Writing

From the
blog.

Advisory and analysis from Jason Gintert on peering, IX strategy, connectivity, network automation and AI inference at the edge.

TNO072: Connectivity and Community

TNO072: Connectivity and Community

Scott Robohn had me on Total Network Operations to trace the path from a Commodore VIC-20 to a dial-up helpdesk in Cleveland to the US Networking User Association, including the day I locked myself out of 34 DSLAMs.

AI for Network Leaders: Panel Discussion and Audience Q&A

AI for Network Leaders: Panel Discussion and Audience Q&A

The speaker panel and audience Q&A from Selector's AI for Network Leaders event in New York. Attendees put their questions straight to the speakers: rolling out agentic capabilities, and earning trust for AI in production networks.

The Sum, Not Just the Parts: Thinking About Your Network as a Whole

The Sum, Not Just the Parts: Thinking About Your Network as a Whole

Ethan Banks and Drew Conry-Murray had me on Heavy Networking to talk through a blog post of mine, The Network as a Whole. Why one VLAN change can end in Wi-Fi complaints, why certs do not teach design, and why you should break your labs on purpose.

Tech Careers Are Built on Relationships, Not Resumes

Tech Careers Are Built on Relationships, Not Resumes

Recorded in person with Andy Lapteff at Networking Field Day 40. How the USNUA went from fifteen people in a Cleveland restaurant to 33 chapters, and why getting in the room still beats anything you can put on a resume.

Arista @ NFD40: Modern Fabrics for AI

Arista @ NFD40: Modern Fabrics for AI

AI networking, much like everything else in the space, is developing very quickly and has what feels like a new acronym per day. Between UEC, ESUN, NCCL and

Bridging Silos with AI and Telemetry

Bridging Silos with AI and Telemetry

A short clip from the Tech Field Day Podcast at NFD40. Yes, networks need more telemetry, but only if the data is clean and you look at the whole system rather than the network in isolation.

Networking Needs More Telemetry

Networking Needs More Telemetry

A Tech Field Day Podcast panel ahead of NFD40 with Tom Hollingsworth and Scott Robohn. Modern gear can finally give us all the telemetry we want. The harder problem is what to do with it.

Why "People Connector" Is the Ultimate Superpower in Tech

Why "People Connector" Is the Ultimate Superpower in Tech

Bob Slevin asked what my superpower is. The answer is connecting people. We covered the USNUA, why certs still matter early on, the retailer who built their own router for 1,600 stores, and the punk-rock skate-rat path from a movie theater to network engineering.

The Network as a Whole

The Network as a Whole

In 1980, a quantum physicist named David Bohm published a book that had absolutely nothing to do with network engineering. Wholeness and the Implicate Order argued that reality