Network Break keeps you informed with fast, focused analysis of IT news, products, tech trends, and business outcomes. Blending sharp commentary with a touch of humor, hosts Drew Conry-Murray & Johna Till Johnson sift through the weekly landslide of press announcements, product launches, financial reports, and marketing decks to find the stories worth talking about. You come away with the information and context to make smart decisions in your organization and career … all in the span of a (longish) coffee break.
NB523: CVE’s Reprieve, Google WAN For Sale, NVIDIA Pledges More US-Made Chips
Take a Network Break! We start with a red alert for the CVE program, which nearly lost government funding before CISA stepped in, and then raise an alert for a Dpanel vulnerability. Google makes its Cloud WAN available to enterprises and governments that want connectivity options, a US District Court rules Google’s ad business a... Read more »
Take a Network Break! Guest co-host Ned Bellavance steps in for Johna this week. We start with a Fortinet vulnerability, and then opine on a memo from Shopify’s CEO on the company requiring and measuring AI use by employees. Git celebrates 20 years, DARPA names 15 companies to participate in a Quantum Benchmarking Initiative to... Read more »
53 min
7 April 2025
NB521: Optics Advances in the Data Center; Google Extends Gmail’s End-to-End Encryption
Take a Network Break! We check in on a serious Firefox vulnerability, explore NIST’s latest post-quantum encryption algorithm, and discuss a broken auto-update functionality in VMware Workstation. NetBox adds config drift detection to its network automation software, the startup Lightmatter tackles co-packaged optics, and Corning launches Glassworks AI in a bid to replace copper cabling... Read more »
42 min
31 March 2025
NB520: When Good LLMs Do Bad Things, Dell’s Workforce Downsizes and Quantum Key Distribution From Space
Grab a virtual doughnut to blaze through this week’s IT news with Johna Johnson and John Burke as Drew Conry-Murray is enjoying his glazed, filled and sprinkled vacation donuts. Today, we’re going to talk about getting good LLMs to do bad things, Dell’s workforce downsizing, Cloudflare’s recent outage, some developments in space networking, and more.... Read more »
25 min
24 March 2025
NB519: Google Bids $32 Billion for Cloud Security Startup; NVIDIA Makes Nice With Quantum Computing
Take a Network Break! This week we cover Google’s $32 billion acquisition of CNAPP provider Wiz, Cloudflare offerings for AI security and support for post-quantum encryption, and NVIDIA’s pledge to open a quantum research center in Boston. NVIDIA has also announced new switch platforms with co-packaged optics for greater efficiency, Cisco shares details on its... Read more »
40 min
17 March 2025
NB518: Clock Starts For New Intel CEO; Arista Load Balancing Targets AI Infrastructure
Take a Network Break! We start with warnings about an Apple Webkit zero day and ransonware exploits against known Fortinet vulnerabilites, and discuss attribution issues with the X DDoS attack. Intel names Lip-Bu Tan as Chief Resurrection Officer, but how long does he have before investors get antsy? HPE plans to lay off thousands of... Read more »
38 min
10 March 2025
NB517: TSMC Pledges $165 Billion for US Chip Manufacturing; Will the CHIPS Act Get Axed?
Take a Network Break! This week we’re joined by guest analyst Tom Hollingsworth of The Futurum Group. We start with red alerts from Broadcom on multiple vulnerabilities and an emergency patch from Cisco for its Webex platform. In tech news we discuss SolarWinds’ acquisition of Squadcast and how it fits into the SolarWinds portfolio, Aviatrix’s... Read more »
Take a Network Break! This week we start with a couple of follow-ups and a Red Alert, and then jump into tech news. Cisco and Nvidia team up to put Cisco ASICs and the Nexus NOS into Nvidia Ethernet switches, the market reads tea leaves as Microsoft walks away from data center capacity, and Juniper... Read more »
24 min
24 February 2025
NB515: Quantum Computing’s Future Looking More Certain; Arista Posts Record 2024 Revenues
Lots of good stuff in this week’s Network Break. Microsoft announces an 8-qubit quantum chip and declares that practical quantum computing is years, not decades, away. D-Wave says its quantum computers are now commercially available for research facilities, academic institutions, and governments. Apple rolls its own 5G modem into its iPhone 16e. Meta announces its... Read more »
27 min
18 February 2025
NB514: Cisco, Juniper Announce New Switches; SolarWinds Goes Private in $4.4 Billion Buyout
Take a Network Break! We start with some Red Alert vulnerabilities to get your blood pumping, and then dive into networking news. Cisco announces new data center switches with AMD Pensando DPUs that let you deploy security and other services directly on to the switch. Cisco ThousandEyes is previewing Traffic Insights, which correlates flow records... Read more »
