Barry O'Donovan
Internet infrastructure specialist
For over 25 years I've designed, built and run the networks the internet depends on: internet exchanges, ISP cores and voice platforms. I also work at board level, as a director and as an adviser on the technology and risk underneath them.
Co-founder of Island Bridge Networks, part of INEX's management and operations teams, lead developer of IXP Manager, and a chartered accountant.
What I do
- Island Bridge Networks Est. 2014, Co-founder
- We design, build and run critical networks for ISPs, VoIP providers, internet exchanges, data centres and the essential services that depend on them, and review other people's.
- Island Bridge Billing Systems Est. 2019, Co-founder
- Billy: everything between the meter and the bank. Our hosted billing platform rates over 3.5 million call records a month, and bills electricity, gas and water too.
- INEX Management and operations
- Ireland's neutral, industry-owned internet exchange: over 100 member networks and around 1 Tbps of traffic across seven data centres. Part of its operations and management teams since 2008.
- IXP Manager Project manager and lead developer
- The open-source platform behind around 300 internet exchanges, about 40% worldwide, helping new exchanges start from best practice rather than from scratch.
- Euro-IX Board member and treasurer
- The association for internet exchanges, helping its members deliver world-class interconnection through shared knowledge and collaborative innovation.
- Open Solutions Est. 2007, Board advisory and outsourced CTO
- Technology, risk and regulation for boards: NIS2, DORA, CER and the Cyber Resilience Act, from an engineer who can also read the accounts.
Speaking
Upcoming and selected talks. See all 101 talks and publications.
The Severed Island - Could Ireland Survive an Undersea Blackout?
LINX 127, LINX Members' Meeting, London, UK. November 18th, 2026.
Beyond NIS2: Software Supply Chains and the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA)
the Open Source Source Working Group, RIPE 93, Sofia, Bulgaria. October 26-30th, 2026.
The Severed Island - Could Ireland Survive an Undersea Blackout?
INEX's 30th Anniversary Conference, Dublin, Ireland. September 17th, 2026.
Web Application Security - an IXP Manager Perspective
RIPE92, Edinburgh, Scotland - Open Source Working Group. May 20th, 2026.
IPv6 for Frontline Support Engineers
INEX EOLAS Event (Professional Training), Dublin, Ireland. May 29th, 2025.
Introducing IXP Manager v7
RIPE89, Prague, Czechia - Connect Working Group. October 31st, 2024.
Leveraging Vagrant to Simulate Complex Systems for Network Application Development
RIPE89, Prague, Czechia - Open Source Working Group. October 31st, 2024.
OAuth with PeeringDB for Network Operators
UKNOF45 - UK Network Operators Forum, London, England. January 15th 2020.
IXP Route Servers with RPKI and IXP Manager
Global Peering Forum - GPF14, Montréal, Canada. April 9th - 12th 2019.
Migrating Legacy PHP Applications to Laravel
php[architect] Magazine, March 2019 issue.
Want me to speak at your event? Get in touch.
Articles
- The Cyber Resilience Act and Open Source: What Maintainers Need to Know2026
Are you in scope of the EU's Cyber Resilience Act? For most individual open-source developers, no. For foundations and organisations that keep software going for others to build on, there's a new, light-touch role, the open-source software steward. Written up from my talk at RIPE 93.
- Our Community and IXP Manager2021
Written up from my talk at Euro-IX's 20th anniversary: what the IXP community gives IXP Manager, and what we hope the project gives back in independence, credibility and best practice.
- 2FA and User Session Management in IXP Manager2020
How we added two-factor authentication and user session management to IXP Manager v5.3, a Laravel application using Doctrine rather than Eloquent.
- Migrating Legacy Web Applications to Laravel2019
How we moved IXP Manager from Zend Framework 1 to Laravel in place, over two and a half years, without pausing feature work: the case for it, the approach and the steps. First published in php[architect], March 2019.
- INEX's Shiny New Route Servers2019
The route servers INEX deployed across its peering platforms in 2019: IRRDB and RPKI filtering, the move to Bird v2, the filtering flow and the looking glass. First published on the INEX blog.
- A Brief History of IXP Manager2016
From a PHP portal and a pile of Perl scripts in 2005 to open-source software used by exchanges worldwide: a timeline of IXP Manager and what we learned about running an open-source project.
Blog
- Default Ubuntu / PHP Versions
- Reducing the Number of Physical Volumes (PVs) in LVM
- Defualt Ubuntu / Kamailio Packages
- Adding Versioning to an Existing MkDocs Site
- Migrating from MariaDB to MySQL
Most read
Qualifications
- B.Sc. (Hons) Mathematical Science and Computing, University of Galway
- Chartered IT Professional (CITP), Irish Computer Society
- Chartered Accountant (ACA, CPA), Chartered Accountants Ireland
- Diploma in Corporate Governance, The Corporate Governance Institute