Brander Group Sponsors NANOG 96 in San Francisco

NANOG 96: Re-Engineering the Internet for the AI Era

The internet infrastructure community converges on San Francisco for NANOG 96. The three-day event made one thing clear: AI is no longer just a software trend; it is a physical engineering force reshaping data centers and global backbones.

From extreme-density cooling to autonomous troubleshooting agents, here is the breakdown of the major highlights from the NANOG 96 agenda.

Brander Group is sponosring NANOG 96 & hosting lunch on Monday February 1st. To learn where the IPv4 market is headed this year,  schedule a meeting wtih the one and only Jonathan Santefort.

Sunday, Feb 1: The Foundation

The conference kicked off with a focus on community and inclusivity before the technical deep dives began.

Women in Tech Mixer: A dedicated space in the Seacliff Room for networking among industry leaders.

Newcomers Orientation: Justin Ryburn (Kentik) provided a roadmap for first-time attendees to navigate the peering forums and technical tracks.

Social Kickoff: Attendees gathered off-site at Gott’s Roadside for a self-hosted social to prime the “hallway track” conversations.

Monday, Feb 2: The Infrastructure of AI

Monday’s sessions tackled the massive physical demands that High-Performance Computing (HPC) places on the network.

Keynote: Beyond the Chip: Michael Balasko and Christopher Stewart of AHEAD explored the “unprecedented” infrastructure demands of AI, highlighting how facilities must evolve to handle extreme power and cooling for GPU clusters.

Architecture Shifts: Netflix and Cisco presented on Redefining BGP Architecture, while Google’s Alexander Krentsel discussed the hidden complexities of decentralizing SDN.

Geopolitics & Operations: Doug Madory of Kentik presented on the Exodus of IPv4 from war-torn Ukraine, reminding the community of the geopolitical stakes of routing.

AI Centers: The day concluded with Arista’s Tyler Conrad discussing the necessary transition from traditional Data Centers to specialized AI Centers.

Tuesday, Feb 3: Automation & Autonomous Agents

Tuesday shifted the focus toward how we manage these massive networks through code and intelligent agents.

Meta’s Evolution: Omar Baldonado delivered a keynote on how Meta has evolved its data center networking to keep pace with AI growth.

Network-as-Code: A high-level panel featuring Packet Pushers’ Ethan Banks argued that automation must move toward a model using CI/CD and data-driven testing.

Workshop: Autonomous Agents: A four-hour immersive lab led by Cisco experts explored how LLMs and Autonomous Agents can be integrated directly into network operations to diagnose faults in real-time.

Routing Security: Crucial updates on RPKI adoption reinforced the industry’s commitment to securing the global routing table through enhanced security frameworks.

Wednesday, Feb 4: Security, DDoS, and BGP 2025

The final day looked toward the horizon of network defense and protocol health.

AI-Enhanced Attacks: Chip Witt of Radware discussed the landscape of defending against AI-powered threats.

BGP Forensics: Geoff Huston of APNIC provided his essential “BGP in 2025” report and Cisco ThousandEyes’ Kemal Sanjta demonstrated the “BGP Clock” for hunting stuck routes.

Operational Business: T-Mobile shared its automation journey, while Barrie Cook provided a session on Financial Analysis for Technical Professionals, covering the business logic behind the wires.

Closing: The event wrapped with an analysis of QUIC and HTTP/3 performance and final community lightning talks.