Brief Summary

I have over 30 years’ experience in the IT industry, most of which has been spent in networking/telecoms in the UK/EMEA and NZ/APAC.  I have worked in varied roles such as technical consulting, network design and architecture, pre-sales support, operational support and software engineering.  I moved to New Zealand in 2008, where I worked in several roles before returning to the UK in 2022.

My experience has been gained in a wide range of organisations, from start-ups, through enterprises and to large service providers and telcos.  I have worked in both team environments and on an individual and independent basis.  In recent years, I have also done a lot of my work in the public sector.

Though performing hands-on work is not as regular as it used to be, it has been a strong element in my previous work, when I gained satisfaction from performing proof-of-concepts before deploying to production environments.  I first started working with Cisco in 1994, and with Juniper in 1999.

I very much enjoy customer-facing roles since no two customers are alike, and so the variety this gives is always a challenge that I am keen to take on.  Taking part in technical discussions with customers forms a key part of being able to fully understand their requirements, which is essential to being able to deliver a successful solution.

Latest News and Useful Articles                — Updated: 6 May 2025 —

• OSPF loop prevention with area range summary LSAs.  [ipSpace]

• Analysis of a route leak.  [Geoff Huston]

• IS-IS behaviour on multi-access networks.  [Lost In Transit]

• NCSC guidance on advanced cryptography.  [Schneier]  [NCSC]

• MFA is getting easier to bypass - and what to do about it.  [Ars Technica]

• US as a surveillance state.  [Schneier]  [The Atlantic]  [NYT]

• NK taking remote IT jobs at scale.  [ExtremeTech]

• OSPF summary LSA and loop prevention.  [ipSpace]

• China using AI to sharpen attack chain.  [The Register]

• France accuses Russia of 10 years of high-profile attacks.  [The Verge]

• Jevons paradox and Internet centrality.  [Geoff Huston]

• ChatGPT on OSPF area ranges and summary LSAs.  [ipSpace]

• Switching, routing, and bridging terminology.  [ipSpace]

• BGP unnumbered in 2025.  [ipSpace]

A more comprehensive news/article list can be found on my networks sub-domain here.

Click here for the latest full version of my CV, or find me on LinkedIn and X (Twitter).

rob (at) larsenconsulting (dot) net

© Robert Larsen.  All rights reserved.