The networking stories enterprise IT leaders actually read.
Volume 342, Issue 4 · 6 articles from 3 issues
A vote in October could end leap second adjustments from May 2027, sparing systems a never-tested negative leap second.
The General Conference on Weights and Measures votes in October on eliminating leap second adjustments starting 20 May 2027. The urgency is that Earth's rotation has accelerated, making a negative leap second possible for the first time, and no computer system has ever handled one.
Previous positive leap seconds caused widespread outages across Linux kernels, Java runtimes and network stacks, so an untested negative adjustment is a serious operational risk.
The proposal maintains continuous Coordinated Universal Time instead. For infrastructure teams this is a rare case where a standards vote removes a latent failure mode rather than adding work.
Multi-vendor estates with thousands of device permutations have outgrown manual NetOps, and AI can close part of the gap.
Network operations teams now manage multi-vendor environments containing thousands of device and firmware permutations, which makes manual vulnerability discovery and compliance checking impractical.
The article describes using AI to accelerate vulnerability discovery, compliance monitoring and device status checks across heterogeneous infrastructure. The recommended division of labor keeps humans in decision-making roles while AI handles data aggregation, analysis and remediation recommendations.
That framing matters because the failure mode in network automation is not bad analysis but unreviewed change execution.
TechTarget compares InfiniBand and RoCE fabrics for AI training on congestion handling, operations, vendor choice and TCO.
AI training relies on synchronized data exchange across GPUs, so the network fabric choice matters. InfiniBand builds congestion management into the fabric with credit-based flow control, virtual lanes and adaptive routing, while RoCEv2 relies on Ethernet configuration such as priority flow control, ECN and DCQCN tuning.
Meta ran 24,576-GPU clusters on both successfully, showing the difference lies mainly in engineering effort.
RoCE offers broader vendor choice and familiar Ethernet skills; InfiniBand offers tighter integration, and the decision should weigh lifetime TCO and GPU utilization.
IEEE P802.3dj is in final balloting as 1.6 terabit Ethernet and coherent optics chase AI traffic growth.
The networking industry is pushing toward 1.6 terabit Ethernet to keep up with AI infrastructure demand. IEEE P802.3dj specifications are in final balloting, and the Ethernet Alliance demonstrated multi-vendor interoperability at ECOC in Spain.
On the optical side, OIF's 1600ZR Implementation Agreement extends coherent reach to 80 to 120 kilometers, which is the range that matters for data center interconnect.
Together these let operators tie distributed AI clusters together without resorting to proprietary links. The piece is a useful primer for teams planning refresh cycles that will have to carry AI east-west traffic.
Educators at SIGCOMM 2026 argue networking courses should teach design principles, not protocol memorization, even as AI tools help with code.
Reporting from the SIGCOMM 2026 Education Workshop, the article covers debate over how to teach networking as AI reshapes the field.
Bruce Davie argues students should grasp underlying principles rather than memorize specific protocols, so a student meeting QUIC for the first time can relate it to concepts they already know. The workshop emphasized system-design challenges and tradeoff discussions, such as how TCP estimates round-trip time, over rote protocol lectures.
While AI coding agents may help students handle implementation details on harder assignments, learning should still be assessed through design understanding rather than code quality, since AI still lacks real-world grounded mental models.
Switch revenues jumped 43.4% year over year to $18.91 billion as AI buildouts pull campus and edge upgrades along with them.
IDC data for the second quarter shows Ethernet switch revenues up 43.4% to $18.91 billion, a 23.1% sequential gain, with the router market up 22.8% to $4.51 billion.
The author notes these are record switch sales, and that the driver is not only GenAI systems in the datacenter but the campus and edge network upgrades needed to feed them.
Component shortages are expected to cap how fast the market can actually grow, while scarcity is itself pushing prices up.
Routers remain relevant for service providers, telcos and neoclouds that cannot write their own routing software the way hyperscalers do. For enterprise network planners, the piece is a useful read on where capacity and pricing pressure are heading.