Beyond the Hype: Driving Real NOC & SOC Efficiency with Proven AI
Enterprise network and security operations centers are sitting on a goldmine of untapped efficiency — not from bleeding-edge autonomous agentic AI, but from mature, battle-tested capabilities already at their fingertips. This panel brings together practitioners who have deployed large language models, machine learning pipelines, and intelligent automation within live NOC and SOC environments to cut mean-time-to-resolution, reduce alert fatigue, and reclaim analyst capacity. Panelists will share concrete before-and-after metrics, walk through implementation playbooks that worked — and the integration pitfalls, data-quality traps, and organizational resistance that nearly derailed them. If your team is still triaging thousands of alerts manually or troubleshooting network issues with legacy runbooks, this session delivers the pragmatic roadmap to operationalize AI capabilities that are proven, available today, and delivering measurable ROI.
Ernest co-founded ONUG with Nick Lippis after realizing that the user community needed to take control of their own destiny and expedite the network transformation. At the time he was VP of the Internetwork Engineering organization at Fidelity Investments and under his leadership Fidelity hosted the first ONUG in Boston in February 2013.
A 12-year veteran of Fidelity, Ernest was responsible for leading the team that engineered world class network, security, and application delivery services driving value to the customer beyond infrastructure management. Ernest also managed the Network and Voice service portfolio as well as Global Network Operations LAN/WAN teams and has held various technical and leadership roles.
David Mann is a senior technology leader with deep expertise in network automation, global infrastructure, and enterprise services. He currently serves at NetBrain Technologies, where he drives strategic enhancements to global services and support, helping organizations harness the power of no-code network automation. Prior to NetBrain, David spent five years as Senior Director at CSL Behring, leading transformative initiatives across SDWAN, wireless networking, telecom expense management, and enterprise monitoring. Known for championing innovation, scalability, and security, David brings a proven track record of delivering complex network solutions that drive real business impact.
Patrick Heinz is currently the Senior Network Design Engineer for Ameriprise in charge of Global Network Performance Management and has been in this role for more than 6 years. In this role he has overseen the evolution of Ameriprise’s global network monitoring platform. Before joining Ameriprise, he worked with Qwest/CenturyLink/Lumen for more than ten years. Prior to starting with Qwest, he was President, Founder and Primary Patent Holder for Innovative Fiber Optic Solution (iFiber) out of Middletown, Ohio. He has three patents in the Metropolitan Ethernet space.
From starting his career as a United States Marine Corps helicopter pilot to becoming the Chief Innovation Officer of BigPanda, Jason Walker brings skill and professionalism to any situation regardless of scale, speed, or complexity. Jason is driven to help customers accelerate their AIOps journey by leveraging BigPanda’s practical applications to enhance operations performance and ignite transformative growth. He previously served as field CTO and then Chief Customer Officer for BigPanda where he led the customer success team. Previously, Jason spent 10 years at Activision-Blizzard where he led Blizzard’s IT operations transformation to support multi-product, always-online global gaming services with an AIOps-driven centralized OpsCenter. His positive experience as a BigPanda customer at Activision-Blizzard convinced him to become a Panda himself.
