wander fast. That’s why we sat down with Jason Belk from Learning at Cisco to unpack spec-driven development, a simple idea with huge impact: write the rules and requirements first, then let your coding agent execute with far fewer surprises.

We talk through what “agentic coding” looks like in practice with Claude Code, including the trust and permission model of a local AI agent that can create files, run bash commands, and iterate on a real project. Jason explains how GitHub...

Send us Fan Mail

AI is everywhere right now, but the numbers and the real-world trade-offs don’t always match the hype. We dig into a headline that AI added basically nothing to US GDP growth last year, even after billions in spending from the biggest names in tech. That launches a bigger question we can’t ignore: is the AI boom creating durable productivity, or mostly moving money around the same handful of companies that sell GPUs, cloud capacity, and data center hardware?

From there, we get into the messy incentive layer of AI safe...

Send us Fan Mail

Ready for a reality check on AI security? We invited Cisco cybersecurity expert Katherine McNamara to dig into where large language models actually break: from prompt injection and over-permissioned plugins to reckless “vibe-coded” apps that leak IDs, photos, and entire backends. The stories are real, the stakes are high, and the fixes are concrete. We trace how AI sprawl mirrors the worst of early IoT—weak defaults, poor isolation, and a stampede to integrate models into billing, HR, and support without guardrails—only this time the blast radius includes your customer data and your leg...

Send us Fan Mail

What happens when an AI agent decides the “best” fix is to delete production? We unpack the AWS outage tied to an over‑permitted agent and zoom out to a bigger pattern: systems built for maximum utility and minimum restraint. From MCP’s connective promise to its post‑auth sprawl, we break down how agent toolchains turn small mistakes into big blast radii—and how to fix that with real guardrails, least privilege, and human‑in‑the‑loop at destructive boundaries.

The conversation widens to public deployments where abstractions fail loudly. A military nutriti...

Send us Fan Mail

Ever wondered what it really takes to walk away from a prestigious DevRel job and build a creator business that actually serves people? We bring back Erika (aka Erika the Dev) to share a candid, practical look at life after big tech: why she chose ownership over prestige, how she teaches coding fundamentals for network automation in a world obsessed with AI shortcuts, and the unglamorous truth about consistent, useful content.

We talk through the decision-making moments—planning a runway, partnering at home to reduce financial stress, and testing formats that pu...

Send us Fan Mail

Layoffs, chips, and a lobster-shaped lesson in security—this month’s news run is a tour of how tech’s biggest bets collide with real-world constraints. We start with Amazon’s plan to complete 30,000 job cuts under the banner of “flattening the org.” That might clean up charts, but it also stretches managers thin and risks slowing the very decisions teams need to ship. The human cost is harder to quantify than a balance sheet win, and we unpack where productivity gains end and morale debt begins.

From there, we get into Microso...

Send us Fan Mail

Ever wonder why some architectures feel effortless to run while others need a babysitter? We invited Russ White to help us unpack the real craft of network design: building mental maps that tie history, theory, and practical constraints into clear decisions you can defend and operate. Forget packet field trivia. We focus on how to think, what to simplify, and which trade-offs actually matter.

We start with the idea that design is navigation through abstraction. Russ explains how mapping ideas the way you’d map a city lets you place new kn...

Send us Fan Mail

The year felt like it stretched on forever, and in that extra space the networking world reshaped itself. We traded weekly cadence for deeper focus, shipped an AWS Advanced Networking book that the community embraced, and then watched the landscape pivot as vendors consolidated, clouds connected to each other, and AI hype met the hard edges of security and reliability.

We dig into the acquisition wave with clear eyes: Arista picking up VeloCloud from Broadcom and what that means for SD‑WAN customers; HPE’s Juniper deal clearing regulatory review and the...

Send us Fan Mail

A bus-powered hackathon, a $100K prize for a gloriously “useless” app, and keynotes that said AI so many times you could turn it into a supercut—re:Invent 2025 brought energy, irony, and real signals hiding in the noise. We’re joined by AWS Hero Chris Williams to unpack what actually matters: where AI is genuinely useful, where it’s lipstick on a feature, and how builders should adapt without losing the plot.

We dig into the Road to re:Invent hackathon and why the winning project—turning a tiny script into a sprawling...

Send us Fan Mail

We break down Cloudflare’s outage, why a small config change caused big waves, and what better guardrails could look like. We then unpack AWS and Google’s cross‑cloud link, Megaport’s move into bare metal and GPUs, Webex adding deepfake defenses, and a new startup aiming to tune AI networks at microsecond speed.

• Cloudflare outage root cause and fallout
• Automation guardrails, validation and rollbacks
• AWS–Google cross‑cloud connectivity preview
• Pricing, routing and policy gaps to watch
• Megaport acquires Latitude SH for compute
• Bare metal and GPU as a servi...

Send us Fan Mail

Networks can sometimes feel like a maze of licenses, tunnels, and 2 a.m. pager alerts. We sit down with Graphiant CEO Ali Shaikh to unpack how Network as a Service makes connectivity on-demand, consumption-based, and finally as flexible as the cloud it serves. From the SD-WAN wave to the pandemic reset, Ali explains why the old build-and-forget model couldn’t keep pace with multi-cloud, remote work, and fast-moving partnerships—and how a stateless, metadata-driven fabric changes the game.

We explore two clear buyer paths. Pragmatic teams want turnkey connectivity that lowers clou...

Send us Fan Mail

Start with a simple truth: when the platform breaks, your clever architecture won’t save you. We dig into the AWS US‑East‑1 outage where DynamoDB’s role in DNS planning for load balancers collided with a race condition, leaving empty records and stalled EC2 instances. Forget the finger‑wagging about “well‑architected” apps—this was a platform failure with limited customer escape routes. We weigh multi‑region and multi‑cloud trade‑offs with a sober look at cost, complexity, and operational burden.

Security took center stage with two high‑risk stories you need to act on...

Send us Fan Mail

If the network is the backbone of modern tech, why did it fade into the background while cloud, AI, and security stole the spotlight? We sit down with technical evangelist Alexis Berthoff to pull the curtain back on the real work of making complex systems understandable, usable, and resilient. Alexis shares how she acts as a translator between product, marketing, sales, and the community, turning feedback into better features, clearer messaging, and practical guidance that actually helps customers.

We explore why networking lost its “cool” factor as connectivity became assumed and invi...

Send us Fan Mail

We weigh efficiency against hype as Huawei’s open-source quantization aims to shrink LLM costs while AI spending sprints toward $1.5T. From Oracle’s blue-sky risk to Cisco’s SNMP flaws, Equinix and Alkira’s AI networking moves, and a leap into quantum networking, we look for what’s real and what’s next.

• Huawei’s SINQ quantization for smaller, cheaper LLM deployments
• AI spend approaching $1.5T amid capacity and power constraints
• Oracle downside risk and the velocity of money in AI deals
• Cisco IOS XE SNMP vulnerabilities and urgent patching gu...

Send us Fan Mail

The gap between cloud-native and traditional networking has never been more evident. As organizations struggle with hybrid environments, finding a unified management strategy feels like searching for the mythical "one ring to rule them all."

In this thought-provoking episode, we welcome Eric Chou, author, instructor, and podcast host with over a decade of experience at AWS and Azure. Eric brings a rare insider perspective on how hyperscalers approach networking fundamentally differently than traditional vendors.

We explore why cloud providers built their infrastructure API-first from day one, while traditional networking...

Send us Fan Mail

Tim and Chris dive into the month's most significant tech developments, exploring antitrust rulings, emerging AI security threats, and the financial sustainability of the AI industry.

• Google avoids having to sell Chrome in federal antitrust ruling but is barred from exclusive distribution contracts
• Cybercriminals deploy "S1ngularity Attack" using LLM prompts to steal credentials from 2,100 GitHub accounts
• Cisco reintroduces dedicated wireless certification track with focus on Wi-Fi 6/7 and Meraki technologies
• Google Cloud introduces "agentic IAM" services to manage AI agent identities and improve MCP security
• Zscaler CEO creates co...

Send us Fan Mail

What happens when three major cloud providers each reimagine network design from scratch? You get three completely different approaches to solving the same fundamental problem.

The foundation of cloud networking begins with the virtual containers that hold your resources: AWS's Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), Azure's Virtual Networks (VNets), and Google Cloud's VPCs (yes, the same name, very different implementation). While they all serve the same basic purpose—providing logical isolation for your workloads—their design philosophies reveal profound differences in how each provider expects you to architect your solutions.

AWS...

Send us Fan Mail

Cloud security and infrastructure providers are making strategic moves to maintain competitive advantage through acquisitions and service enhancements while combating emerging threats. We explore the latest developments including Palo Alto's massive acquisition, new cloud services, and enhanced security features that are reshaping the industry.

• Palo Alto Networks announces $25 billion acquisition of CyberArk to strengthen identity security capabilities, particularly for machine identities and agentic AI
• AWS launches Elastic VMware Service, allowing customers to bring their own licenses without application replatforming as organizations seek alternatives amid Broadcom changes
• Network World article questi...

Send us Fan Mail

Making a career transition is never easy, especially in specialized technical domains. In this episode, we dive into the world of professional evolution with returning guest Will Collins, who shares his journey from cloud networking at Alkira to automation engineering at Nintex.

"I'm not lazy, but I hate repetition," Will explains, describing the mindset that led him toward automation throughout his career. This natural inclination eventually blossomed into a specialized focus, demonstrating how following your technical interests can create new career pathways. His experience mirrors my own recent transition from Aviatrix...

Send us Fan Mail

The tech industry's shifting strategies and priorities take center stage in this episode as we examine several major developments reshaping the landscape. We dive into Ingram Micro's recent ransomware attack by the SafePay group, analyzing both the immediate impacts and potential long-term consequences of the four-day operational disruption. The incident raises important questions about security protocols, attack vectors, and the possibility of data exfiltration that could have lingering effects.

Next, we explore CoreWeave's massive $9 billion acquisition of CoreScientific, representing a fascinating pivot from cryptocurrency mining infrastructure to AI computing resources. This...

Send us Fan Mail

Cloud network engineering interviews at tech giants require specialized knowledge beyond traditional networking – particularly when it comes to cloud-native services. In this final installment of our interview preparation series with Kam Agahian, we explore the specialized networking services that frequently appear in technical assessments.

Security takes center stage as we discuss the critical boundary between networking and security responsibilities. Kam explains that while routing traffic to firewalls falls squarely on the network engineer, security policies and posture typically belong to dedicated security teams at larger organizations. We compare traditional VM-based third-party fi...

Send us Fan Mail

The landscape of cloud security is rapidly evolving as AWS flexes its muscles with a suite of new native security offerings unveiled at AWS re:Inforce. From enhanced threat correlation capabilities in AWS Security Hub to seamless Transit Gateway integration for Network Firewall, these announcements signal Amazon's strategic expansion into territory traditionally dominated by third-party security vendors.

We dive deep into the HPE-Juniper acquisition that finally received regulatory approval, but with interesting conditions – including the requirement to license parts of the coveted Mist AI technology. This could potentially open doors for co...

Send us Fan Mail

The invisible threads connecting Kubernetes and networking infrastructure form the backbone of today's cloud-native world. In this revealing conversation with Marino Wijay from Kong, we unravel the complex relationship between traditional networking concepts and modern container orchestration.

Marino brings a unique perspective as someone who entered the Kubernetes ecosystem through networking, explaining how fundamental networking principles directly translate to Kubernetes operations. "If you don't have a network, there is no Kubernetes," he emphasizes, highlighting how reachability between nodes forms the foundation of cluster communication.

The network evolution within Kubernetes...

Send us Fan Mail

When automation fails, it fails spectacularly—and at scale. The recent Google Cloud outage that took down over 54 global services for more than seven hours demonstrates this perfectly. A simple error—blank fields in automated policy updates—cascaded into widespread failures affecting millions of users worldwide. This episode dives deep into what went wrong, how it happened, and what it means for cloud resilience in the AI era.

We also explore Cisco's dramatic pivot at Cisco Live 2025, where they've committed to refreshing their entire hardware stack and integrating AI throughout their ecosys...

Send us Fan Mail

Entrepreneurship is often glorified as the ultimate career goal, but what happens when running your own business loses its luster? Jason Gintert takes us behind the scenes of his journey from corporate life to co-founding WAN Dynamics, and then back to the corporate world as CTO of Laketec.

The entrepreneurial path wasn't always smooth. "The first two years were kind of rough," Jason reveals, describing how his income dropped to half of his previous corporate salary and required significant belt-tightening at home. Even as the business grew, unexpected challenges emerged – from th...

Send us Fan Mail

Tim and Chris discuss major cybersecurity acquisitions and innovations, examining how these changes will impact enterprise security and cloud architecture.

• Zscaler acquires Red Canary MDR (Managed Detection and Response) to fill gaps in their platform despite potential integration challenges
• AWS Network Firewall now supports multiple VPC endpoints without requiring Transit Gateway deployment
• AWS exits the private 5G market, pivoting to partnerships with established telecommunications providers
• CheckPoint acquires Veritai Cybersecurity to enhance their Infinity platform with "virtual patching" capabilities
• North Korean IT workers using sophisticated techniques to infiltrate Western co...