Best Sysadmin Podcasts (2025)

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PP072: Mobile Device Threat Management 47:13

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2h ago47:13

47:13

Mobile devices blur the boundaries between personal and work devices and are packed with sensitive information, making them popular targets for malware, spyware, and data collection. On today’s Packet Protector we dig into strategies for managing threats to mobile devices with guest Akili Akridge. Akili started his career pulling burner phones off …

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NB536: Fortinet FortiOS Goes Post-Quantum; Intel Scales Back Global Projects 27:43

20h ago27:43

27:43

Take a Network Break! In our Red Alert section we note that memory safety bugs bug Firefox and Thunderbird, and on-prem SharePoint instances are under attack. In tech news, Fortinet adds support for Post Quantum Cryptography in FortiOS, Cato Networks integrates Azure Virtual WANs to its SASE offering, and we weigh the pros and cons... Read more »…

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HN789: How a Global Payments Processor Automates Firewall Changes at Scale 48:25

4d ago48:25

48:25

Ayden is a global payments processor whose primary business is providing payment services for merchants, retailers, and venues, as well as online payments. On today’s Heavy Networking we talk about a firewall automation project the company has undertaken. With dozens of change requests coming in every day that need to touch network and host firewal…

1
HN789: How a Global Payments Processor Automates Firewall Changes at Scale 48:25

4d ago48:25

48:25

Ayden is a global payments processor whose primary business is providing payment services for merchants, retailers, and venues, as well as online payments. On today’s Heavy Networking we talk about a firewall automation project the company has undertaken. With dozens of change requests coming in every day that need to touch network and host firewal…

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HN789: How a Global Payments Processor Automates Firewall Changes at Scale 48:25

4d ago48:25

48:25

Adyen is a global payments processor whose primary business is providing payment services for merchants, retailers, and venues, as well as online payments. On today’s Heavy Networking we talk about a firewall automation project the company has undertaken. With dozens of change requests coming in every day that need to touch network and host firewal…

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TNO036: Bridging Networking and Security with Auvik (Sponsored) 57:28

4d ago57:28

57:28

Auvik is network management software that lets users monitor, manage, and troubleshoot their networks. On today’s sponsored episode we talk with Doug Murray, CEO; and John Harden, Director of Strategy & Technology Evangelism, both from Auvik, about the challenges facing today’s network operators. We look at the rise of the IT generalist, workloads …

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TL017: From the Mailbag: Yes and No, and Mid-Year Evaluations 31:46

5d ago31:46

31:46

Laura Santamaria opens the listener mailbag to answer questions, including how to say yes or no to leadership opportunities without tanking your career or trashing your work-life balance. She also explores the mid-year review process and offers tips for successful self-evaluation and paths to self-growth. Episode Links: The Line Between Management …

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2.5 Admins 257: Outage365 29:00

5d ago29:00

29:00

Two recent outages were handled very differently but show the dangers of centralisation, Let’s Encrypt is introducing certificates for IP addresses, and the differences between backup and production systems. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes News/discussion Microsoft’s 19-hour Outlook outage expose…

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N4N034: OSPF Network Types 43:10

5d ago43:10

43:10

Ethan and Holly continue their OSPF journey this week with OSPF Network Types. They discuss the two main OSPF network types used today: the broadcast and point to point networks. They also explain designated routers, backup designated routers, and when those are used and why. Lastly they discuss some soft skills – knowing your vendor... Read more »…

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NAN096: NautobotGPT – An AI Assistant for Network Automation 55:35

6d ago55:35

55:35

NautobotGPT is a new AI assistant for Nautobot that helps engineers with network automation, answers questions, recommends tooling, and delivers working code. We discuss the user experience of NautobotGPT with Matthew Schwen, Associate Director of Network Automation at Humana, CoFounder and CTO of PortalCX; and Brad Haas, VP of Professional Service…

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PP071: SSE Vendor Test Results; Can HPE and Juniper Get Along? 46:20

7d ago46:20

46:20

CyberRatings, a non-profit that performs independent testing of security products and services, has released the results of comparative tests it conducted on Secure Service Edge, or SSE, services. Tested vendors include Cisco, Cloudflare, Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks, Skyhigh Security, Versa Networks, and Zscaler. We look at what was tested and how…

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NB535: Tomahawk Ultra Chops Congestion; Denmark Invests for Quantum Advantages 51:38

8d ago51:38

51:38

Take a Network Break! We begin with a listener question about a paper critiquing Shor’s Algorithm and quantum computing, and touch on a remote code execution vulnerability in Riverbed SteelCentral NetProfiler / NetExpress 10.8.7. We discuss a Cloudflare BGP misconfiguration that caused the Internet to hiccup, Broadcom’s new Tomahawk Ultra ASIC aime…

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TNO035: Network Engineer and Content Creator – A Career Journey with Kevin Nanns 56:10

11d ago56:10

56:10

Kevin Nanns is today’s guest on Total Network Operations. Kevin describes his “Wizard of Oz” moment when he discovered the world of networking. He talks about how he came up through the ranks working a help desk and then in a NOC, and his climb up the certification ladder. We also discuss how AI is... Read more »…

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HN788: Behind Megaport’s Network Automation Platform (Sponsored) 51:50

11d ago51:50

51:50

We have a network automation discussion for you today from sponsor Megaport. At the AutoCon3 conference earlier this year, Luke Gollan presented on a complex network automation project migrating Megaport’s API-driven software defined network from a legacy VXC overlay to an EVPN framework. This helped improve scalability, but was fraught with practi…

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HN788: Behind Megaport’s Network Automation Platform (Sponsored) 51:50

11d ago51:50

51:50

We have a network automation discussion for you today from sponsor Megaport. At the AutoCon3 conference earlier this year, Luke Gollan presented on a complex network automation project migrating Megaport’s API-driven software defined network from a legacy VXC overlay to an EVPN framework. This helped improve scalability, but was fraught with practi…

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HN788: Behind Megaport’s Network Automation Platform (Sponsored) 51:50

11d ago51:50

51:50

We have a network automation discussion for you today from sponsor Megaport. At the AutoCon3 conference earlier this year, Luke Gollan presented on a complex network automation project migrating Megaport’s API-driven software defined network from a legacy VXC overlay to an EVPN framework. This helped improve scalability, but was fraught with practi…

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2.5 Admins 256: Why ZFS 32:16

12d ago32:16

32:16

To celebrate the 256 milestone we devote the whole episode to explaining why we use ZFS. We explain about data safety, data retention, data portability, and ease of administration. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Klara ZFS Basecamp – Central Resource for Everything ZFS Practical ZFS See our cont…

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IPB179: IPv6 DNS Gotchas 23:51

12d ago23:51

23:51

Let’s talk about common misconceptions regarding DNS and IPv6. We’ve heard these often enough that we felt we should talk through each one. We cover issues including what kind of DNS record types can be returned via IPv6 (and IPv4, too), more details on what really goes on with Happy Eyeballs, and combining A/AAAA records... Read more »…

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N4N033: OSPF Neighbor Formation and Timers 56:52

12d ago56:52

56:52

Our OSPF series continues with a look at OSPF neighbor formation and related timers. We talk about the five major packet types that carry information among OSPF routers, how OSPF routers become neighbors, how they negotiate link-state database exchanges, keep-alive messages, and how they negotiate designated and backup routers when multiple devices…

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D2DO277: AI Security Submissions at Curl Dev 35:10

13d ago35:10

35:10

Curl is a widely used open source tool and library for transferring data. On today’s Day Two DevOps we talk with curl creator Daniel Stenberg. Daniel gives us a brief history of curl and where it’s used (practically everywhere). We also discuss the impact of AI on curl. Open source projects are often starved for... Read more »…

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PP070: News Roundup – Scattered Spider Bites MSPs, Microsoft Rethinks Kernel Access, North Koreans Seem Good at Their Illicit Jobs 44:03

14d ago44:03

44:03

There’s lots of juicy stories in our monthly security news roundup. The Scattered Spider hacking group makes effective use of social engineering to target MSPs, Microsoft pushes for better Windows resiliency by rethinking kernel access policies for third-party endpoint security software, and the US Justice Department files indictments against alleg…

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NB534: Arista Late to SD-WAN Party but Ready to Dance; CoreWeave Acquires GPUs, Gigawatts for $9 Billion 50:31

15d ago50:31

50:31

Take a Network Break! We start with listener follow-up on Arista market share in the enterprise, and then sound the alarm about a remote code execution vulnerability in Adobe Experience Manager. On the news front, Arista buys VeloCloud to charge into the SD-WAN market, CoreWeave acquires a cryptominer to get access to GPUs and electricity... Read m…

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2.5 Admins 255: Copyright Your Face 30:04

19d ago30:04

30:04

Microsoft offers Windows 10 updates in return for your settings data, Denmark wants to protect against deepfakes using copyright, someone is wrong on the Internet about RAID, and getting a sysadmin job in your late 40s. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes News/discussion Microsoft’s free updates for …

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Ask The Hosts – Episode 26 15:28

21d ago15:28

15:28

Whether we’d live in the country side or the city, the best Christmas presets we got as kids, and our Christmas movie traditions. With Allan from 2.5 Admins, Martin, Mark and Allan from Linux Matters, and Gary from Linux After Dark and Hybrid Cloud Show. Patrons got this this in their feed two weeks ago.…

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2.5 Admins 254: chrudo 28:47

26d ago28:47

28:47

A vulnerability in sudo brings up concerns about feature-creep, and makes us consider alternatives. Plus Broadcom starts auditing VMware customers, and how to decide which outbound ports to open on a large network’s firewall. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Disaster Recovery with ZFS: A Practica…

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NAN095: Certification Deep Dive – The New Cisco Automation Track 52:29

27d ago52:29

52:29

Cisco recently announced a major evolution to its certification roadmap: starting February 2026, the popular DevNet certifications will transition to a brand-new Automation track. Joining us today is Francois Caen, Product Manager at Cisco, also an expert in network automation and a recognized voice in the Cisco Learning and Certification Community…

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PP069: A Quantum Primer: It’s More Than Cracking Crypto 41:44

28d ago41:44

41:44

Quantum computing is here, and it’s being used for more than cracking encryption. On today’s Packet Protector we get a primer on quantum, how it differs from classical computing, its applications for difficult computing problems, why quantum will be the death of blockchain, and how to think about quantum risks. Our guest, Johna Johnson, is... Read …

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NB533: HPE Settles With DoJ to Buy Juniper; Juniper Must Auction Mist Source Code 47:05

29d ago47:05

47:05

Take a Network Break! HPE and Juniper have settled with the US Department of Justice, allowing HPE’s $14 billion purchase to move forward. However, as part of the deal, Juniper must grant a full license to its AI Ops for Mist source code to one, or perhaps two, companies via an auction to be overseen... Read more »…

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HN787: Are We In a Post-SNMP Era? 58:27

1M ago58:27

58:27

SNMP is still widely used in today’s networks. But modern telemetry and network observability are bringing changes to network monitoring. Today’s Heavy Networking is a roundtable discussion about alternatives to SNMP and real-world use cases for those alternatives. This episode was inspired by a request from listener Nikolay. He says… While telemet…

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HN787: Are We In a Post-SNMP Era? 58:27

1M ago58:27

58:27

SNMP is still widely used in today’s networks. But modern telemetry and network observability are bringing changes to network monitoring. Today’s Heavy Networking is a roundtable discussion about alternatives to SNMP and real-world use cases for those alternatives. This episode was inspired by a request from listener Nikolay. He says… While telemet…

1
HN787: Are We In a Post-SNMP Era? 58:27

1M ago58:27

58:27

SNMP is still widely used in today’s networks. But modern telemetry and network observability are bringing changes to network monitoring. Today’s Heavy Networking is a roundtable discussion about alternatives to SNMP and real-world use cases for those alternatives. This episode was inspired by a request from listener Nikolay. He says… While telemet…

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TNO034: Doing the Work of Workflows With Greg Freeman 1:07:51

1M ago1:07:51

1:07:51

On today’s show we talk about NetDevOps and AI Ops with Greg Freeman, VP of Network and Customer Transformation at Lumen. Greg spearheads network automation, orchestration ,and AI strategy, guiding the highest technical tier in operations and championing NetDevOps methodologies. We talk about the people and work culture that’s influenced the develo…

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2.5 Admins 253: ImpossibleFS 27:55

1M ago27:55

27:55

Jim is concerned that we might not see another next-gen filesystem that can compete with ZFS, no matter how much we all want one. Plus whether you should switch to third-party firmware on your router. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes ZFS Performance Tuning – Optimizing for your Workload Discussio…

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N4N032: OSPF Basics 56:47

1M ago56:47

56:47

By popular request (and now that we have some other background topics covered) we start our series on the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) routing protocol. We kick off the series with OSPF basics including Link State Advertisements, Link State Database, and other related essentials. We’ll explore additional OSPF topics over subsequent episodes. Thi…

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IPB178: Remembering Fred Baker 28:17

1M ago28:17

28:17

Today’s show is in memory of Fred Baker, who passed away on June 18, 2025. Fred was a pivotal figure in the IPv6 community. He was the long-time chair of the v6ops working group, and had a distinguished career at Cisco as a Technical Fellow. To honor Fred and his contributions, we’re sharing our interview... Read more »…

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D2DO276: MCP: Capable, Insecure, and On Your Network Today 33:47

1M ago33:47

33:47

MCP, or Model Context Protocol, is an open-source project originally created by Anthropic. MCP is designed to let AI agents to connect to data repositories, applications, business and developer tools, and other agents to execute tasks and carry out instructions. Day Two DevOps explores the capabilities and pitfalls of MCP, how the protocol works, a…

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NB532: HPE Deploys AI Agents Into GreenLake; Wi-Fi 7 Drives Q1 Switch Sales 52:07

1M ago52:07

52:07

Take a Network Break! Our Red Alert is a remote code execution vulnerability in Roundcube. On the news front, HPE announces GreenLake Intelligence, which will bring agentic AI capabilities to the HPE portfolio, Pure Storage brings cloud-like operations for on-prem storage, and Juniper Networks adds predictive analytics to its data center ops platfo…

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PP068: Common Kubernetes Risks and What to Do About Them 39:09

1M ago39:09

39:09

Today’s Packet Protector digs into risks and threats you might encounter in a Kubernetes environment, what to do about them, and why sometimes a paved path (or boring technology) is the smartest option. My guest is Natalie Somersall, Principal Solutions Engineer for the Public Sector at Chainguard. We talk about risks including identity and access.…

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HN786: From Intent-Based to Autonomous Ops With Cisco Crosswork and Provider Connectivity Assurance (Sponsored) 49:38

1M ago49:38

49:38

Service provider networks face a couple of difficult challenges: how to map service level agreements to actual network health and performance, and how to deliver service assurance to customers regardless of what happens on the network. On today’s sponsored Heavy Networking we talk with Cisco Systems about its approach to service assurance, how Cisc…

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HN786: From Intent-Based to Autonomous Ops With Cisco Crosswork and Provider Connectivity Assurance (Sponsored) 49:38

1M ago49:38

49:38

Service provider networks face a couple of difficult challenges: how to map service level agreements to actual network health and performance, and how to deliver service assurance to customers regardless of what happens on the network. On today’s sponsored Heavy Networking we talk with Cisco Systems about its approach to service assurance, how Cisc…

1
HN786: From Intent-Based to Autonomous Ops With Cisco Crosswork and Provider Connectivity Assurance (Sponsored) 49:38

1M ago49:38

49:38

Service provider networks face a couple of difficult challenges: how to map service level agreements to actual network health and performance, and how to deliver service assurance to customers regardless of what happens on the network. On today’s sponsored Heavy Networking we talk with Cisco Systems about its approach to service assurance, how Cisc…

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TNO033: Maximum Impact: Leverage Your Network to Advance Your Career (Sponsored) 42:57

1M ago42:57

42:57

At AutoCon 3 in Prague, Scott Robohn sat down with Ernest Lefner from sponsor Gluware to talk about lessons learned throughout his career: from his early days of pulling cable to becoming Chief Product Officer at Gluware and helping to found ONUG. Ernest talks about being a continuous technology learner, and also about the need... Read more »…

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2.5 Admins 252: Nintendon’t Back Up 29:37

1M ago29:37

29:37

Nintendo cuts off Switches that dare to play backed up games, more Microsoft AI exploits, why you shouldn’t regularly spin down hard drives, and securing applications on a home server. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Reliable ZFS Storage on Commodity Hardware – A Cost-Efficient, Data-Sure Storag…

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TL016: When It Comes To Product Design, Don’t Trust Your Gut 39:08

1M ago39:08

39:08

People consistently overestimate their ability to predict whether a new product or feature will be a success. Instead of blithely going forward with a project that takes up lots of resources and yields minimal results, today’s guest says we should get our ideas into contact with external reality as quickly as possible, and maybe do... Read more »…

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N4N031: When Is It Time For a Routing Protocol? 54:39

1M ago54:39

54:39

If you need to route in your network, you can program static routes into all your routing-capable devices. And this can work. But at some point, you’re probably going to want to switch to a dynamic routing protocol. On today’s N Is For Networking, Ethan and Holly discuss the differences between static and dynamic routes,... Read more »…

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NAN094: Automate and Iterate With the NetBox Labs Community 44:56

1M ago44:56

44:56

On today’s show, we’re joined NetBox Labs co-founders Mark Coleman and Kris Beevers. They recount how they founded NetBox Labs and discuss its growth and how it’s being used. We also delve into the NetBox Labs community and its importance for users. And of course, there’s the ever-present AI discussion. Mark and Kris also talk... Read more »…

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PP067: Protecting Secrets With Vault and TruffleHog 35:35

1M ago35:35

35:35

Secrets trickle out through misconfigurations, poor tooling, and rushed Git commits. Today’s guest, John Howard, joins us on Packet Protector to walk through practical secrets management with Vault and TruffleHog to help make sure you don’t expose your privates. John discusses work he’s done to build an automated process in his organization for dev…

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NB531: Cisco Spotlights AI, Unified Management at CLUS; Ultra Ethernet 1.0 Unveiled 21:42

1M ago21:42

21:42

Take a Network Break! Our Red Alert for the week is a remote code execution vulnerability in open-source XDR platform Wazuh. In tech news, we dig into several announcements from Cisco Live US including: unified management of Meraki and Catalyst gear, new switches, an AI Assistant for the Meraki dashboard, a Deep Network Model LLM,... Read more »…

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HN785: How To Take Your First Steps Into Network Automation 55:50

2M ago55:50

55:50

There’s an old saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. On today’s show, we talk about taking your first step into network automation with guest Joseph Nicholson. He’s been automating at NTT Data for many years now and has some perspective to share. He’s a network engineer by trade,... Read more »…

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HN785: How To Take Your First Steps Into Network Automation 55:50

2M ago55:50

55:50

There’s an old saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. On today’s show, we talk about taking your first step into network automation with guest Joseph Nicholson. He’s been automating at NTT Data for many years now and has some perspective to share. He’s a network engineer by trade,... Read more »…