Count IT/OT convergence among Disney’s digital transformation success stories

Everybody knows “the Mouse,” of course, or the company behind the magic of theme parks as well as movies, TV shows and a whole streaming service of its own, Disney Plus, just to name a few of the company’s high-profile holdings. Indeed, that’s just the beginning of all that is brought to you by The Walt Disney Co.

See also: The full list of ITA award-winners

When we wanted to know how the magic run behind the scenes at Disney’s “themed entertainment spaces” and all the digital transformation that’s taken place in the past two years, we asked Daniel Mastropietro, technical fellow and executive data network engineer for global network engineering and operations with the entertainment conglomerate.

Disney has won its ITA in the Manufacturing category—and Mastropietro told Smart Industry how much his company has done to reform its digital infrastructure.

The evolution really started over 10 years ago, Mastropietro said. Information technology and operational technology functions at Disney were completely separate, he explained, and systems in the company’s “themed entertainment spaces,” including the data networks that supported them, were air-gapped from each other. Meaning they were siloed, a common problem between IT and OT in many types of organizations.

See also: IT/OT convergence needs a human-centered approach

Mastropietro said these air-gapped systems were difficult to monitor, leading the company to decide it was time for IT/OT convergence.

“Our first task—and milestone—was settling on architectures and best practices. This included not only how we connected these systems together but also landing on common hardware that we could scale across all attractions and entertainment offerings while supporting future innovation.”

In the last two years, a ‘leap forward’

Bringing the IT and OT teams together was critical to the rapid digital transformation advances of the last 24 months at Disney, Mastropietro told Smart Industry.

The digital teams prioritized reliability, predictive maintenance, and automation to reduce downtime and improve the experience for theme park guests, he said.

Special Report: Crystal Ball Series 2026

“A major breakthrough was implementing centralized monitoring and analytics, which allows us to detect and resolve potential issues before they impact operations,” Mastropietro said. “This has reduced network-related mean time to repair by more than 75%—what once took days to diagnose and fix now takes hours.”

IT and OT convergence ensured both were equally represented in every design, vendor, and architecture discussion, he said.

“We invested in joint training—Cisco certifications for OT engineers, ISA/ICS security training for IT staff—and this cross-education transformed our culture,” he added. “Suddenly, teams could see challenges from the other’s perspective, which accelerated collaboration and problem-solving.”