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Will it be possible to have fully autonomous networks in the near future? Anil Varanasi, CEO and Co-Founder of Meter, joins Scott Robohn in this sponsored episode to discuss the ongoing evolution from automated to autonomous networks. Anil breaks down how Meter differentiates from other networking vendors, discusses how Meter’s network products are vertically integrated... Read more »
Will it be possible to have fully autonomous networks in the near future? Anil Varanasi, CEO and Co-Founder of Meter, joins Scott Robohn in this sponsored episode to discuss the ongoing evolution from automated to autonomous networks. Anil breaks down how Meter differentiates from other networking vendors, discusses how Meter’s network products are vertically integrated... Read more »
Ángel entrevista a Eddy Cue. AirDrop llega a Android, WhatsApp camino de destronar iMessage, y los Android no tienen quien los robe.En este episodio destacamos la entrevista de Ángel con Eddy Cue, vicepresidente de servicios de Apple, con quien conversamos sobre la evolución de la compañía en las últimas dos décadas. Analizamos su visión sobre la producción de contenidos, la importancia estratégica de los deportes —incluyendo la colaboración con el Real Madrid y el nuevo Bernabéu— y cómo Apple ha pasado de ser una empresa tecnológica a un actor cultural global en música y televisión.También exploramos el futuro liderazgo de la empresa tras los rumores de un plan de sucesión para Tim Cook que apuntan a principios de 2026, situando a John Ternus como un candidato fuerte. Debatimos sobre la posible reestructuración del calendario de lanzamientos del iPhone, separando los modelos Pro de las versiones Air y estándar, y comentamos el incierto destino del Mac Pro, que parece perder relevancia frente al Mac Studio y la modularidad que ofrece Thunderbolt 5.Por último, repasamos noticias curiosas como el rechazo de ladrones en Londres a los teléfonos Android y la batalla legal perdida contra Masimo por las patentes de oxígeno en sangre. Además, explicamos avances técnicos como la ingeniería inversa de Google para compatibilizar Quick Share con AirDrop, la posibilidad de cambiar el asistente predeterminado en iOS 26.2 en Japón y el notable crecimiento del uso de WhatsApp en el mercado estadounidense. Entrevista a Eddy Cue, el hombre que convirtió Apple en una factoría de contenidos: "Estamos abiertos a producir cine y series en España" 700.000 canciones a 99 céntimos, ya en España.A R I A D N A-206 Eddy Cue: "Si me hubiera despertado en el Bernabéu, hubiera pensado que estaba en Marte o en otro planeta" Exclusiva: El Real Madrid y Apple abren una nueva dimensión del fútbol: así será el Bernabéu que se vive desde dentro GQ España Apple's iPhone Road Map: iPhone Air 2, iPhone 18; Mac Pro Future; Tesla CarPlay - Bloomberg Alex Ziskind on X: "macOS 26.2 is taking AI on the Mac up a notch. It introduces a new low-latency Thunderbolt 5 feature so you can cluster multiple Macs for faster AI workloads — bypassing the standard TCP/IP networking stack that Thunderbolt 5 was previously using (as I showed in my video https://t.co/cHkCXwjcPU" / X Tim Cook retirement 'leak' is clearly a deliberate test of reactions "Don't want no Samsung" Daring Fireball: Life in London With an Android Phone Android Quick Share can now work with iOS's AirDrop The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop - Ars Technica Ditto - Cross-Platform P2P Wi-Fi: How the EU Killed AWDL Jury says Apple owes Masimo $634M for patent infringement TechCrunch The Apple Designer Who Introduced the iPhone Air Leaves the Company - Bloomberg iOS 26.2 Beta 3 permite cambiar Siri por Gemini u otro asistente Javi Losana on X: "Apple está preparando una nueva función que permitirá a los usuarios de Japón sustituir a Siri por un asistente de voz de terceros Según el código encontrado en iOS 26.2 beta 3, el iPhone permitirá reasignar la función del botón lateral, que actualmente activa Siri mediante una https://t.co/fho08LwZBI" / X Elon Musk on X: "I'm down" / X Americans' Social Media Use 2025 | Pew Research Center About BAILEY HIKAWA 3d ergonomic phone case and toilet seat designer Hikawa Phone Grip & Stand (MagSafe Compatible) - Chartreuse - Apple This new limited-edition iPhone accessory is all about accessibility - 9to5Mac iEscaper - Tweak your iPhone without Jailbreak How to Enable iPad Features like MultiTasking & Stage Manager on iPhone via MobileGestalt - iDevice Central
Today Scott interviews Andy Lapteff. He opens up about his non-linear career path, starting from a working class background and his physical jobs in telecom to becoming a senior product marketing manager and podcaster. Join us as Andy shares candid stories of how he developed his resilience and the heartwarming origin story for the Art... Read more »
Today Scott interviews Andy Lapteff. He opens up about his non-linear career path, starting from a working class background and his physical jobs in telecom to becoming a senior product marketing manager and podcaster. Join us as Andy shares candid stories of how he developed his resilience and the heartwarming origin story for the Art... Read more »
Join this DM Radio episode, recorded live at the TDWI Conference, as we explore how security must evolve in an AI-driven, real-time world. Discover why legacy TCP/IP approaches fall short as organizations push intelligence to the edge and leverage billions of sensors. Learn about the growing global maturity of cybersecurity and how industries are implementing shared standards and security-by-design architectures. Tune in to hear what modern network defense truly requires.
Shawn Tierney meets up with Mark Berger of Siemens to learn how Siemens integrates SIRIUS ACT devices (push buttons, selector switches, pilot lights) with PROFINET in this episode of The Automation Podcast. For any links related to this episode, check out the “Show Notes” located below the video. Watch The Automation Podcast from The Automation Blog: Listen to The Automation Podcast from The Automation Blog: The Automation Podcast, Episode 253 Show Notes: Special thanks to Mark Berger of Siemens for coming on the show and sending us a sample! Read the transcript on The Automation Blog: (automatically generated) Shawn Tierney (Host): Thank you for tuning back in to the automation podcast. My name is Shawn Tierney from Insights. And today on the show, we have a special treat. We have Mark Berger back on from Siemens to bring us up to speed on serious act. He’s gonna tell us all about the product, and then we’re even gonna do a small demo and take a look at it working live. So with that said, let’s go ahead and jump into this episode with Mark Burger from Siemens and learn all about their push buttons on PROFINET. Mark, it’s been a while since you’ve been on the show. Thank you for coming back on and agreeing to talk about this. Mark Berger (Siemens): Oh, thank you so much. I truly appreciate you letting me be on. I appreciate your channel, and I enjoy watching it. And I’m excited to show you some of this great technology. So I’ve got, the PowerPoint up here. We’ll just do a simple PowerPoint to kinda give you an overview, and then we’ll dive into the hardware. Shawn Tierney (Host): Appreciate it. Thank you. Mark Berger (Siemens): No problem. So as we stated, the Sirius X over PROFINET, let me emphasize that, the, actuators, the push buttons, the estops, the selector switches, they are all standard, when you use these. So if you have those on the shelf, the only thing that PROFINET does is that it adds, removes the normal contact blocks and adds the PROFINET, terminal blocks on the back. So every all the actuators that we’re showing are just standard actuators for the 22 millimeter push button line. So easy to use, modern design, performance and action, and extremely rugged and flexible. The, 22 millimeter is out of the box IP 69 k, which for those who are maybe in the food and beverage, verticals would understand what that is. And that’s for direct hose down, wash down, able to handle a high pressure washing and not able to leak past the actuator into the panel. So IP 69 k is a a great place for dust and wash down and hosing and where you’re having rain and so forth, to be able to protect for a keep of any, water passing into the panel. So introduction wise, it’s, the PROFINET push buttons for us. It it is, again, the same actuators, the same, connections, and so forth, but what we’re going to exchange is the terminal blocks, for it. So on there, I stated it’s, IP 69 k is standard. You don’t need any, extra covers forward or anything to fulfill that requirement, But it’s, it’s insensitive to dust and oil and caustic solutions, you know, like citric acid where you’re hosing down some stainless steel parts and so forth. Now what we have here is, changing out the terminal blocks that have wiring. So usually on a push button, you have two wires coming in, and then you have, for illuminated, you have two wires coming in and so forth and going out. And after you have 20 or 30 push buttons or 10 or 15 push buttons, you’ve got a substantial little bit of wiring or cabling that will be passing from the door over into the main cabinet of your control cabinet. What we’re going to do with PROFINET push buttons is we’re going to eliminate all that wiring. And then in addition, eliminate the input and output cards that you will need for your PLC and take it down to a pro, Ethernet cable, an r j r j 45 cable, and then down to a 24 volts. And that’s all that will pass from the cabinet onto the door where you’re mounting your push buttons. So, huge, safe and cost of wires. We’re reducing all the wire outlay. And, you know, back in the day when I build panels, it was an art how you got all the wires all nice and pretty and got them laid out and wire tied them down and so forth and just made the a piece of art on the backside. And then, it it was all done. You got it all wired. And then, of course, there was somebody that said, hey. We forgot to add another selector switch. So you had to go back and cut all that stuff and redo the whole layout and so forth. So with PROFINET, it’s extremely flexible and easily, to adapt to if you need something, more because you’re not taking all that wiring back to the panel, passing it across the hinge of the door and so forth. It is also with a safety PLC. You do have PROFIsafe, so we can do estops on the door as you can see here in the picture, but then we can do non safe applications also. So today, we’ll be just doing some non safe applications. And then the communications again is PROFINET. But then also just to touch real quick, we do have it on IO Link and on Aussie with our push buttons. So what is SiriusACT with PROFINET? There we go. So what you have is the first, block or interface module that you put on the back of your push button, that’s where the, Ethernet is plugged into and your 24 volts is plugged into. And then after that, subsequently, then the push buttons that you have is that you have what we call a terminal module. And in between the, the interface module to a terminal module or from terminal module to terminal module, you can go up to one meter of cabling, and it’s a ribbon cable. And we’ll show that here shortly. And then if you have up to we can do up to 20 push buttons, terminal modules, with a total of 21 push buttons. And then so from the first interface module all the way to the last push button, you can go up to 10 meters. And then it gives, again, 24 volt power supply for it. And we have, again, as I stated, as nonsafe, talking just PROFINET, and then the safety version, talking PROFISAFE on PROFINET. So serious act, we can go up on the the safety up to seal three and performance level e as an echo. We have, again, the the standard interface module without safety. You have the PLC, the interface module, and then the subsequent terminal modules for it. And then the cabling that goes from the interface module to out to the terminal modules is a simple ribbon cable that comes into the back of the terminal modules. The only tool that you need is simply it’s just a screwdriver, and, you, push it into the terminal module, push down. It uses, vampire connections, insulation displacement, vampire connections, and you push it down in. There’s no stripping of the wires. There’s no mix up. The indicator you can see on the wires here in a minute will show you that there’s a little red line that shows you, which way it, enters into the terminal, and then that’s it. It’s very straightforward. It’s, very simple with tools. And, as I stated, it’s, just like a normal push button that you’d put on, but then we’re gonna add, remove the contact block and add the terminal module or the interface module in the place of the contact block. Just to emphasize again, we can do PROFISAFE on, with a safety PLC and a safety controller, and we can give you all the safety, requirements for the either the ISO or the IEC specifications for safety out there in the field. Here’s some of the part numbers. First one, of course, is the interface module, and that has the ability to do PROFIsafe. It has also, additionally, four digital inputs, one digital output, and then one analog input. And we’ll talk about that a little bit more just in a few minutes. And then the non safe version, 24 volts. You have a, two versions of this one, one with just with just a standard, 24 volts input, but then there’s an additional one that has the four digital in, one digital out, and one analog in. So there’s two different part numbers. One where you don’t need the additional, digital inputs and outputs and analog, and then the and then the part number with the the additional inputs and outputs. But the safety one comes there’s no other version, just the one. Then you have what we call the terminal modules, and there’s three versions. One terminal module is just the command module only. It’s mounted with two mechanical signaling blocks to signal. So you have two contact blocks built in. Then you have one that’s a terminal module with the command, the terminal blocks, and then also an integrated LED. And then you can put what color you want the LED to be, and you can see there the the part number changed for red, blue, amber, so on. And then you have a just an LED module to where it’s no contactors. It’s just LED. And, I think with our demo we’re gonna show today, we’re just gonna show the contact block and LED module and only the LED module today. There’s some other, accessories with the safety. There’s a memory module to where that you, is all the configurations are put into the memory module, and something happens to that interface module. Everything’s put in there, the IP address, the configuration, and everything. If something gets broke and so forth or you have to replace it, you pull the memory module out, put the new terminal or interface module in, plug in the memory module, cycle the power, and it’s up and running. All the configurations, the IP address, everything’s already there. And then on the interface module, it does not come with an LED, so you’re required to buy this this, LED right here if you need it for it, and that’s what you use for the interface module. And then, of course, the ribbon cable that goes between the interface module to the terminal block or terminal module and terminal module and so forth come in five meter length and 10 meter length. K. So what’s it provide for you? Well, the benefits are, I’ll I’ll be very blunt. If it’s just one or two buttons on a panel, it won’t be that cost effective. Yes. We’re reducing the IO, the IO inputs and outputs, but for the savings, it’s not the best. Now when you get up to about three or four push buttons, then that cost saving is, very realized. Now when you go up to 20 push buttons, yes, you’re saving a lot of money, especially in the IO cards that you’re not gonna be required to have. And then, of course, all the wiring and the labor, getting it all wired up and doing all the loop checks to make sure that when you push this button, it’s wired into the right terminal block on the IO card, so on and so forth. So about, the break is about two to three push buttons to where it will become very cost effective for you to use it. But like I said yesterday, without PROFINET push buttons, it was all the wiring you brought across and putting them into all your IO cards and so forth. And now with PROFINET push buttons, all that goes away, and all you’re bringing across is an Ethernet cable and 24 volts positive and 24 volts negative across that hinge into the door. And that’s it. K. And then emphasizing again, we can do PROFIsafe and those, push buttons and estops. The estop can be part of your safety circuit and give you the, safety levels that you’re required from either sill and or performance level safeties depending on the specification, IEC, or ISO that you’re following within your plant. K? And then hardware configuration. Now this is where we step into reduction of engineering and helping you guys get going, quicker and making sure engineering is done properly. You know, back in the day, we’d wire up all the wires, coming from the push buttons, you know, a selector switch, a start button, stop button, indicator lights, and so forth. And and all those wires sometimes just, you know, the what we’re working with, all the wires look the same. You’ve put labels on them. You may have labeled it wrong, and you wired into an input card or an output card. So there’s some time where you’re over there doing some loop checks where you’re trying to say, yes. That’s coming into input byte dot bit, and that should be the selector switch. Well, with the PROFINET push buttons, we’re able to not have to worry about that, and we’re gonna demonstrate that just here in a minute. But you also have a full lineup of the push buttons coming into portal so that you can see the lineup and verify that it is the parts that you want. In TI portal, you can see that, of course, the first, button is the interface module, and then sequentially is the terminal modules that have either just contactors, LED and contactors, or just LEDs. And we’ll we’ll show that just here momentarily. But it’s all integrated into TIA portal. It has a visual representation of all the push buttons, and it’s simple and fast, to, configure. We’ll show you that here in just a moment. And there’s no addressing, for it. So some of the stuff that you have out there, you have addressing, making sure what the address is right, and so on. This is a standardized data management, and it’s extremely time saving and engineering saving for, the user. Shawn Tierney (Host): Well, let me ask you a question about that. If the snow addressing, do the items show up, in the order that they’re wired? In other words, you know, you’re daisy chasing the you’re you’re going cable to cable from device to device. Is that the order that they show up? Mark Berger (Siemens): That’s exactly right. Shawn Tierney (Host): Okay. Mark Berger (Siemens): So if you don’t know which ones are what, you just literally put run your hand from the interface module, follow that cable, and the next one that will be visually saw in portal will be the one that it lands on first. Perfect. And then there’s a cable that leaves that one and goes into the next one, daisy chained, and then that’s what’ll be represented in that lineup. And here in just a minute, we’ll we’ll show that. Alright. Thank you for that question. Okay. Now once I got it wired up, how do I know that I got it wired properly? And we’re gonna show that here in just a minute. But just graphically wise, you have the ability to see if it is all wired up. You do not need to plug it into the PLC. This all it needs is 24 volts. The PLC can come later and plugging it in later and so forth. There’s no programming. This all comes out of the box. So once you plug it in, if all on the backside looking at the terminal blocks and the daisy chain ribbon cable, if it’s all green, you wired it up properly, and it’s working properly. But then if you see a red light flashing either at the terminal module because that will that will bubble up to the terminal module. So if you have a problem somewhere pardon me, the interface module. If you have some problem with the terminal modules, a push button like number two or three or four, it will bubble up into the, interface module to let it know, hey. We got a problem. Can you look to see where it’s at? And as you see here, we have maybe a device that’s defective. And so it bubbles up into the interface module to let you know, and a red light lets you know that we have maybe a defective module. You know, something hammered it pretty hard, or, it may have been miswired. Then the second one down below, we’ve got a wiring error to where you don’t have the green lights on the back and everybody else’s there’s no green light shown. That means you have a wiring error. Or if everything works great, it’s green lights across, but then the next level of this is is my push button working? So then we you’ll push or actuate the push button or actuate the selector switch, and the green light will flash to let you know that that terminal module or interface module is working properly. And we’ve done our our, loop checks right there before we’ve even plugged it into the PLC or your programmer has come out and sat down and worked with it. We can prove that that panel is ready to roll and ready to go, and you can set it aside. And if you got four or five of the same panel, you can build them all up, power it up, verify that it’s all green lights across the board. It is. Great. Set it down. Build up another one and go on from there. So it shows you fast fault detection without any additional equipment or additional people to come in and help you show you that. When we used to do loop checks, usually had somebody push the button, then yell at the programmer, hey. Is this coming in at I zero dot zero? Yeah. I see it. Okay. Or then he pushed another one. Hey. Is this coming in on I 0.one? No. It’s coming in on i0. Three. So there was that two people and then more time to do that loop check or the ring out as some people have called it. So in this case, you don’t need to do that, and you’ll see why here in just a minute. And then, again, if we do have an interface module that, maybe it got short circuited or something hit it, it you just pull the ePROM out, plug it into the new one, bring in the ribbon cable, and cycle the power, and you’re up and running. Alright. And then this is just some of the handling options of how it handles the data, with the projects and so forth, with basic setups, options that you can be handling with this, filling bottles. What we wanna make sure to understand is that if maybe push buttons, you can pick push buttons to work with whatever project you want it to do. So if you have six push buttons out there, two of them are working on one, bottle filling, and then the rest of them are working on the labeling, you can separate those push buttons. Even though that they’re all tied together via PROFINET, you can use them in different applications across your machine. Shawn Tierney (Host): You’re saying if I have multiple CPUs, I could have some buttons in light work with CPU one, PLC one, and some work with PLC two? Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. There’s handling there. There’s programming in the backside that needs to be done, but, yes, that can happen. Yep. Oh, alright. So conclusion, integrated into TI portal. We’re gonna show that here in a minute. So universal system, high flexibility with your digital in, digital outs, analogs, quick and easy installation, one man, one hand, no special tooling, and then substantially reducing the wiring and labor to get it going. And then, again, integrated safety if, required for the your time. So with that, let’s, switch over to TI portal. So I’ve already got a project started. I just called it project three. I’ve already got a PLC. I’ve got our, new g, s seven twelve hundred g two already in. And then what I’m gonna do is I’ve, already built up the panel. And, Shawn, if you wanna show your panel right here. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. Let me go ahead and switch the camera over to mine. And so now everybody’s seeing my overhead. Now do you want me to turn it on at this point? It’s off. Yeah. Yeah. Mark Berger (Siemens): Let’s do it. Shawn Tierney (Host): Gonna turn it on, and all the lights came on. So we have some push buttons and pilot lights here, but the push buttons are illuminated, and now they’ve all gone off. Do you want me to show the back now? Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. So what we did there is that we just showed that the LEDs are all working, and that’s at the initial powering up of the 24 volts. Now we’re gonna switch over and, you know, open up the cabinet and look inside, and now we’re looking on the backside. And if you remember in the PowerPoint, I said that we’d have all green lights, the everything’s wired properly. And as you look, all the terminal modules all have green lights, and so that means that’s all been wired properly. If you notice, you see a little red stripe on the ribbon cable. That’s a indication. Yep. To show you that. And then if you look on the on the out on the, the interface module, Shawn, there’s it says out right there at the bottom. Yeah. There’s a little dot, and that dot means that’s where the red stripe goes, coming out. So that little dot means that’s where the red stripe comes. Yep. Right there. And that’s how it comes out. And then if you look just to the left a little bit, there’s another, in, and there’d be a red dot underneath that ribbon cable showing you how the red the the red goes into it. Notice that everything’s clear, so you can see that the wire gets engaged properly all the way in. And then all you do is take a screwdriver and push down, and then the vent, comes in. The insulation displacement comes in and, and, makes the connections for you. So there’s no strip tie cable stripping tools or anything special for doing that. Another item, just while we’re looking, if you look in the bottom left hand corner of that terminal module, you see kind of a a t and then a circle and then another t. That’s an indicator to let you know that that’s two contactors and an LED that you have on the backside. Shawn Tierney (Host): We’re talking about right here? Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. Yep. Right there. Shawn Tierney (Host): Okay. Mark Berger (Siemens): So that’s an indicator to tell you what type of terminal block it is a terminal, block that it is. That’s two contactors and LED. And then if you look at one in the bottom left hand corner, there’s just a circle. That means you just have an LED. So you have some indicators to show you what you’re looking at and so forth. So today, we’re just using the two, LED only, and then we’re doing the contactor and LED combination. I I don’t have one there on your demo that’s just the contactor. So Shawn Tierney (Host): Now you were telling me about these earlier. Yeah. Mark Berger (Siemens): So yeah. The so if you look there on that second row of the terminal blocks, you have a UV and an AI, and I’ll show that in the schematic here in just a little bit, but there, that is a 10 volt output. If you put a 250 ohm or 250 k ohm, potentiometer and then bring that signal back into AI, you have an analog set point that comes in for it that will automatically be scaled zero to 1,000 count or zero to 10 volts. Mhmm. And then you can use that for a speed reference for a VFD. And it’s already there. All you have to do, you don’t have to scale it or anything. You can put it towards, you know, okay. Zero to 1,000 count means zero to 500 PSI or or zero to 100 feet per second on a conveyor belt, and I’m I’m just pulling numbers out. But that’s the only real scalability scaling you have to do. So it’ll be a zero to 1,000 count is what you’ll see instead of, like, yep. Then you got four digital ins that you can use and then a one digital out. Now the four, I, kinda inquired wife just four, but let’s say that you have a four position joystick. You could wire all four positions into that interface module, and then the output could be something else for a local horn that you want or something to that case with it. So you in addition to the, push buttons, you also have a small, distribution IO block right there in the in your panel. Shawn Tierney (Host): Which is cool. Yeah. I mean, maybe yeah. Like you said, maybe you have something else on the panel that doesn’t fit in with, you know, this line of push buttons and pilot lights like a joystick. Right? And that makes a lot of sense. You were saying too, if I push the button, I can test to see if it’s working. Mark Berger (Siemens): Correct. So if you yep. Go right ahead. Shawn Tierney (Host): I’m pushing that middle one right there. You can see it blinking now. Mark Berger (Siemens): And that tells you that the contacts have been made, and it’s telling you that the contacts work properly. Shawn Tierney (Host): And now I’m pushing the one below it. So that shows me that everything’s working. The contacts are working, and we’re good to go. Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. Everything’s done. We’ve done the loop checks. We know that this is ready to be plugged into the PLC and handed off to whomever is going to be, programming the PLC and bring it in, in which means that we’ll go to the next step in the TI portal. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. Let me switch back to you, and we’re seeing your TI portal now. Mark Berger (Siemens): Awesome. Okay. So I’ve got the PLC. I’ve plugged it in to if if I needed an Ethernet switch or I’ve plugged it directly into the PLC. Now I have just built up that panel. I haven’t had anything, done with it for an IP address because it is a TCP IP protocol. So we need to do a IP address, but it’s on PROFINET. And then I’m gonna come here to online access, and I wanna see that I can see it out there that I’m talking to it. So I’m gonna do update accessible devices. It’s gonna reach out via my, Ethernet port on my laptop. And then there’s our g two PLC and its IP address. So that’s that guy right here. Mhmm. And then I have something out there called accessible devices, and then this is its MAC address. So what I and I just have those two items on the network, but, you know, you could have multiples as, you know, with GI portal. We can put an entire machine in one project. So I come here and drop that down, and I go to online diagnostics. I I go online with it, but I don’t have really a lot here to tell me what’s going on or anything yet. But I come here, and I say assign IP address. And I call one ninety two, one sixty eight, zero zero zero, and zero ten zero, and then our usual 255, two fifty five, two fifty five, and then I say assign IP address. Give it a second. It’s gonna go out and tell it, okay. You’re it. Now I wanna see if it took, and you look right there, it took. And I’m I’m kinda anal, so I kinda do it again just to verify. Yep. Everything’s done. It’s got an IP address. Now I’m gonna come up, and I’m going to go to my project, and I’m gonna switch this to new network view. Here’s my PLC. I’m gonna highlight my project. Now there’s two ways I can go about it, and I’m sure, Shawn, you’ve learned that Siemens allows you to kinda do it multiple ways. I could come in here and go into my field devices, and I could come into my commanding and interface modules, and I’d start building my push button station. But we’re gonna be a little oh and ah today. We’re gonna highlight the project. I’m gonna go to online, and I’m gonna come down here to hardware detection and do PROFINET devices from network. Brings up the screen to say, hey. I want you to go out and search for PROFINET industrial Ethernet. Come out via my, NIC card from my laptop, and I want you to start search. Shawn Tierney (Host): For those of you who watched my previous episodes doing the e t 200 I o, this is exactly the same process we used for that. Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. And I found something out there that I know I gave the IP address, but it doesn’t have a PROFINET name yet. So that’s okay. I’ve I got the IP address. We’ll worry about the PROFINET name. So we’ll hide check mark this, and this could be multiple items. Shawn Tierney (Host): Mhmm. Mark Berger (Siemens): K. So now add device. Shawn Tierney (Host): And this is the sweet part. Mark Berger (Siemens): And right here, it’s done. It went out, interrogated the interface module, and said, okay. Are you there? Yep. I’m here. Here’s my IP address. And it also shared with it all of come in here, double click on it now. Shawn Tierney (Host): The real time saver. Yep. Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. And then now here’s all the push buttons in your thing. And let me zoom that out. It’s at 200%. Let’s go out to a 100. And now it already interrogated the interface module and all the terminal modules to tell me what’s in my demo. Yep. And again, as you stated in your questions, how do I know which one’s the next one? You just saw the ribbon cable Mhmm. And then it brings you so forth and so on. So that’s done. We’re good. I’m gonna go back to my network view, and I’m gonna say, hey. I want you to communicate via PROFINET to there, which I’m done. And then it also gives you here’s the PLC that you’re gonna do because, you know, if we have a big project, we may have four or five of these stations, and you wanna know which PLC is the primary PLC on it. And then we’ve done that. I’m going to quickly just do a quick compile. And next, I’m gonna come here. I’m gonna click here. Now I could just do download and and let the PROFINET name, which is here, go into it. But I’m gonna right click, and I’m gonna say assign device name and say update list. It’s gonna go interrogate the network. Takes a second. No device name assigned. No PROFINET name. So this is how we do that time determinism with PROFINET. So I’m gonna highlight it, and I say assign the name, and it’s done. Close. So now it has a PROFINET name and IP address. So now I’m able to go in here and hit download and load. And we’re going to stop because we are adding hardware, so we are putting the CPU in stop and hit finish. Now I always make sure I’m starting the CPU back up and then hit finish. And then I’m gonna go online, go over here and show network view, and go online. And I got green balls and green check marks all over the board, so I’m excited. This works out. Everything’s done. But now what about the IO? So now your programmer is already talking to it, but now I need to know what the inputs and outputs are. So go back offline, double click here, and then I’m gonna just quickly look at a couple things. The interface modules IO tags are in a different spot than the terminal modules. So just a little note. It’s right here. If you double click on integrated I LED, you click here and then go to properties and say IO tags. There it lists all of the inputs and outputs. So it comes here. But if I do a terminal module, click here, then once you just click on it in general oops. Sorry. In general, it’s right here in the IO addressing. There’s where it starts start the bytes, but then I come here to tags, and then here’s the listing. So the the the programs automatically already allocated the byte and the bit for each of these guys. So if I click there, there, click there, there’s it there, onward and upward. Now notice that the byte so if I click on position four, it is three. So it’s one one less because the base zero versus here, it’s five. Just give me a little bit of a so if you look in here, all that starts at I four dot zero. I four dot zero. So k. So that’s there. So I’m gonna come here. I’m gonna go to the selector switch for this, and I’ve called it s s one, and that’s input two dot zero. Then I’m gonna click here, and I’m gonna call this green push button. Notice there’s two inputs because I have one contactor here, one contactor there, and 30 and 31. So then what I’m gonna do is that I’m going to go over here to the PLC, and I’m gonna go to and it’s updated my PLC tag table. There you go. It’s in there. So then I’m gonna grab that guy. I’m gonna because portal pushes you to use two monitors. I’m gonna come here, go to the main OB, and then I’m gonna just grab a normally open contact, drag it on, drop it, put it in there we go. And then I’m gonna grab selector switch and drop that right there, and grab green LED and drop that right there, and then close that out and compile. And everybody’s happy. I’m gonna download and say yes. Okay. And then I’m gonna go online. Alright. So it’s waiting in for me to switch that, and there you go. And if you wanna see my screen there, Shawn, that’s the green light is turned on. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. Let me switch over to Okay. Bring up your, alright. And could you switch it back off now? Mark Berger (Siemens): Yeah. No problem. Yep. So there we go. We switch it off. We switch it on. Now I wanna show you something kinda cool. If I turn that off and I come back here and I go offline Mhmm. I have a indicator light that needs to flash to let the operator know that there’s something here I need you to attend to. So we used to put in some type of timer. Right? Mhmm. Shawn Tierney (Host): Mhmm. Mark Berger (Siemens): And so what we would do here instead of that, I’m gonna come back down here to my tab and go to the hardware config. I’m gonna double click here. I’m gonna go to module parameters, and I’m gonna drop this down, and I’m gonna put it at two hertz. Also, just to point out, I can also do a normally open contact and a normally closed contact and switch them. You see right here. Cool. And I can control the brightness of the LED if it has an LED, and it’s all hard coded into it. So once I’ve done that, do a quick compile. I’m I mean, you know, I’ve always compile and then do download. Mhmm. Mhmm. So we’re gonna download that and hit load and finish. K. Here we go. Turn that on, and now it’s flashing. Shawn Tierney (Host): That’s great. So you have a timer built in. If you need to flash, you don’t have to go get a clock bit or create your own timer. Plus, if it’s a button, you can change the contacts from normally open to normally closed. That is very cool. Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. And that is PROFINET push buttons. As I stated let me quickly pull that up. Remember, you pointed out just a few minutes ago, here is the wiring diagram for that. So here’s the back of that with the terminal blocks. And you come down here, and it shows you that you just wire in that, variable resistor or a potentiometer. And you see m and you there’s the 10 volts, and then the signal comes into a. And then that guy is right here. Excellent. So if you come here, you go to properties and IO tags, and it comes in on I 60 fours and input and IO tags, and then I could call that a pot. Yeah. And now you have a potentiometer that you can use as a a speed reference for your VFD. That is very cool. Engineering efficiency, we reduced wiring. We don’t have all the IO cards that is required, and we have the diagnostics. Emphasize that each of these here, their names, you can change those if you would like because this is your diagnostic string. So if something goes wrong here, then it would come up and say commanding. So you double click here, and we go here to general, and it’ll say commanding and underscore LED module two, or you can you can call that start conveyor p b. And then that would change this. Now see this changed it. This would be your diagnostic string to let you know if if that button got damaged or is not working properly. Shawn Tierney (Host): You know, I wanted to ask you too. If I had, let’s say I needed two potentiometers on the front of the enclosure, could I put another interface module in the system? Even if it didn’t have any push buttons on it or pilots on it, could I just put it in there to grab, some more IO? Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. Yes, sir. I have a customer that he uses these as small little IO blocks. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. I mean, if you just needed a second pot, it might make sense to buy another interface module and bring it into that than buying an analog card. Right? Assuming the resolution and everything was app you know, correct for your application, but that’s very cool. I you know, it it really goes in line with all the videos we’ve done recently looking at e t 200 I o, all the different flavors and types. And when you walk through here, you know, I’m just so especially, thankful that it reads in all the push buttons and their positions and pilot lights. Because if you have this on your desk, you’re doing your first project, you can save a lot of dragging and dropping and searching through the hardware catalog just by reading it in just like we can read in a rack of, like, e t 200 SPIO. Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. Engineering efficiency, reducing wiring, reducing time in front of the PC to get things up and running. You saw how quickly just a simple push button and a and, you know, again, a simple start and turn that on and off the races we went. Shawn Tierney (Host): Well, Mark, I really wanna thank you. Was there anything else that we wanted to cover before we close out the show? Mark Berger (Siemens): Nope. That’s just about it. I think, we got a little bit to have your your viewers, think about for it. So I appreciate the time, and I really appreciate you allowing me to show this. I think this is a a really engineering efficiency way of going about using our push buttons and and, making everybody’s projects in a timely manner and getting everything done and having cost savings with it. Shawn Tierney (Host): Well, and I wanna thank you for taking the time out of your busy day, not only to put together a little demo like you have for me to use here in the school, but also to come on and show our audience how to use this. And I wanna thank our audience. This was actually prompted from one of you guys out there at calling in or writing in. I think it was on YouTube somewhere and saying, hey. Could you cover the PROFINET push buttons from Siemens? I didn’t even know they had them. So thanks to the viewers out there for your feedback that helps guide me on what you wanna see. And, Mark, this would not be possible if it wasn’t for your expertise. Thank you for coming back on the show. I really appreciate it. Mark Berger (Siemens): Thank you, Shawn. All the best. Thank you. Shawn Tierney (Host): I hope you enjoyed that episode. And I wanna thank Mark for taking time out of his busy schedule to put together that demo and presentation for us and really bring us up to speed on Sirius X. And I wanna thank the user out there who put a comment on one of my previous videos that said, hey. Did you know Siemens has this? Because I wouldn’t have known that unless you said that. So thank you to all you. I try to read the comments every day or at least every two days, and so I appreciate you all wherever you are, whether you’re on YouTube, the automation blog, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, and wherever you’re listening to this, I just wanna thank you for tuning in. And now with next week being Thanksgiving, we’ll have a pause in the automation show, then we have some more shows in December, and we’re already filming episodes for next year. So I’m looking forward to, releasing all those for you. And if you didn’t know, I also do another podcast called the History of Automation. Right now, it’s only available on video platforms, so YouTube, LinkedIn, and the automation blog. Hopefully, someday we’ll also do it on, audio as well. But, we’re meeting with some of the really legends in automation who worked on some of the really, you know, just really original PLCs, original HMIs, up and through, like, more modern day systems. So it’s just been a blast having these folks on to talk about the history of automation. And so if you need something to listen to during Thanksgiving week or maybe during the holidays, check out the history of automation. Again, right now, it’s only available on YouTube, the automation blog, and LinkedIn, but I think you guys will enjoy that. And I wanna wish you guys, since I won’t be back next week, a very happy Thanksgiving. I wanna thank you always for tuning in and listening, and I also wanna wish you all good health and happiness. And until next time, my friends, peace. Until next time, Peace ✌️ If you enjoyed this content, please give it a Like, and consider Sharing a link to it as that is the best way for us to grow our audience, which in turn allows us to produce more content
How do all your devices connect and stay safe in the cloud? In this episode, Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham talk with OCI instructors Sergio Castro and Orlando Gentil about the basics of how networks work and the simple steps that help protect them. You'll learn how information gets from one place to another, why tools like switches, routers, and firewalls are important, and what goes into keeping access secure. The discussion also covers how organizations decide who can enter their systems and how they keep track of activity. Cloud Tech Jumpstart: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/cloud-tech-jumpstart/152992 Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/ X: https://x.com/Oracle_Edu Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Kris-Ann Nansen, Radhika Banka, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode. -------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00:00 Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started! 00:25 Lois: Hello and welcome to the Oracle University Podcast! I'm Lois Houston, Director of Innovation Programs with Oracle University, and with me is Nikita Abraham, Team Lead: Editorial Services. Nikita: Hi everyone! In the last episode, we spoke about local area networks and domain name systems. Today, we'll continue our conversation on the fundamentals of networking, covering a variety of important topics. 00:50 Lois: That's right, Niki. And before we close, we'll also touch on the basics of security. Joining us today are two OCI instructors from Oracle University: Sergio Castro and Orlando Gentil. So glad to have you both with us guys. Sergio, with so many users and devices connecting to the internet, how do we make sure everyone can get online? Can you break down what Network Address Translation, or NAT, does to help with this? Sergio: The world population is bigger than 4.3 billion people. That means that if we were to interconnect every single human into the internet, we will not have enough addresses. And not all of us are connected to the internet, but those of us who are, you know that we have more than one device at our disposal. We might have a computer, a laptop, mobile phones, you name it. And all of them need IP addresses. So that's why Network Address Translation exists because it translates your communication from a private IP to a public IP address. That's the main purpose: translate. 02:05 Nikita: Okay, so with NAT handling the IP translation, how do we ensure that the right data reaches the right device within a network? Or to put it differently, what directs external traffic to specific devices inside a network? Sergio: Port forwarding works in a reverse way to Network Address Translation. So, let's assume that this PC here, you want to turn it into a web server. So, people from the outside, customers from the outside of your local area network, will access your PC web server. Let's say that it's an online store. Now all of these devices are using the same public IP address. So how would the traffic be routed specifically to this PC and not to the camera or to the laptop, which is not a web server, or to your IP TV? So, this is where port forwarding comes into play. Basically, whenever it detects a request coming to port, it will route it and forward that request to your PC. It will allow anybody, any external device that wants to access this particular one, this particular web server, for the session to be established. So, it's a permission that you're allowing to this PC and only to this PC. The other devices will still be isolated from that list. That's what port forwarding is. 03:36 Lois: Sergio, let's talk about networking devices. What are some of the key ones, and what role do they play in connecting everything together? Sergio: There's plenty of devices for interconnectivity. These are devices that are different from the actual compute instances, virtual machines, cameras, and IPTV. These are for interconnecting networks. And they have several functionalities. 03:59 Nikita: Yeah, I often hear about a default gateway. Could you explain what that is and why it's essential for a network to function smoothly? Sergio: A gateway is basically where a web browser goes and asks a service from a web server. We have a gateway in the middle that will take us to that web server. So that's basically is the router. A gateway doesn't necessarily have to be a router. It depends on what device you're addressing at a particular configuration. So, a gateway is a connectivity device that connects two different networks. That's basically the functionality. 04:34 Lois: Ok. And when does one use a default gateway? Sergio: When you do not have a specific route that is targeting a specific router. You might have more than one router in your network, connecting to different other local area networks. You might have a route that will take you to local area network B. And then you might have another router that is connecting you to the internet. So, if you don't have a specific route that will take you to local area network B, then it's going to be utilizing the default gateway. It directs data packets to other networks when no specific route is known. In general terms, the default gateway, again, it doesn't have to be a router. It can be any devices. 05:22 Nikita: Could you give us a real-world example, maybe comparing a few of these devices in action, so we can see how they work together in a typical network? Sergio: For example, we have the hub. And the hub operates at the physical layer or layer 1. And then we have the switch. And the switch operates at layer 2. And we also have the router. And the router operates at layer 3. So, what's the big difference between these devices and the layers that they operate in? So, hubs work in the physical layer of the OSI model. And basically, it is for connecting multiple devices and making them act as a single network segment. Now, the switch operates at the data link layer and is basically a repeater, and is used for filtering content by reading the addresses of the source and destination. And these are the MAC addresses that I'm talking about. So, it reads where the packet is coming from and where is it going to at the local area network level. It connects multiple network segments. And each port is connected to a different segment. And the router is used for routing outside of your local area network, performs traffic directing functions on the internet. A data packet is typically forwarded from one router to another through different networks until it reaches its destination node. The switch connects multiple network segments. And each port of the switch is connected to a different segment. And the router performs traffic directing functions on the internet. It takes data from one router to another, and it works at the TCP/IP network layer or internet layer. 07:22 Lois: Sergio, what kind of devices help secure a network from external threats? Sergio: The network firewall is used as a security device that acts as a barrier between a trusted internal network and an untrusted external network, such as the internet. The network firewall is the first line of defense for traffic that passes in and out of your network. The firewall examines traffic to ensure that it meets the security requirements set by your organization, or allowing, or blocking traffic based on set criteria. And the main benefit is that it improves security for access management and network visibility. 08:10 Are you keen to stay ahead in today's fast-paced world? We've got your back! Each quarter, Oracle rolls out game-changing updates to its Fusion Cloud Applications. And to make sure you're always in the know, we offer New Features courses that give you an insider's look at all of the latest advancements. Don't miss out! Head over to mylearn.oracle.com to get started. 08:36 Nikita: Welcome back! Sergio, how do networks manage who can and can't enter based on certain permissions and criteria? Sergio: The access control list is like the gatekeeper into your local area network. Think about the access control list as the visa on your passport, assuming that the country is your local area network. Now, when you have a passport, you might get a visa that allows you to go into a certain country. So the access control list is a list of rules that defines which users, groups, or systems have permissions to access specific resources on your networks. It is a gatekeeper, that is going to specify who's allowed and who's denied. If you don't have a visa to go into a specific country, then you are denied. Similar here, if you are not part of the rule, if the service that you're trying to access is not part of the rules, then you cannot get in. 09:37 Lois: That's a great analogy, Sergio. Now, let's turn our attention to one of the core elements of network security: authentication and authorization. Orlando, can you explain why authentication and authorization are such crucial aspects of a secure cloud network? Orlando: Security is one of the most critical pillars in modern IT systems. Whether you are running a small web app or managing global infrastructure, every secure system starts by answering two key questions. Who are you, and what are you allowed to do? This is the essence of authentication and authorization. Authentication is the first step in access control. It's how a system verifies that you are who you claim to be. Think of it like showing your driver's license at a security checkpoint. The guard checks your photo and personal details to confirm your identity. In IT systems, the same process happens using one or more of these factors. It will ask you for something you know, like a password. It will ask you for something that you have, like a security token, or it will ask you for something that you are, like a fingerprint. An identity does not refer to just a person. It's any actor, human or not, that interacts with your systems. Users are straightforward, think employees logging into a dashboard. But services and machines are equally important. A backend API may need to read data from a database, or a virtual machine may need to download updates. Treating these non-human identities with the same rigor as human ones helps prevent unauthorized access and improves visibility and security. After confirming your identity, can the system move on to deciding what you're allowed to access? That's where authorization comes in. Once authentication confirms who you are, authorization determines what you are allowed to do. Sticking with the driver's license analogy, you've shown your license and proven your identity, but that doesn't mean that you can drive anything anywhere. Your license class might let you drive a car, not a motorcycle or a truck. It might be valid in your country, but not in others. Similarly, in IT systems, authorization defines what actions you can take and on which resources. This is usually controlled by policies and roles assigned to your identity. It ensures that users or services only get access to the things they are explicitly allowed to interact with. 12:34 Nikita: How can organizations ensure secure access across their systems, especially when managing multiple users and resources? Orlando: Identity and Access Management governs who can do what in our systems. Individually, authentication verifies identity and authorization grants access. However, managing these processes at scale across countless users and resources becomes a complex challenge. That's where Identity and Access Management, or IAM, comes in. IAM is an overarching framework that centralizes and orchestrates both authentication and authorization, along with other critical functions, to ensure secure and efficient access to resources. 13:23 Lois: And what are the key components and methods that make up a robust IAM system? Orlando: User management, a core component of IAM, provides a centralized Identity Management system for all user accounts and their attributes, ensuring consistency across applications. Key functions include user provisioning and deprovisioning, automating account creation for new users, and timely removal upon departure or role changes. It also covers the full user account lifecycle management, including password policies and account recovery. Lastly, user management often involves directory services integration to unify user information. Access management is about defining access permissions, specifically what actions users can perform and which resources they can access. A common approach is role-based access control, or RBAC, where permissions are assigned to roles and users inherit those permissions by being assigned to roles. For more granular control, policy-based access control allows for rules based on specific attributes. Crucially, access management enforces the principle of least privilege, granting only the minimum necessary access, and supports segregation of duties to prevent conflicts of interest. For authentication, IAM systems support various methods. Single-factor authentication, relying on just one piece of evidence like a password, offers basic security. However, multi-factor authentication significantly boosts security by requiring two or more distinct verification types, such as a password, plus a one-time code. We also have biometric authentication, using unique physical traits and token-based authentication, common for API and web services. 15:33 Lois: Orlando, when it comes to security, it's not just about who can access what, but also about keeping track of it all. How does auditing and reporting maintain compliance? Orlando: Auditing and reporting are essential for security and compliance. This involves tracking user activities, logging all access attempts and permission changes. It's vital for meeting compliance and regulatory requirements, allowing you to generate reports for audits. Auditing also aids in security incident detection by identifying unusual activities and providing data for forensic analysis after an incident. Lastly, it offers performance and usage analytics to help optimize your IAM system. 16:22 Nikita: That was an incredibly informative conversation. Thank you, Sergio and Orlando, for sharing your expertise with us. If you'd like to dive deeper into these concepts, head over to mylearn.oracle.com and search for the Cloud Tech Jumpstart course. Lois: I agree! This was such a great conversation! Don't miss next week's episode, where we'll continue exploring key security concepts to help organizations operate in a scalable, secure, and auditable way. Until next time, this is Lois Houston… Nikita: And Nikita Abraham, signing off! 16:56 That's all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please click Subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We'd also love it if you would take a moment to rate and review us on your podcast app. See you again on the next episode of the Oracle University Podcast.
Online game design veteran Raph Koster recently posted a new piece about how he thinks about game design, which got us talking about the history of online multiplayer, so then we figured, why not talk about that subject in a (slightly) more comprehensive way on this podcast? So that's what we did this week, dipping into topics like pre-TCP/IP network gaming, the early video game consoles' various half-baked online solutions, how Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies were both way ahead of their time, how much the infrastructure has evolved for facilitating multiplayer -- and how expected it is as a feature these days -- and plenty more.Koster's new piece: https://www.raphkoster.com/2025/11/03/game-design-is-simple-actually/PC Gamer's Everquest history: https://www.pcgamer.com/breaking-the-internet-the-story-of-everquest-the-mmo-that-changed-everything/Dreamcast online functionality and Sega.net history (with links to similar pages for PS2, GameCube etc. at the bottom): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast_online_functionality Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod
What does network testing and validation really mean? How do testing and validation fit within an automation workflow? Is it possible to run meaningful tests without coding skills? Dan Wade from BlueAlly answers these questions and offers practical insights into building trust in automation through test environments, using AI for ideation and problem-solving, and personal... Read more »
What does network testing and validation really mean? How do testing and validation fit within an automation workflow? Is it possible to run meaningful tests without coding skills? Dan Wade from BlueAlly answers these questions and offers practical insights into building trust in automation through test environments, using AI for ideation and problem-solving, and personal... Read more »
On today’s show, sponsored by Itential, we talk about automation in the real world. Guest Jesse Ford is an automation architect at Itential. We talk about his career journey, how he got into network automation, how he decides which is the best tool for a job, and why tool diversity isn’t the same as chaos.... Read more »
On today’s show, sponsored by Itential, we talk about automation in the real world. Guest Jesse Ford is an automation architect at Itential. We talk about his career journey, how he got into network automation, how he decides which is the best tool for a job, and why tool diversity isn’t the same as chaos.... Read more »
The Belgian surrealist René Magritte was a smart artist, but could the 20th century futurist really have predicted the end of the Worldwide Web age? Not exactly, of course. But according to That Was The Week publisher, Keith Teare, Magritte's 1929 painting, “The Treachery of Images” (featuring the image of a pipe with the immortal words “Ceci n'est pas une pipe”), is a helpful way of thinking about OpenAI's introduction this week of their new Atlas “browser”. It's not really a browser in the conventional way that we think about web browsers like Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer. And yet AI products like Atlas are about to once again revolutionize how we use the internet. They might even represent the end of the web age with its link architecture and advertising economics. So do we have words for what comes next? The not-a-browser age, perhaps. L'ère sans navigateur, to be exact. * The Browser Is Becoming an Agent, Not a Link Map - For thirty years, browsers like Netscape, Internet Explorer, and Chrome were rendering engines for HTML that displayed blue links to web pages. AI products like ChatGPT's Atlas and Google's AI mode in Chrome are transforming browsers into conversational agents that answer questions, summarize content, and even execute tasks like booking flights—pushing the traditional web “down a level” in the user interface hierarchy.* The Web's Trillion-Dollar Advertising Model Must “Reprice Fast” - The web's business model has been largely advertising-based, built on users clicking links that generate revenue. As AI interfaces replace link-based browsing, this nearly trillion-dollar annual revenue stream faces an existential threat. Publishers like Keith Teare and platforms like Google must figure out how to transition their economics to an AI-driven world where links aren't surfaced by default.* Google Deserves Its Stock Price for “Being Brave in Undermining Its Own Business Model” - While AI threatens to upend Google's AdWords cash cow, the company's stock has surged roughly 50% over the past year. Keith argues Google has earned this bullishness by aggressively investing in AI infrastructure (like Anthropic's $10 billion commitment to Google's TPUs) and integrating AI features into Chrome—even though these moves could cannibalize its core search advertising business.* The “Victim Here Is the Publisher, Not the User” - Keith acknowledges that while the shift to AI agents feels like “an absolute change of paradigm,” it's genuinely better for users who get more intuitive, conversational interfaces. Publishers and content creators are the ones facing disruption, as AI may eliminate their distribution channels without yet providing alternatives for reaching audiences or monetizing content. The challenge is that “most of the narrative that doesn't like it is publisher-centric.”* Tim Wu and Antitrust Regulators Are “Fighting Yesterday's War” - Columbia law professor Tim Wu's new book The Age of Extraction focuses on the monopolistic dangers of Google, Amazon, and Facebook—but Keith argues this framing is already obsolete. The real competitive battlefield is AI, where Google is a “laggard” behind OpenAI and Anthropic. The underlying internet architecture (TCP/IP) remains neutral enough to allow challengers to emerge, making heavy-handed government intervention both unnecessary and potentially innovation-killing, as seen in the over-regulated EU.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Senad Palislamovic has held many roles in his time, from engineer to network operator to sales engineer and back again. He’s been around long enough to see trends come and go. Senad visits Total Network Operations to share some of his observations on network automation, AI for NetOps, and the quality of network data. Senad... Read more »
Senad Palislamovic has held many roles in his time, from engineer to network operator to sales engineer and back again. He’s been around long enough to see trends come and go. Senad visits Total Network Operations to share some of his observations on network automation, AI for NetOps, and the quality of network data. Senad... Read more »
professorjrod@gmail.comEver wish the network would just explain itself? We walk through the real language of connectivity—how links come alive, how packets choose their paths, and how a few core ideas unlock routers, firewalls, addressing, and the exam questions that test them. It starts with the wire (and the air): DSL over copper, cable scaling with DOCSIS, fiber to an ONT at your home, and why fixed wireless, satellite, and 5G fill coverage gaps with very different tradeoffs in speed and latency. From there, we draw the line between moving traffic and governing it. Routers forward based on IP and subnets; firewalls enforce policy using IPs, protocols, and ports—think velvet rope, but for packets.We bring the TCP/IP stack down to earth with a clean mental model of layers and encapsulation, then dig into IPv4 addressing, subnet masks, and private ranges that rely on NAT to share a single public IP. You'll learn why static IPs belong on printers and servers, how DHCP's DORA flow keeps clients online, and what APIPA is telling you when a lease fails. We also size up IPv6—128-bit addresses, hexadecimal notation, dual stack—and unpack the practical roadblocks that slow adoption despite the promise of massive address space.Transport choices make or break performance, so we compare TCP's three‑way handshake and delivery guarantees with UDP's low-latency approach favored by streaming and gaming. We highlight the ports every tech should know—22, 53, 80, 443, 67/68, 21/20, 3389—because port literacy speeds troubleshooting. On identity and isolation, we translate DNS records (A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT) into everyday use and show how VLANs reduce broadcast noise while VPNs protect data over untrusted networks. To cement it all, we run live quiz walkthroughs and model how to spot keywords, eliminate distractors, and reason under time pressure—skills you can carry straight into the CompTIA A+ and beyond.If this helped you think more clearly about networks, follow the show, leave a rating, and share it with a friend who's studying. Got a topic you want us to deep-dive next—DHCP, DNS, or VLANs? Drop a note and subscribe so you don't miss the next breakdown.Inspiring Tech Leaders - The Technology PodcastInterviews with Tech Leaders and insights on the latest emerging technology trends.Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the showArt By Sarah/DesmondMusic by Joakim KarudLittle chacha ProductionsJuan Rodriguez can be reached atTikTok @ProfessorJrodProfessorJRod@gmail.com@Prof_JRodInstagram ProfessorJRod
Multi-cloud, automation, and AI are changing how modern networks operate and how firewalls and security policies are administered. In today’s sponsored episode with Palo Alto Networks, we dig into offerings such as CLARA (Cloud and AI Risk Assessment) that help ops teams gain more visibility into the structure and workflows of their multi-cloud networks. We... Read more »
Multi-cloud, automation, and AI are changing how modern networks operate and how firewalls and security policies are administered. In today’s sponsored episode with Palo Alto Networks, we dig into offerings such as CLARA (Cloud and AI Risk Assessment) that help ops teams gain more visibility into the structure and workflows of their multi-cloud networks. We... Read more »
LightRiver has software and service products focused on the automation, optimization, and simplification of multi-layer, multi-vendor, and multi-generation networking. Today we have a team from LightRiver lead by Jim Brinksma to help explain how LightRiver is advancing automation in optical and bridging the gap between the IP and optical layers. They discuss the challenges, obstacles... Read more »
LightRiver has software and service products focused on the automation, optimization, and simplification of multi-layer, multi-vendor, and multi-generation networking. Today we have a team from LightRiver lead by Jim Brinksma to help explain how LightRiver is advancing automation in optical and bridging the gap between the IP and optical layers. They discuss the challenges, obstacles... Read more »
Today we get an inside look at a major data center migration that Nokia is undertaking. Nokia is our sponsor for today’s episode. The company is moving legacy sets of data center networking equipment to its own Event Driven Automation (EDA) solution. We go behind the scenes of Nokia’s own IT department, which is supporting... Read more »
Today we get an inside look at a major data center migration that Nokia is undertaking. Nokia is our sponsor for today’s episode. The company is moving legacy sets of data center networking equipment to its own Event Driven Automation (EDA) solution. We go behind the scenes of Nokia’s own IT department, which is supporting... Read more »
In an IT world full of abstraction, overlays, and virtualization, it’s important to remember the physical infrastructure that supports all those things. So let’s get inside Mass IX, the Massachusetts Internet Exchange, to get a holistic view of the logical architecture and protocol mechanics of peering and Internet exchanges, as well as the iron, steel,... Read more »
In an IT world full of abstraction, overlays, and virtualization, it’s important to remember the physical infrastructure that supports all those things. So let’s get inside Mass IX, the Massachusetts Internet Exchange, to get a holistic view of the logical architecture and protocol mechanics of peering and Internet exchanges, as well as the iron, steel,... Read more »
The digital twin is an evolving technology in the networking space. On today’s sponsored episode of Total Network Operations, we dig into details and definitions of the digital twin, how it ties into network automation and autonomy, and the power of abstraction layers. We’ll also talk about how the concepts in today’s show might influence... Read more »
The digital twin is an evolving technology in the networking space. On today’s sponsored episode of Total Network Operations, we dig into details and definitions of the digital twin, how it ties into network automation and autonomy, and the power of abstraction layers. We’ll also talk about how the concepts in today’s show might influence... Read more »
Jeremy Schulman has been working at network automation for much of his professional life. On today’s Total Network Operations, host Scott Robohn talks with Jeremy about his ongoing quest to get the network engineering bottleneck out of production. They discuss the early days of network automation when engineers tried to adopt tools from compute side... Read more »
Jeremy Schulman has been working at network automation for much of his professional life. On today’s Total Network Operations, host Scott Robohn talks with Jeremy about his ongoing quest to get the network engineering bottleneck out of production. They discuss the early days of network automation when engineers tried to adopt tools from compute side... Read more »
My guest today is Vinton G. Cerf, widely regarded as a “father of the Internet.” In the 1970s, Vint co-developed the TCP/IP protocols that define how data is formatted, transmitted, and received across devices. In essence, his work enabled networks to communicate, thus laying the foundation for the Internet as a unified global system. He has received honorary degrees and awards that include the National Medal of Technology, the Turing Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Marconi Prize, and membership in the National Academy of Engineering. He is currently Chief Internet Evangelist at Google.In this episode, Vint reflects on the Internet's path from ARPANET and TCP/IP to the scaling choices that made global connectivity possible. He explains why decentralization was key, and how fiber optics and data centers underwrote explosive growth. Vint also addresses today's policy anxieties (fragmentation, sovereignty walls, and fragile infrastructures…) before looking upward to the interplanetary Internet now linking spacecraft. Finally, we turn to AI: how LLMs are reshaping learning and software, and why the next leap may be systems that question us back. I hope you enjoy our discussion.You can follow me on X (@ProfSchrepel) and BlueSky (@ProfSchrepel).
How might we get network traffic from Earth to a lunar base? Or Mars? Or to spaceships carrying astronauts or probes exploring space? And how do we get it back? The problem, among other things, is latency. The answer isn't TCP/IP. The answer is…complicated. On today’s Heavy Networking we explore the challenges of getting packets... Read more »
Vint Cerf, widely recognized as one of the fathers of the Internet, is today’s special guest on Total Network Operations. He currently serves as Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google. His pioneering work began back in the 1960’s when he was involved in the ARPANET project. Alongside Bob Kahn, Vint co-invented the TCP/IP... Read more »
How might we get network traffic from Earth to a lunar base? Or Mars? Or to spaceships carrying astronauts or probes exploring space? And how do we get it back? The problem, among other things, is latency. The answer isn't TCP/IP. The answer is…complicated. On today’s Heavy Networking we explore the challenges of getting packets... Read more »
Vint Cerf, widely recognized as one of the fathers of the Internet, is today’s special guest on Total Network Operations. He currently serves as Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google. His pioneering work began back in the 1960’s when he was involved in the ARPANET project. Alongside Bob Kahn, Vint co-invented the TCP/IP... Read more »
How might we get network traffic from Earth to a lunar base? Or Mars? Or to spaceships carrying astronauts or probes exploring space? And how do we get it back? The problem, among other things, is latency. The answer isn't TCP/IP. The answer is…complicated. On today’s Heavy Networking we explore the challenges of getting packets... Read more »
In this episode of Inside the Network, we sit down with Jay Chaudhry, founder and CEO of Zscaler, one of the most valuable cybersecurity companies in the world with a market cap of over $40 billion and $3 billion in ARR.Jay's journey is unlike any other. Raised in a remote Indian village with no electricity, no running water, and a two-and-a-half-mile walk to school, he went on to build five companies and pioneer the modern Zero Trust cloud security model. Zscaler, his most iconic company, was launched in 2007 with $50 million of his own capital and no VC investment - a bold bet in the middle of a market downturn, at a time when few believed enterprise security could move to the cloud.This episode is packed with powerful lessons from a founder who's played the long game. Jay talks about the mindset he carried from his early years farming with oxen, how working alongside his wife Jyoti gave him unmatched focus and alignment, and why startups should be “a foot wide and 20 feet deep.” He explains how Zscaler rewrote not just the playbook for go-to-market in security, but also the TCP/IP stack, and the early challenges of selling Zero Trust well before the term even existed. He also shares his wisdom on why most founders pivot too late when their sales motion fails. Jay provides his view of the future of cybersecurity and the Internet itself, from why the private corporate network is dying to why firewalls will eventually go the way of mainframes.Throughout it all, Jay shares a rare combination of conviction, humility, and self-discipline. Whether you're a first-time founder or running a $10 billion company, this is an absolute masterclass in how to build enduring companies and stay grounded in the process.
Some handy links if you want to start playing with your own virtual Windows 95 machine:https://86box.net/https://winworldpc.com/homehttps://www.vogons.org/ Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod
On today’s Total Network Operations we talk through the adoption of AI in network operations with John Capobianco, Head of DevRel at Selector. Selector is the sponsor of today’s episode. John walks us through his career journey as a network engineer, and describes the moment where he realized that AI was going to change how... Read more »
On today’s Total Network Operations we talk through the adoption of AI in network operations with John Capobianco, Head of DevRel at Selector. Selector is the sponsor of today’s episode. John walks us through his career journey as a network engineer, and describes the moment where he realized that AI was going to change how... Read more »
Building things for people to use has been our guest’s goal since entering university in the 1960s. Total Network Operations is delighted to welcome Jack Haverty, who’s been instrumental in ARPANET operations and innovation, the development of TCP, and more. He takes us through the history of the internet from the early days of ARPANET,... Read more »
Building things for people to use has been our guest’s goal since entering university in the 1960s. Total Network Operations is delighted to welcome Jack Haverty, who’s been instrumental in ARPANET operations and innovation, the development of TCP, and more. He takes us through the history of the internet from the early days of ARPANET,... Read more »
This week on EYE ON NPI we're working without wires - it's the new RM2 module from Raspberry Pi (https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/r/raspberry-pi/radio-module-2-wireless-connectivity) which will let you add 2.4GHz WiFi / Bluetooth LE and Bluetooth Classic over an SDIO interface at a great price. The RM2 is built on the technology stack that Raspberry Pi has been working on for many years in adding built-in wireless to their microcomputers and microcontrollers. For example, starting with the Raspberry Pi 3 (https://www.digikey.com/short/59j9179b), the trading company has been integrating WiFi/Bluetooth to their single-board computers. With tight integration and onboard antenna, it's easy to bring up a new board with networking and native Linux kernel support. To do that, Pi has used the CYW43438 (https://www.digikey.com/short/8pfmdctc) and CYW43455 (https://www.digikey.com/short/99wr3vbq) which supports 2.4G and 5G. When the RP2040 microcontroller chip (https://www.digikey.com/short/bnh55qj4) was released in 2021 along with the Pico board (https://www.digikey.com/short/0p02nwh2) - a year later they came out with the Pico W (https://www.digikey.com/short/bzjt9bcp) for only a few $ more. Instead of trying to design an all-in-one WiFi microcontroller, Pi decided to go the same route they did with the Pi SBC: have a co-processor that adds wireless and then offer the firmware support to make it easy for folks to make IoT projects with a powerful arm Cortex chip. Not surprisingly, the RP2350's Pico 2 also came out with a Pico 2 W (https://www.digikey.com/short/ph2b4dmn) variant pretty quickly. Both W boards have a tinned radio module at the end, reminiscent of the CYW chipsets on the Pi SBCs - in this case they feature the CYW43439 (https://www.digikey.com/short/2tj7twdc) which can do 2.4 GHz WiFi/BT/BLE but not 5GHz to keep the price low. For folks who wanted to built upon the Pico W or 2W with their own design, integrating the CYW43439 (https://www.digikey.com/short/2tj7twdc) is non-trivial: it's a BGA chip which requires adding an antenna, managing traces and impedances as well as getting emitter certifications. So, it's not surprising that Pi trading has designed a standalone module that folks can solder into their designs to take advantage of the high-integration between the RP2 chipset and the CYW43439. The RM2 module (https://www.digikey.com/short/vp58vnh3) comes with antenna, tin and chunky castellated pads that can be pick-and-place'd or hand soldered. We've already seen this module used in some existing designs like the Pico Plus 2W from Pimoroni (https://www.digikey.com/short/rpjcp849). Communication with the CYW43439 (https://www.digikey.com/short/2tj7twdc) inside the module is done over SPI plus some IRQ and reset lines. Note that while, in theory, you could connect this module to any microcontroller with a TCP/IP stack like lwip, it really is only designed and supported with RP2-series microcontrollers. That's because the Pico SDK (https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/pico-sdk/networking.html) which integrates the firmware uploading and WiFi stack is not really portable to other microcontrollers and there's a cyw32-driver (https://github.com/georgerobotics/cyw43-driver) that is not open source. We did notice that there's an 'open source' reverse-engineered driver on github (https://github.com/jbentham/picowi) - experimentation will be required for those interested! Bluetooth is more freely licensed via BTStack (https://github.com/bluekitchen/btstack) If you want to add the new RM2 module from Raspberry Pi (https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/r/raspberry-pi/radio-module-2-wireless-connectivity) to your next RP2xxx microcontroller design, for tried-and-tested wireless with lots of platform support, you can pick up some right now from DigiKey! Order today and your fresh modules will ship instantly so you can start integration by tomorrow afternoon. https://www.digikey.com/short/vp58vnh3
What’s the next era of network management and operations? Total Network Operations talks to Mahesh Jethanandani, Chair of NETCONF Working Group and Distinguished Engineer at Arrcus. Mahesh describes a workshop from December of 2024 that sought to investigate the past, present, and future of network management and operations. He talks about the IETF’s role in... Read more »
What’s the next era of network management and operations? Total Network Operations talks to Mahesh Jethanandani, Chair of NETCONF Working Group and Distinguished Engineer at Arrcus. Mahesh describes a workshop from December of 2024 that sought to investigate the past, present, and future of network management and operations. He talks about the IETF’s role in... Read more »
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 and burnout,... Read more »
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 and burnout,... Read more »
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 »
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 »
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 development of automation and... Read more »
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 »