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: 23 May 2025 —

• China tried to break into US city utilities.  [The Register]

• Global takedown of infostealer malware.  [Ars Technica]

• Azure PTP accuracy.  [Weberblog]

• Making network automation consumable.  [Packet Pushers]

• True unnumbered interfaces.  [ipSpace]

• KrebsOnSecurity hit with near record 6.3Tbps DDoS.  [Krebs]

• NSA's fifty years of mathematical cryptanalysis (1937-1987).  [Schneier]  [PDF]

• IPv6 basics - link-local addresses.  [ForwardingPlane]

• Communications backdoor in Chinese power inverters.  [Schneier]  [MSN]

• Bad IPv6 approaches.  [Weberblog]

• CLI as an API.  [ipSpace]

• Court rules against NSO group.  [Schneier]  [Ars Technica]

• Forwarding packets across a network.  [ipSpace]

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