Phil Gervasi

[NEW POST] A Network Engineer’s Guide to Understanding the Model Context Protocol for AI Integration In this post I break down: - What MCP is - How the architecture works - How MCP could be a foundational part of AI in NetOps networkphil.com/2025/11/11/a...

[NEW POST] Is Cisco Unified Edge a Step Toward Agentic AI at the Edge or Just Clever Packaging? networkphil.com/2025/11/06/i...

🚨Check out my latest blog post for @kentik.bsky.social: Cloudflare's DNS Downtime: Why BGP Hijacks Were Never to Blame www.kentik.com/blog/cloudfl...

Hey tech community - quick question! For technical video training content you use for professional development, are the supplemental materials like labs, self-assessments, reading assignments, etc useful, or do you prefer to simply watch the videos and take your own notes?

LEO satellite operator Starlink currently experiencing a total outage beginning at 19:13 UTC today. #Starlinkdown No word yet on cause of the outage.

Join me in San Francisco August 21 for the first (CA)NUG - the first chapter of the @usnua.com in that area! I'm presenting on practical use cases & implementations of AI in network operations! A free event with free food and drinks so register here today ----> www.usnua.com/canug-inaugu...

SpaceX Falcon 9 prepped and ready on pad 39A a few hours before last night's launch.

So apparently there's only one form of weather left in the US northeast. Rain, followed by more rain, and when the rain finally lets up, rain.

For formal technical training videos that you'd actually pay for, other than video of the instructor in the intro, do you care about seeing the instructor in the corner during the actual lesson? What do you prefer for the format? Is the talking head important at all if the training content is good?

New Post: MCP Is Unnecessary I can’t think of any strong technological reasons for MCP to exist. There’s a lot of weak technological reasons, and there’s strong sociological reasons. I still strongly feel that, ironically, it is necessary. timkellogg.me/blog/2025/04...

Tune in tomorrow to watch our day-long live streams of #GoogleCloud ☁️ presentations at #AIIFD2! @TechFieldDay.com 🟣 Learn More 👉 buff.ly/jKlupi8

Whether it's the application of predictive analytics or the latest agentic solution, AI is not useful as an end unto itself The goal of AI in NetOps is to produce operational outcomes & drive business decisions Read more in my post on @kentik.bsky.social 👇 www.kentik.com/blog/ai-that...

Big AI news! OpenAI has released three new models: GPT‑4.1, GPT‑4.1 mini, and GPT‑4.1 nano which (according to what I read so far) offers major improvements in coding, instruction following, and long-context comprehension Yes, the next model after 4.5 is 4.1 😆 Read more openai.com/index/gpt-4-1/

Llama 4 is here! From Meta's website, "The Llama 4 herd: The beginning of a new era of natively multimodal AI innovation" ai.meta.com/blog/llama-4...

Into the RIB again Same old path it was back then So I made a big mistake Routing on an overlay #AliceInChainsSongsForEngineers

Anyone still remember this gem? www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRlh...

I'm reading three books on AI, listening to one, following 12,619 blogs, subscribed to 912,629 YouTube channels, and always looking for time to mess around in the home lab... Current state of trying to keep up with AI

Movin’ to the country Gonna route a lot of packets Movin’ to the country I’m gonna route me a lot of packets Packets route on a LAN Sometimes headed for the WAN In a colo space downtown If I had my little way I’d route packets every day Finding shortest paths in the shade

The deadline for submissions for presentations & workshops for #AutoCon3 this May in Prague is Feb 28! If you have an idea for a talk or a workshop, submit today! 🎤 Call for Speakers: networkautomation.forum/call-for-spe... 🖥️ Call for Workshops: networkautomation.forum/call-for-wor...

[NEW POST] As we see more use-cases for AI in ITOps, and as we deepen our understanding of the role it plays in tech, we must always start with the outcomes we want and remember that the goal of AI is operational improvement. Read my latest blog post to learn more networkphil.com/2025/02/24/t...

[NEW POST] Three Critical Questions Before You Consider AI in NetOps In my latest post, read about just a few of the important questions you need to ask before diving into a new AI initiative in network operations networkphil.com/2025/02/18/t...

Question for engineers, technologists, managers, business leaders, and tech enthusiasts: What are your primary methods for keeping-up with technology, influencer perspectives, analysts, etc? Are blogs still primary? Or have blogs become secondary to public and private slack channels, videos, etc?

this is not a drill! Claude 4 is going to be released soon as expected, it's not a "reasoning model", it's just a regular LLM that can reason as needed i'm extremely excited to get my hands on this one. Anthropic has always placed usability over performance techcrunch.com/2025/02/13/a...

"Rapid, continuous learning and reskilling...starts at the top. AI requires a new type of C-suite leadership, with deep understanding of AI and its implications." - Julie Sweet, chair and CEO of Accenture

[NEW BLOG POST] In my latest blog post, I think through some ideas about the evolution of the traditional network engineer in the age of AI AI in NetOps is not about replacement - it’s about evolution networkphil.com/2025/02/10/a...

Hugging Face researchers aim to build an ‘open’ version of OpenAI’s deep research tool

Check out AI Field Day 6 streaming live now from @techfieldday.com Right now watch VMware by Broadcom presenting on how they enable running private AI environments #AIFD6 techfieldday.com/event/aifd6/

[NEW BLOG POST] Using an LLM to Query Structured Network Telemetry In this post I look at querying structured network data like flow records using Ollama & Llama in a couple different ways If you're interested in learning about LLMs and AI in NetOps, check it out! networkphil.com/2025/01/28/u...

Llama3.2 to SQL queries aren't that different from pandas other than being faster. 2.4 million row CSV/postegresql I'm using for testing, so I can actually check manually to confirm accuracy of the LLMs. Not bad except a couple times it told me DNS resolution was 0ms which is incorrect (was 60ms).

Movin' to the country Gonna route a lot of packets networkphil.com/2024/08/28/p...

Spent the evening swapping models in my query tool to see accuracy differences. Various versions of Llama, Mistral, etc. So far best results with Llama3.2 though they're all fine for these simple queries. Of course I'm doing this with straight python and not SQL so it's sloooow but that's ok for now

What are some of the top applied ai / data engineering blogs (companies)? I would put prefect up there, temporal is great, modal as well.

Totally hosed my lab like two months ago and then rebuilt it...then a couple weeks ago had a power supply fail on my home server (no redundant power supply, of course). Finally got new power supply in, everything up and running, and the packets are flying...

I was asked today why I haven't yet created a Dune-themed networking meme. This is a gross oversight on my part and will be rectified as soon as possible.

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.” ― Mark Twain

I'm joining the Network Automation Forum Advisory Board for 2025 to help with upcoming AutoCon events and serve as a sounding board for ideas regarding NAF direction Visit the site to meet all the new board members, and consider attending an upcoming event networkautomation.forum/blog/2025-ad...