Two Model Context Protocol Talks Including Grafana MCP & Ugly Sweater Contest

For the Decemeber LA DevOps meetup we will have presentations focused on the Model Context Protocol used for AI Agent communication.

Kenneth Cavanaugh will start things off with his To MCP or Not To MCP presentation which will be a great introduction.

We will then move into the second talk, Dondi Aponte and Dmitiri Pappa from Grafana will be discussing the Grafana MCP implementaiton and how AI agents can leverage the Grafana platform.

We will also have our annual ugly sweater contest contest and everyone is welcome to participate.

See the Presentation Details section below for more info.

Sponsored by Grafana!
Thanks to Grafana Labs for sponsoring LA DevOps (and SCaLE).

Join the Grafana and Friends LA Meetup group to stay up to date with their events.

Event Details:
6:00 - 6:30 Attendees arrive. Networking/Mingle
6:30 - 6:45 LA DevOps Welcome,Attendee Introductions
6:45 - 7:15 Kenneth Cavanagh - To MCP or Not To MCP
7:15 - 8:00 Dondy Aponte & Dmitri Pappa - Grafana MCP
8:00 - 9:00 Networking/Mingle/Ugly Sweater Pagent

Presentation Details:

Title: To MCP or Not To MCP
Presented By: Kenneth Cavanagh

Description:
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is redefining how AI connects to tools and data. It’s gaining traction fast, but some say it’s over engineered. This talk breaks down what MCP is, why it matters, and when it’s worth building on.

About Kenneth:
Ken Cavanagh is an industrial psychologist working on applied AI at Glean. He previously worked in operations at SpaceX before co-founding an applied AI studio that built custom AI agents and MCPs for clients.

Title: Grafana MCP
Presented By: Dondy Aponte & Dmitri Pappa

Description:
The Grafana team shares how AI has been adopted by some of the world’s most popular dashboards and how MCP helps enable agentic workflows in their Observability stack.

About Dondy:
Dondy Aponte is a Senior Solutions Engineer at Grafana Labs, specializing in observability, cloud-native technologies, and digital transformation. With a strong background in IT strategy and infrastructure, he helps organizations optimize their observability and analytics capabilities to drive efficiency and innovation.

About Dmitri:
Dmitri Pappa is a Grafana Solutions Engineer who helps customers improve enterprise visibility. He draws on extensive experience in problem-solving and automation at fortune 500 companies.

About O'Brien's Pub on Wilshire:
The covered patio at Obrien's Pub has been a great place to host LA DevOps meetups for our post covid revival. The food and drink are great and the staff are very friendly. O'brien's is also the LA home of Manchester United Football Club Supporters.
You may want to bring a jacket for the cooler months.
Regarding parking, there are meters on Wilshire and the side streets that expire at 6.

Present at an Upcoming LA DevOps Meetup:
If you would like to present at an upcoming LA DevOps meetup please send a message in meetup to the organizers with a proposed title and a sentence or two about the talk.

DevOpsDayLA at SCALE23x is happening on Friday March 6 at the Pasadena Convention Center
Registration to SCALE includes access to DevOpsDayLA.
We are looking for sponsors, please see our prospectus for details.

Subscribe to the LA DevOps Meetup Calendar at lu.ma
The LA DevOps events are also listed on lu.ma which has an interesting interface. Subscribe to LA DevOps on lu.ma at https://lu.ma/calendar/cal-F7BPqBLAe80T5nS