I’m a Holistic Network Software & Automation Evangelist, trying to bring software engineering methods to network orchestration, help to overcome the vendor lock-in, and build solutions that last.
So I will mostly write about network automation, Contemporary Linux networking, etc., but might also dive into the worlds of Juniper, Arista, Huawei, Cisco, and the likes. Things like iproute2, ifupdown2/-ng, VXLAN, VRFs, OSPF, BGP, MPLS etc. might come up now and then.
Who am I?
Starting off with Linux and Open Source in the early 2000s, I developed a weakness for networking, IPv6 and routing, which lead to being an avid Open Source enthusiast ever since. As a result, I’ve been working in IT forever, having various roles from system administration, infrastructure architect, network (automation) engineer/architect to tech/team lead, and have been a regular speaker at Open Source and networking conferences (see below).
My second calling has been acting as the lead architect behind the widely automated Freifunk Hochstift network (related series, GitHub) where I got my hands dirty with ifupdown2 as well as ifupdown-ng, VXLAN, Linux VRFs, BGP and OSPF, OpenVPN, Wireguard, infrastructure automation with NetBox and Salt Stack, and afraid of vendor-SDN solutions ever since.
Despite that fear, I’m leading a team of SDN enthusiasts at Hetzner Cloud, to build the new network stack for the cloud using eBPF and XDP, and forwarding and dropping packets at line rate.
Besides that, I’m moonlighting as freelance solutions architect and problem solver, so if you need help, feel free to reach out.
In my residual spare time, I like playing piano and the organ, and doing wood work to get away from IT.
Talks and conferences
I gave a number of talks on various topics around Linux, networking, automation, etc. Most slides can be found on SlideShare, a number of recordings are on media.ccc.de or somewhere on YouTube. I’ve also been a speaker and tutor at the Freifunk Rheinland Routingdays.
2018 I founded the Network Track at the annual Free and Open Source Software Conference (FrOSCon) and am a member of the PC since.
In the height of the pandemic, I happened to become the co-chair of the vNOG meetings. We provided a platform for fellow network / infra people to present & exchange ideas around networking, automation, design/architecture of any new cool thing, etc. With the uptick of in-person conferences, this has since faded out.
If you like this content and want to say “Thank you”, you might take a look at my Amazon wish list 🙂