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: 17 September 2025 —

• SwiNOG 40 - when a routing control function is too fresh.  [ipSpace]

• Google's LERS compromised.  [The Register]

• Self-replicating worm hits 180+ software packages.  [Krebs]  [The Register]

• Network design.  [Network Defense Blog: part 1, part 2]

• AUSNOG 2025.  [Geoff Huston]

• Pentagon begins satnet deployment to link sensors with shooters.  [Ars Technica]

• The curious case of the "ip host" configuration command.  [ipSpace]

• SwiNOG 40 - reliability of high-speed transceivers.  [ipSpace]

• Measuring ECN.  [Geoff Huston]

• Microsoft Azure services disrupted by Red Sea cable cuts.  [BBC News]

• Adventures in latency.  [ForwardingPlane]

• Generative AI as a cybercrime assistant.  [Schneier]  [Anthropic]

• Mis-issued certificates for 1.1.1.1 DNS pose a threat.  [Ars Technica 1, 2]

• Submarine cables - SwiNOG 40.  [ipSpace]  [PDF]  [YouTube]

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.