Inside eBay’s AI-Powered Network: SONiC, Automation, and AI-Assisted NOC Operations
eBay operates one of the most advanced enterprise networks built on SONiC and large-scale automation. In this technical deep dive, Rick Casarez provides an inside look at the architecture, design principles, and operational decisions behind eBay’s production SONiC deployment.
Rick will also demonstrate how eBay is applying AI-powered LLMs to assist and automate NOC workflows, enabling engineers to investigate incidents faster, interpret telemetry, and streamline troubleshooting runbooks. The session concludes with a look at how eBay’s network architecture is evolving to support AI workloads and more autonomous network operations.
Key Topics Covered
• Architecture of eBay’s production SONiC-based network
• Design principles behind eBay’s disaggregated networking strategy
• Hardware abstraction and multi-vendor switching architecture
• Automation frameworks and infrastructure-as-code for network operations
• Telemetry, observability, and operational tooling at scale
• Applying LLMs to assist and automate NOC workflows
• AI-assisted troubleshooting, incident investigation, and operational runbooks
• Preparing enterprise networks for AI infrastructure and high-performance workloads
Who Should Attend
• Enterprise network engineers and architects evaluating or deploying SONiC
• NOC and operations leaders exploring AI-assisted operations
• Infrastructure engineers responsible for automation and network reliability
• Platform and SRE teams operating large-scale distributed infrastructure
• IT leaders preparing networks to support AI and high-performance compute environments
Nick Lippis is an authority on corporate computer networking. He has designed some for the largest computer networks in the world. He has advised many Global 2000 firms on network strategy, architecture, equipment, services and implementation including Hughes Aerospace, Barclays Bank, Kaiser Permanente, Eastman Kodak Company, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Liberty Mutual, Schering-Plough, Sprint, WorldCom, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and a wide range of other equipment suppliers and service providers.
Mr. Lippis is uniquely positioned to comment, analyze and observe computer networking industry trends and developments.
