SERVICE MESH IS A VPN!!!

I sit here and reflect back to 2008 when my supervisor suggested I look into the CCNA and Network+. My world changed from plugging a cable into a switch to setting up BGP peers, to configuring Load Balancers for High Availability. Network Engineering has evolved and from my eyes, has been entirely reimagined, retaining the foundations of networking.

As I've slowly pivoted to the world of Cloud Native, a lot of my previous Network Engineering skills have translated to today's approach to microservices architecture. FOLLOW THE PACKETS I SAY!

Can a Network Engineer become a Platform Engineer? Is Service Mesh just a VPN? Why does everything feel the same but look so different? Do you trust ChatGPT4 to run your network?

In this talk, I share my failures, crimes, and perspectives of Network Engineering from the late 2000s to the world of 2023. AI, distributed systems, observability, the deeper need for security/identity, and the manipulation of the network with policy-as-code, all affect the way we build networks today.

My hope is to inspire others to transform their network engineering career, and avoid the mistakes I made.