The 23rd SIG-NOC (Special Interest Group on Network Operations Centre) meeting brought the NOC community together in Barcelona on 14-15 October 2025, kindly hosted by CSUC. Over one and a half days, 33 on-site and 40 online representatives from NRENs, GÉANT, and industry partners gathered to explore the evolving landscape of network operations – from automation to the growing role of AI.
Building on the discussions from previous meetings, the meeting centred on resilience, automation, data sharing, and the operational adoption of AI. The sessions combined in-depth presentations, flash talks, and group exercises and discussions, creating an open environment for collaboration and shared learning.
The meeting was opened by Eduard Gil, Managing Director of CSUC, with a warm welcome. Keith Slater (GÉANT) then presented the first updates on EuroHPC from a network operations point of view. With the EuroHPC tender now in its operational phase, the talk highlighted the importance of operational coordination between GÉANT and the NRENs.
Tomasz Szewczyk (PCSS) introduced Maat, an open-source “source of truth” application designed to simplify orchestration and configuration management. By offering flexible modelling of resources and services via REST APIs and a graphical interface, Maat is already helping the PIONIER network streamline its automation workflows.
Resilience emerged as one of the recurring themes throughout the event. An interactive session led by Jonny Lundin (Sunet) invited participants to reflect on Europe’s reliance on global cloud providers and to consider viable community-based or regional alternatives for essential network tools. The discussion highlighted the value of sovereignty and diversity in maintaining operational independence.
Maria Isabel Gandia (CSUC) also gave an dynamic presentation on the power outage in the Iberian Peninsula in April this year. She summarized the incident and lessons learned that the massive power outage brought. This was followed by Pere Barlet (UPC) presenting on the GuardXP project’s progress which aims aims to develop a privacy-enhancing tool to combat web tracking and data exploitation.
The topic of data sharing and visibility took centre stage in the session on flow monitoring. Andrew Lake (ESnet) presented MetrANOVA, an open architecture for sharing and visualising network flow data, while Gustavo Araujo (RNP) shared progress on the GREN Map, a global R&E network topology mapping initiative. Ljubomir Hrboka (CARNET) also showcased new developments in the perfSONAR on-demand interface. Collectively, these talks sparked a community-wide discussion about the boundaries between openness, privacy, and operational security when sharing flow information across domains.
Day 1 ended with a captivating visit to Cosmocaixa Science Museum and a group dinner to further strengthen connections and allow participants to network.
The second day commenced with an automation session which explored practical implementations and lessons learned from ongoing projects. Maria Manco (BSC) outlined the architecture supporting the MareNostrum5 supercomputing facility, with high-performance Ethernet and InfiniBand layers integrated into its external connectivity. Jože Hanc (ARNES) then facilitated an engaging group discussion focused on a comparative look at open and commercial flow monitoring tools.
Mick O’Donovan (HEAnet) presented updates on the Workflow Orchestrator, reflecting on two years of operational experience and its role in HEAnet’s automation ecosystem. His talk also introduced the first Workflow Orchestrator Developer Days, which brought together contributors from multiple NRENs to align development efforts and share implementation practices.
AI was also a topic of discussion, moving beyond theoretical interest toward real deployment scenarios. Bruno de Troch (Nokia) explored the evolution toward autonomous networks, enabled by Artificial Intelligence for Network Operations (AIOps) and advanced automation. The presentation illustrated how predictive automation can enhance service assurance and fault management.
Several shorter contributions continued through flash talks. Mick O’Donovan and Maria Isabel Gandía examined AI’s emerging role in security monitoring, while Ivana Golub discussed how generative AI might support documentation and configuration management tasks. Ingimar Jónsson (Rhnet) gave in-depth insights into the Islandic NOC, followed by Ladislav Loub (CESNET) who shared recent developments in NetBox, the popular infrastructure modelling platform, underscoring how AI could augment existing open-source tools rather than replace them.
Across all sessions, one clear message emerged: network operations are evolving toward intelligent, collaborative ecosystems. Three key insights stood out:
- Resilience through diversity: Reducing dependence on single vendors or global cloud providers remains a strategic goal for many NRENs.
- Responsible data sharing: Balancing visibility with confidentiality will shape future monitoring architectures.
- AI adoption through community practice: Rather than top-down deployment, AI integration in NOC workflows is emerging organically – from experiments, prototypes, and peer collaboration.
As NOCs continue to evolve in a rapidly changing digital landscape, the operational challenges are equally evolving and require strong collaboration and knowledge sharing. The next SIG-NOC gathering promises to build further on these discussions in the spring in Utrecht, Netherlands.
A warm thank you goes to CSUC for their generous hospitality and to all contributors and participants for another valuable meeting!
