Talk announcement – “33-Hour Rescue Mission – StarDENT Insider Tales” by Juraj Vijtiuk

We’re happy to announce that Juraj Vijtiuk will be presenting at DORS/CLUC this year. Juraj is a dedicated Software Engineer with significant expertise in low-level Linux development, particularly focused on building robust network and security applications. Since joining Sartura in 2017, he has consistently contributed to complex projects at the intersection of networking, security, and system performance.

His work includes developing and enhancing network automation systems based on modern standards such as NETCONF, YANG, and gNMI, enabling more efficient and reliable network management. Juraj has also applied his deep understanding of systems programming to software security assurance through fuzzing techniques, proactively identifying potential vulnerabilities. In addition, he has hands-on experience using eBPF to build advanced observability solutions for performance monitoring, troubleshooting, and security analysis in Linux environments.

Juraj is also an active contributor to the open source community, particularly within the NETCONF ecosystem, where he participates in the development and improvement of various tools and technologies for network management.

In his talk titled 33-Hour Rescue Mission – StarDENT Insider Tales, Juraj will pull back the curtain on the real-world challenges and technical depth behind the StarDENT system — and the extraordinary 33-hour rescue mission it required. Far from a theoretical overview, this session is a deep-dive into architecting a high-performance, fully open source network management and observability stack on Linux.

The talk begins with the foundation: the required Linux kernel configuration. Juraj will outline the features necessary for their use case — including eBPF support and specific networking subsystems — and detail the challenges involved in preparing an optimal kernel environment to support both system management and high-performance observability.

Next, he’ll explore the management plane, demonstrating how key components were integrated: sysrepo as the central YANG datastore, Netopeer2 providing the NETCONF server interface, and holo-routing managing routing protocol interactions via YANG models. He’ll share practical insights from selecting, configuring, and interconnecting these components, as well as developing custom sysrepo plugins to bridge functionality gaps and extend capabilities.

The second pillar of the system was observability, where Juraj and his team leveraged eBPF for detailed visibility into system and network behavior. He’ll present how these tools were integrated with OpenTelemetry to enable modern observability workflows.

Finally, he’ll describe the development of a RESTful API layer using Flask, which exposes core functionality through lightweight, standardized HTTP endpoints. The interface is designed to be minimal in dependencies while allowing for straightforward feature expansion and seamless integration with external platforms.

Throughout the talk, Juraj will share candid insights into the technical obstacles faced, key lessons learned, and performance considerations encountered along the way. Attendees can expect a practical, in-depth walkthrough of building and integrating open source technologies into a cohesive, production-grade solution — and a look at what it really takes to make such a system work under pressure.