Krishna Suman Dara

Title of the Talk: AI-Driven Flow Steering for Energy-Aware Traffic Engineering in Modern Data Centers

Abstract:
Escalating workloads and stringent sustainability goals require a shift from performance-only routing to energy-conscious traffic engineering within data centers. This session introduces an AI-driven flow steering paradigm that dynamically optimizes network traffic distribution to minimize power consumption without sacrificing service-level agreements (SLAs).

Utilizing continuous real-time telemetry from switches, servers, and links, the framework predicts congestion and evaluates energy-saving opportunities on the fly. Network paths are dynamically reconfigured to consolidate traffic onto high-efficiency segments, selectively deactivating idle components without breaching latency or throughput limits. By replacing rigid, rule-based policies with adaptive, context-aware decision-making, this model-agnostic architecture integrates seamlessly into heterogeneous, software-defined data center fabrics—providing a scalable foundation for self-optimizing, sustainable network operations.

Bio

Suman Dara is a Senior Principal Engineer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) / Juniper Networks, where he leads R&D initiatives in advanced routing architecture and product engineering. With over 20 years of experience in network architecture, distributed systems, and routing R&D, Suman has been instrumental in the development and launch of flagship routing portfolios, including the ACX and MX product lines. Suman bridges deep infrastructure expertise with emerging AI/ML methodologies to solve complex, non-linear network challenges. He is an active industry innovator, focused on patenting and deploying Network Digital Twin technologies to enable autonomous remediation and predictive network analytics.