DENOG18

Network Engineer @Deutsche Telekom Technik GmbH

Alexander completed his Master in Computer Engineering at TU Berlin in 2018. During his studies, he worked on research projects at Deutsche Telekom Innovation Laboratories, investigating how packet loss, jitter, peering and other factors impact the overall experience for end-users browsing the web. Today, he is the co-founder and CTO of AVEQ, helping network providers, CDNs, and broadcasters to noticeably optimize their overall delivery quality. Starting with the simple goal of "just helping a few network providers", AVEQ now consults operators, broadcasters, as well as specialized satellite providers in aviation and rail across Europe and the US.

25 years ago, Andreas started configuring networks. He hasn't really stopped since.
Over that time he's worked his way across the entire stack — Layer 2 switching, Layer 7 load balancing, enterprise edge, service provider core — and through companies including Cisco, VMware, and F5. That breadth tends to leave you with strong opinions about what works, a healthy skepticism of vendor slides, and a habit of asking "but how does it actually behave at 3am when something breaks?"
His current obsessions are routing architecture, network automation, and large-scale system design — specifically the gap between how concepts are supposed to work and how they actually perform in production. SRv6 in the data center is a perfect example: plenty of hype, real potential, and a lot of unanswered questions worth talking about.
He's here to dig into those questions with people who care about the same things.

While writing this 29 years old, started as a mechatronics technician, studied electrical engineering in the mean time. Work at a small network shop doing trainings and workshops during the final semesters. Joined at the beginning of this year the great team of Arista as a Systems Engineer. Really enjoy gathering and transfering knowledge.

With nearly two decades spent deep in the trenches of broadband access, Christian has been building, optimizing, and occasionally breaking BNG routers since the early days of modern broadband. Currently working at RtBrick and serving as Co-Chair of the DENOG Access-WG, Christian’s career spans the entire industry spectrum. After starting on the operator side at Deutsche Telekom and moving through the traditional vendor world at Juniper Networks, he is now focused on the future of disaggregated routing at RtBrick. He is passionate about making access networks smarter, standard-driven, and a lot less painful to operate.

Somewhere between network architecture and infrastructure construction with a hint of DevOps.

Dr. Gerhard Stein is Lead Research Engineer at FLEXOPTIX, in charge of ensuring that innovative and amazing prototypes can make it into the market.

Back in the 1990s, when he was still living in Mexico, he wrote small programs and assembled computers and network systems for customers. After his arrival in Germany, he began studying mechanical and process engineering at the TU Darmstadt, continued this at the Ruhr University Bochum, specialising computational engineering and received his doctorate in the field of simulation technology.

IP MPLS networks at scale since 2002

Enric is a member of the team building network automation tooling at SAP Cloud Infrastructure. Previously worked on network analytics products for wide-area networks and Internet measurement research.

Falk Bachmann is a graduate engineer in information technology, a certified Cisco Internetwork Expert (CCIE), and a Certified Wireless Network Expert (CWNE). He has more than 25 years of experience in planning, implementing, and optimizing complex network infrastructures. Prior to the official ratification of the 802.11 standard, he deployed one of the first wireless networks in Germany, making him one of the early pioneers in the WLAN field.
Throughout his career, he has delivered innovative projects for more than 100 customers in over ten countries across a wide range of industries, including manufacturing, logistics, finance, and transportation. His work has consistently focused on designing stable, secure, and highly available solutions tailored to the specific requirements of each client.
In addition to his technical work, Falk Bachmann is active as a trainer, mentor, and speaker. He has trained numerous colleagues and customers and has supervised more than ten bachelor’s theses. His international project experience and long-standing involvement in the global WLAN community make him a recognized expert in resilient network architectures and IT security.

Fedor Vompe is a software engineer at Deutsche Telekom. His interests span different areas of Internet routing and security, including BGP security, routing policy, Internet Routing Registries (IRR), RPKI, and ASPA technologies. He is passionate about network technologies and software development. He believes in fast, reliable, precise, and simple solutions that address complex technical challenges and solve real customer problems.

Anything with IP networking, basically. Plus automation and some software development.

https://flosch.me/

Senior Network Architect, Deutsche Telekom IT Solutions

Gordon has been part of the networking community ever since he started working, and until recently, was working as a network operator. Recently, he joined Nokia as a Consulting Systems Engineer focusing on data center networks. In his free time, he volunteers in the network teams of conferences and camps and is one of the maintainers of Containerlab,

Senior Network Architect @ Deutsche Telekom Technik GmbH

James Rice is the founder and technical director of Jump Networks Ltd (AS8943), a UK ISP and transit provider in London Docklands. He has been operating public peering since the 1990s, and in October 2001, as the operator of LONAP, turned off unknown unicast flooding on member ports. He has been active in RIPE circles since 2001, and most recently gave a case study on peering LAN mis-forwarding at RIPE 92 in Edinburgh. His long standing interest is in making sure traffic goes where it is meant to go.

Jan Zorz is the Head of ProVision Labs, Principal Architect & Innovation Lead, working on the development of network protocols and automation solutions to accelerate the global deployment of IPv6. A dedicated internet community leader with over 30 years of experience, Jan serves as the Vice Chair of the RIPE Programme Committee, Chair of the RIPE SEE regional meeting, and is the founder of SINOG. He is the primary co-author of RIPE-554 (the global standard for IPv6 procurement) and author of several IETF RFCs. Jan is also a co-founder and Board Member of the Global NOG Alliance (GNA), actively driving its "Keep Ukraine Connected" initiative. Previously, he worked with the Internet Society and served as CEO of the Go6 Institute. Jan is based in Slovenia, EU, and has presented his work at all five Regional Internet Registries and over 150 technical conferences worldwide.

• Network Engineer at RelAix Networks GmbH
• Master of Science in computer science

Johannes’ fascination with technology began at the age of three with his first computer. More than ten years ago, he turned that curiosity into a career by completing an apprenticeship as a Fachinformatiker für Systemintegration at a small managed service provider.

Working in a small team meant learning through trial by fire: from first-level support and virtualization to security, networking, and even the occasional encounter with the dreaded Cisco Unified Communications Manager. Along the way, Johannes found his professional home in network engineering and later complemented his practical experience with a degree in Business Information Systems(BSc).

Today, Johannes works as a Network Engineer at nscon network, security & consulting GmbH, where he supports enterprise and service provider customers and focuses increasingly on network automation. He remains endlessly curious about how networks work, how they can be operated more efficiently, and how automation can make engineers’ lives easier. He genuinely enjoys his work, values the people he works with, and rarely gets through a working day without bursting into laughter.

Having recently spent a considerable amount of time working with Wi-Fi, he is especially looking forward to a fun workshop session involving routers, source-of-truth data, and hopefully no wireless troubleshooting.

Lara (aka error) works in OT Security and likes to build networks for conferences. You might have seen her before talking about MACsec.

Ever since his studies at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, Luuk has
had an interest in measuring the Internet, often from a security perspective.
Ranging from intrusion detection algorithms based on network flow data to measuring IPv6 intricacies, he always used and produced open source software to support his research.

After finishing his studies, Luuk found his natural fit at NLnet Labs, the
Amsterdam-based not-for-profit organisation striving for an open and secure
Internet by means of open source software and open standards development in DNS
and routing since 1999. As a Research Engineer working on the Rotonda project,
Luuk now focuses on enabling operators to get better insights on how routing
(security) solutions affect their networks.

Marc Haber is a Freelance IT Consultant based near Heidelberg, Germany. With 30 years of experience, he has a strong focus on Linux and Networking and is a Debian Developer. He likes his approach to security to be called "pragmatic" and he has a tendency to overengineer things. His affiliation with DENOG started more than 20 years ago.

When his lap is not occupied by the laptop, it is usually populated by one of four cats, and he enjoy tinkering in his smart home and ballroom dancing with his wife.

Eventmanager bei Opternus

Marcus is a Network Engineer, working since over 20 years in the industry. Starting out at MANDA (AS8365), he later worked at ECIX/Megaport, then designed the active side of a FTTH network for Eurofiber in Berlin, and is about to join inter.link for more networking adventures.

I'm the leader of BIRD Internet Routing Daemon development team. I'm the main author of its current filter interpreter and of the multithreading subsystem, now focusing on API and interoperability.

I also love any means of public transportation and logistics, including studying their history. Sometimes, I play chess, mostly at Lichess: https://lichess.org/@/marenamat, and some day, I'll get my FIDE ELO, hopefully, if I get to play over-the-board games.

Here is my personal website: https://maria.jmq.cz/

Mario Jurčević is the CEO and co-founder of 5x9 Networks, where he leads the development of carrier-grade solutions in the fields of Active Performance Monitoring and Virtual Network Functions (VNFs). With more than 25 years of experience in IP networking and telecommunications, he has worked on the architecture and deployment of large-scale broadband, transport, mobile and data center networks. Prior to founding 5x9 Networks, he held senior architecture and engineering leadership roles at T-Croatian Telecom and Infobip. His current interests focus on applying software-based technologies to modern network monitoring and networking systems, with an emphasis on high-performance packet processing and scalable network architectures. Mario holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER), University of Zagreb.

Mathias Handsche is an expert in IT security and network infrastructure, focused on NIS2, KRITIS, and ISO/IEC 27001 in the telecommunications and internet-service sector. As Managing Director of nGENn GmbH, he helps telecom operators, ISPs, and data centres build sustainable ISMS structures and turn regulatory requirements into lean processes that fit day-to-day operations rather than fighting them.

He is an active ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and ISO 22301:2019 lead auditor working in critical-infrastructure and telecommunications environments, and contributes to the German national standards committee (DIN), bringing field experience into the national standard mapping NIS2 to ISO/IEC 27001. His current work also extends to evidentiary integrity and the handling of digital evidence under the EU E-Evidence framework.

I am a PhD student and research associate at the Chair of Distributed and Networked Systems at TU Dresden, supervised by Prof. Dr. Matthias Wählisch. Before joining TU Dresden, I graduated with a BSc and MSc in Computer Science from Freie Universität Berlin. My research focuses on Internet measurements to improve network security. I'm particularly interested in DNS and scalable IPv6 scanning.

Born in the GDR and raised in the metropolitan area of Paderborn, Michael Fischer began his professional career as an apprentice Fachinformatiker für Systemintegration (FISI) at Fujitsu Siemens Computers. At the same time, through the German dual education system, he earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Business Administration from the Fachhochschule Südwestfalen in Meschede.

After several years in non-technical Customer Success Management roles, he refocused on his passion for network engineering and has since been continuously learning about — and explaining — the mechanics of modern data exchange networks.

Today, Michael works at nscon network, security & consulting GmbH, one of the currently two netbox labs partners in Germany helping customers tackle the challenge of managing their growing networks with fewer resources by using and improving their automation toolsets.

Hi, I'm nicoduck and I'm responsible for the network operations at Pfalzkom, operating our Backbone, RF Links, data center network and SIP platform. We own two data centers in Mutterstadt and our network roughly reaches from Homburg to Heidelberg and from Landau to Frankfurt.

When not doing paid work, I like to help building temporary networks at scale, for events like CCC congress and multiple camps and am interested in mechanical locks.

Patrick is working as a Tech Lead - Systems Engineering for Arista Networks. He is based in Austria and is passionate about networking and automation. He has more than 14 years of experience in the networking industry mostly working at or with various Service Providers.

Arista Networks

I thought I was done with system level engineering a long time ago, it turns out system level engineering wasn't done with me.

Technology executive with a passion for Internet and how the pieces come together - going down that rabbit hole for 25+ years. Prolific policy author, former chair of the Connect working group in the RIPE community and board member of RIPE NCC from 2010 to 2025.

Robin Christ is Senior Network Engineer at partimus GmbH and specialist for EVPN(-VXLAN) and BGP. He is an active contributor to open source projects like FRR, VyOS and Proxmox. His career began already at 17 years old as a freelance software engineer, gradually shifting towards network engineering, directly after scoring a 1st place in German national youth science competition „Jugend Forscht“ with a computer science project.

His motto: „We don’t follow standards - we set them.“

TBD

Sebastian Becker, born in 1976 in Berlin, Germany, has been working for Deutsche Telekom for over 22 years. He started in January 2002 at the 24/7 service desk and worked his way up to become the (only) peering manager for AS3320. Global routing has been his daily companion from the very beginning.

Since 2007, he has been part of the RIPE community, regularly attending NANOG meetings since 2011. He joined the GPF/EPF community in 2019 and became a part of the CoC Team of the RIPE community in 2023.

Since 2019 he is also an active member of the DENOG orga and member of the PC for the DENOG conferences.

TBD

Tan (they/them or she/her) is an open-source firmware developer with a focus on OpenBMC and embedded Linux. She has previously worked as an SRE for a cloud provider, where she gained experience in large-scale infrastructure management and also worked on firmware. Outside of her day job, she has a broader interest in network administration and automation (mostly Arista and VPP).

Takaya is a Sales Enginieer at NTT Advanced Technology(NTT-AT) based in Japan.
He is with NTT Advanced Technology Corporation more than 20 years both Sales and Engineering team.
In recent years, focused on the implementation of wireless communication solutions based on Free Space Optics (FSO) technology.

Thomas Weible is the creative brain of FLEXOPTIX. A real rebel who dreams up innovations such as the FLEXBOX. He dives deep into the inner life of optics and loves experimenting on real-life problems with our customers. For more than 18 years he has been part of the internet community and has specialized in optical networking.

Tim Kleefass started with DENOG2 conference and is engaged in the DENOG conference and meetup organisation since years. He's also part of the PC and since end of 2023 treasurer of the board. Besides being involved into Stuttgart-IX, his professional live brought him to BelWü, SWITCH, EXARING (waipu.tv), OneFiber Interconnect and since February 2024 to DE-CIX, currently as Head of Global Interconnection Platform.

Tobias is a researcher at TU Wien, broadly working on everything related to the Internet; From pushing packets to the people getting the packets pushed. Besides his academic work, he enjoys running networks in his free time.

Currently working as a Solution Architect at a german ISP called Plusnet. Looking after all kinds of technologies needed to run an ISP business.

Formerly working for a Service Integrator for >10y. If IP was involved it typically passed my desk at one point in time. From DC to SP networks both fixed and Mobile. Touching all layers of the stack. Even before that working for 8y in the hosting industry and worked my way from system administration towards networking and running the back than European network of that hosting provider.

Part of the wider DENOG community longer than i remember. Regular Guest since DENOG2, spoken on a couple of DENOG events over the years.

I'm closing in on my 20 years anniversary of being in the IT industry.
More to come.

Vanessa works as IT Architect at DB.

Additionally, she gives lectures on network technology, and is the Co-Chair of the DENOG Welcome Group Working Group.

In her spare time, she is working on some experimental infrastructure and tooling, for example an IPv6 only network.

Profile Picture by leahoswald.art

I’m a technologist at heart, though life often leads me into managerial roles. For the last 15 years, I’ve built products, led and advised companies, published papers, and shared my insights at conferences and in articles on the web.

I’ve built my first network automation tools 13 years ago, and since then I’ve never looked back.

I’ve been a Network Engineer and Solution Architect through different positions and companies (Interoute/GTT/SysEleven/Inter.link). I've worked in small to very large projects, enterprises and networks. From simple to complex SDN driven (commercial or self build) to internet scale solutions. Main areas of expertise have been BGP (Routing, Policies etc.), MPLS/Traffic Engineering, DataCenter Fabric, Network Security (especially DDoS Detection and Mitigation) and overall network design and architecture. Besides that I also contribute to the Internet Community via the Berlin Internet Exchange (BCIX) as a member of the board. In 2024 I joined Arista Networks on my journey to build networks customers like the most.

My linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincentz-berlin/

After completing his degree at Karlsruhe University, Wolfgang started working as a network engineer at Xlink in 1994. He went on to become head of network operations and peering manager at a range of ISPs.

In 2006, Wolfgang joined DE-CIX as Director Customer Support, a position he held for ten years. Since 2016, Wolfgang has been head of the DE-CIX Academy, making sure customers understand how BGP and other routing protocols work.