OKTET INSIGHTS

Engineering, in the open.

Field notes from the bench and the build line — the reasoning behind the numbers we publish, written by the people who measure them.

ISSUE
13 MAY 2026
ARTICLES
04 IN PRINT
DESKS
FIELD NOTES · STANDARDS · ENGINEERING · RELIABILITY
LEAD STORY
Why we burn-in every switch for 48 hours RELIABILITY
10 FEB 2026 · 7 MIN

Why we burn-in every switch for 48 hours

Most hardware failures that reach a customer are infant-mortality failures — parts that were going to die in the first week regardless. We make them die here instead.

BY Ravi Mehta Read the story →
FROM THE DESKS
Field notes: cabling a 40-cabinet aggregation row FIELD NOTES
13 MAY 2026 · 8 MIN

Field notes: cabling a 40-cabinet aggregation row

Notes from three days commissioning a 40-cabinet row — what we labeled, where we left slack, why the fiber went in before the copper, and the small disciplines that decide whether the row is maintainable in two years.

BY Ravi Mehta →
Reading a datasheet like an engineer: throughput vs switching capacity STANDARDS
08 APR 2026 · 7 MIN

Reading a datasheet like an engineer: throughput vs switching capacity

A switch's two headline numbers — switching capacity and forwarding rate — measure different things, and vendors pick the flattering one. Here is how to read both and catch the gap.

BY Dana Okonkwo →
10GbE to the access layer: when it actually pays off ENGINEERING
04 MAR 2026 · 8 MIN

10GbE to the access layer: when it actually pays off

Ten-gig to the desk is mostly waste. Ten-gig to the right access switch, uplink, or workstation is one of the cheapest performance upgrades you can make. The difference is knowing which is which.

BY Dana Okonkwo →