This episode we learn about the magic 168.63.129.16 Azure IP address 🪄; shrink the VPC in AWS 🫷; accelerate our DDI Migration with free workbooks 🆓; keep up with all the digital content with a secret method 😎; go back to basics in Optical Networking 🌈; learn why Over-Engineering really happens 😱 and learn how to think like a Google Security Engineer 🔐. Let’s dive in; ⬇️
Poll 🗳️
Are we covering the NetDevOps and Network Engineering content you want to see? Vote now to shape the Reload in 10 Newsletter to be more relevant to you:
NetEng 🔧
Object Oriented Programming: Using Python to Convert CIDR to Subnet/Wild Card is a short but sweet snippet of Python to convert from one Netmask format to another 👍
168.63.129.16: The Magic IP Address in Azure is kinda Anycast, but kinda not and pops up everywhere in Azure from DNS sideloading configs in from Azure VM Agent 🕵️♀️
Honey, I shrunk the VPC suggests better ways of doing CIDR network allocations in the AWS Cloud, and limits you’ll hit along the way 🎬
TCP chrono stats expands on kernel-level details of why performance transfers can be slow, even if you have sufficient bandwidth; nerd out deep here 🥽
When Familiar Protocols Meet Unfamiliar Scale documents why BGP doesn’t work the way it ought to at big, Cloudy scale ☁️
Back to Basics: A Primer on Communication Fundamentals explains optical communication stuffs from wavelengths, frequency, why the “D” in “DWDM” is there, phase-shifting, QAM vs BPSK and more 🌈
Going beyond 8 peers in Azure Route Server explores what happens when you use next-hop-self’s lesser-known cousin for fun and profit in Azure VNETs 💙
Videos, Tools and Papers 🎓⚒️
🏦 Cisco U - Free CE Credits
💡 Re-certify your CCNA or CCNP with these free Cisco U courses worth over 100 CE Credits
Cisco U: Managing Cisco Network Operating Systems (CNIOS)
(Course, 37 CE Credits, 37h 15m)Cisco U: Enhancing Cisco Security Solutions with Data Analytics (ECSS)
(Course, 32 CE Credits, 31h 30m)Cisco U: Understanding Cisco Network Automation Essentials (DEVNAE)
(Course, 16 CE Credits, 28h 40m)Cisco U: Troubleshooting Cisco Enterprise Networking Solutions (ENTSHRU)
(Course, 16 CE Credits, 16h)Cisco U: Introduction to Network Simulations with CML (CMLLAB)
(Course, 6 CE Credits, 8h 30m)
🎓 Network Engineer Learning
copyparty - Portable file server for WebDAV, FTP, TFTP and more
(Tool, NMS Swiss-army-knife, GitHub)Neural Networks: Zero to Hero
(Course, Beginner, 20+ hours)Configure Private Link service Direct Connect
(Tutorial, Azure, SDCI)ddi-migration-plan, ddi-questionnaire and ddi-workshop
(Workplans, DHCP-DNS-IPAM, Infoblox)
Hiring 💼
📢 The Reload in 10 Jobs Board is here 🥳, with a hand-picked selection of awesome Network Engineering, NetDevOps and Network Automation jobs.
It’s also free to list a job if you’re hiring and want to let us know 👂
🔥 (just some of) This week’s Hot Hirings
🇨🇦 Network Automation Developer @ Nokia, Canada, Ontario
🇨🇳 Network Engineer @ Corning, China, Shanghai
🇫🇷 Senior Data Center Ethernet Network Engineer @ NVIDIA, France, Remote
🇮🇳 Senior Site Reliability Engineer @ Chevron, India, Bengaluru
🇮🇪 Esports Network Engineer @ Riot Games, Ireland, Dublin
🇮🇪 Senior Access Network IP Engineer @ Vodafone, Ireland, Dublin
🇬🇧 Network Security Engineer @ Meta, UK, London
🇬🇧 Network Engineer @ Wave, UK, Remote
NotEng 🤔
How to keep up with all the digital content is more relevant than ever even if this was written a year ago, some good suggestions of systems (IT and people) to help you keep up with the barrage of WTF is happening in the tech world 🏃♂️➡️
Why Over-Engineering Happens because you may be surprised to hear nobody intended to get there through under-performing, but sometimes sh!t happens and snowballs real bad, real fast 💨
Where It’s at:// goes through the AT protocol in depth, which you can kinda think of as the new open source X or LinkedIn, but with it’s own protocol so it must be proper legit ✌️
Top Lean AI Native Companies Leaderboard is also useful to keep up with the top AI Company names, models and people involved in the fast-moving tr-AI-n of all things LLM, GenAI and
future enslavement of humanityprogress 🤖How to think like a Google Security Engineer has some gold even if chasing FAANG isn’t in your 2026
TODO.mdlist 🎓Top 50 Large Language Model (LLM) Interview Questions gives you some insight into the kind of stuff you might do as an AI Engineer; you have to beat them to defeat them remember? 🥊
Events 📅
🤜 Meet-ups
NetLdn, London, Monthly, Every 2nd Thursday
NetMcr, Manchester, Every Monthly, 2nd Thursday
NetBCN, Barcelona, See schedule
London Network Automation Meetup, London, 29 January 2026
📢 Conferences
🎩 Hat-tip to the wonderful Pete Crocker @ OpsMill for the help
RIPE 91, Bucharest, 20 - 24 October, 2025
DevOps Days Detroit, Detroit, 22 October 2025
FRNOG 42, Paris, 24 October 2025
ESNOG, Barcelona, 30 - 31 October 2025
IETF 124, Montreal, 1 - 7 November 2025, Canada
DENOG 17, Essen, 9 - 11 November 2025
EMEA Arista Cloud Builders, Munich, 13 November 2025
AutoCon 4, Austin, 17 - 21 November 2025
France IX Tour, Paris, 27 November 2025, France
CoNEXT 2025, Hong Kong, 1 - 4 December 2025
Industry 🏭
Vodafone is still ‘recovering’ following a major outage – here’s what we know and let’s see if they still tout the “UK’s most reliable network” after this one, someone tell that bloke from Spandau Ballet’s son about BGP already 💥
Fire at government data center halts 647 systems, disrupts services has the Korean Government tell Voda, “yo dawg, hold my beer…” 🍺
China-linked hacking fears over Cisco devices in offices is another week, another Cisco CVE, another reactionary shedload of stuff to do 🩹
Confirmed compromise of F5 network is going to make open-source equivalents like HAproxy suddenly look very appealing for GSLB and ALB needs… 🤔
New Spectre-based CPU vulnerability allows guests to steal sensitive data from the cloud and just in time for halloween too 🎃
That’s all for this week, but if you have any tip-offs, blogs, events or job posts you’d like us to feature then please feel free to let us know at newsletter@reloadin.net 📮 and we’ll see if we can add them in 💬.