Workshop France Novotel, Nov 5th-7th 2024

Empowering Telco System Engineer Champions: Highlights from Our Annual Workshop

Every year, we gather for our much-anticipated Telco workshop, a pivotal event designed to equip our Telco SE champions with the latest insights and advancements in Telco Security. This year was no exception, and I had the privilege of leading some in-depth sessions on critical topics, including the often-overlooked gray areas of Quality of Service (QoS) and solutions validation.

Here are some of the main topics I wanted to highlight

Session1: Telco and QoS challenges

The session on QoS was particularly rewarding. We delved into complex traffic flows, explored the intricacies of chip-level processes, we also tackled kernel QoS, design strategies, and common pitfalls.

The Fortinet System Engineers were highly engaged, peppering me with questions throughout the session. What truly stood out was the overwhelming response afterward—many engineers approached me to discuss their challenging QoS projects in the Telco market or upcoming initiatives that needed to address QoS issues. This enthusiasm has inspired me to consider writing a more internal comprehensive document on the subject.

Session2: Fortinet solutions validation and return on experience

The solutions validation session was equally exciting. I had the pleasure of collaborating as speaker with Simon Bryden, who shared brilliant insights from our experiences in solutions validation and testing. We concluded the discussion with some entertaining anecdotes from the field, providing a light-hearted yet informative end to the workshop.

Below are some photos capturing the energy and engagement of the event.

I blured parts of the pic that might have some internal FTNT info

Session3: cFOS in standalone docker and Kubernetes

This wasnt a one I gave directly, but I tried to actively participate and help audience with the brilliant handson lab done by Kim Frellesen, the session highlights the latest containernised Fortinet solution (cFOS) aka container Fortigate, in typical docker or kubernetes deployements..

here are pictures from the event, internal infos on slides are blured, and last pic is right before our return flight to Amsterdam from Nice with my colleague and good friend Adel El Adham

Going through some deep Fortigate flows

Internal QoS and chips

More QoS internal flows

Leaving Nice Airport right before return flight, with my colleague Adel