Date & Time
Wednesday 7th October 2026
6pm–8:30pm
Location
Covent Garden Hotel, London
London
Format
Discussion + networking drinks + light bites.
Free to attend.
About Us
The GB networking community has a new home.
GB(NUG) is for enterprise network engineers, architects, operational leaders and innovators who want real conversation with people who understand the job.
We meet quarterly to share experience, debate the hard problems, and make connections with other networking professionals. The agenda is shaped by the community: cloud networking, automation, resilience, security, career development, and whatever's keeping you up at night.
This is your peer group. Come and be part of it.
GB(NUG) is made possible through the support of Alkira, a Lumen Connect® solution and Megaport, two organisations who believe a stronger practitioner community benefits the whole industry.
Networks: The Decisions Behind the Design – Insights from Real World Engineers
Join the (GB)NUG Connect Event
Convent Garden Hotel, London | 7th Oct | 6pm-8.30pm
Talks · Open Discussion · Drinks · Light Bites
(GB)NUG brings together two practitioners ready to share their experiences and opinions on enterprise networking. Grab a drink, connect with your peers, hear from fellow practitioners and join the conversation.
Michael Daly
Co-Founder, M5L Consulting Limited
Henry Ford, Henry Royce, and Brentford FC Walk Into a Network... An argument for building only what you actually need to
Henry Ford built cars that were precise, with every part interchangeable, pulled at random off a shelf. Henry Royce built cars that were accurate, with bespoke parts hand-filed until they fit. Most network engineers like to think their network is the second kind: a carefully crafted, purpose-built thing. It usually isn't. It's neither precise nor accurate, it's just a decade of firefighting, acquisitions, and one engineer's favourite vendor, wearing a craftsman's overalls.
This talk borrows Ford's precision and Royce's accuracy, then turns to Billy Beane (The manager at the Oakland A's Baseball team) who won by ignoring what looked impressive and paying only for what actually won games and to Brentford FC, who've run the same playbook in the Premier League with a fraction of their rivals' budgets.
Together they make an uncomfortable case: stop building what you're only keeping out of habit or pride, and start being honest about what genuinely deserves hand-built, bespoke attention. Precision and accuracy aren't virtues. They're cost decisions.
Second Speaker to be announced soon
Agenda
- 6pm: Meet for drinks and networking in the Fortune Room
- 6.30pm: Hear from our speakers in Screening Room
- 7.15pm: Connect with your peers over drinks and light bites
- 8.30pm: Event closes
(GB)NUG is a practitioner-led, open, collaborative community for enterprise network architects, engineers, operational leaders and innovators across Great Britain. The group is independent, open and built around peer knowledge.
Second event - no playbook - come and help shape what this becomes.
Supported by Alkira and Megaport.