Richard Jones manages the EU regional IT infrastructure for a leading global manufacturing business, and also works closely with the global team to provide best in class systems and support to the business. Richard's certifications and specialties include Network Management Systems, Cisco technology, and VMware.

Dave Shield has worked as part of the technical support team for the Department of Computer Science at the University of Liverpool for more than twenty years. For most of that time, he has also been one of the core developers for the Net-SNMP project helping it grow from a one-man fork to become one of the world's leading open source network management products.

Both of these environments draw heavily on the open source ethos, and typically involve the use of ad-hoc, in-house developed systems. Seeing how things look from the perspective of a commercial software solution has been a fascinating experience, and has helped clarify some of the advantages and limitations of the open source approach.

Stephen Stack has 15 years of industry experience and is currently the Network Team Leader for an International Financial Services company and Application Service Provider (ASP) with offices in more than 50 countries worldwide. His current role includes responsibility for the company's international MPLS-based WAN, client ASP connectivity and data centers, and managing core data center technologies including security, virtualization and network management solutions.

Stephen has extensive experience in the ISP and SME markets also and his certifications include CCNP, CCDP, MCSE, and SolarWinds Certified Professional (SCP) to name a few. He also has a number of SolarWinds NPM, APM, and NCM deployments under his belt.

A keen golfer, Stephen lives in the picturesque village of Ballycotton located in County Cork, Ireland with his wife Orla and son Rían. Stephen's professional profile and be found on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/ststack/.