Prasad Kuruganti
Matawan
Summary
- Transformational technology leader with 28+ years driving the architecture, engineering, and evolution of AT&T’s national IP/MPLS Core, Peering, and Control-Plane infrastructure. I specialize in modernizing large-scale carrier-grade networks, improving reliability, and delivering multi-million-dollar CAPEX efficiencies through strategic vision, technical depth, and strong cross-functional leadership.
- I have led AT&T’s most impactful modernization programs—including the disaggregated white-box routing platform, virtualized Route Reflector (vRR DCU), MPLS Core replacement, Local Routing Optimization, and industry-first deployments such as distributed disaggregated clusters and 400G intercity transport.
- Recognized for simplifying complexity, elevating network performance and availability. Partnered across engineering, operations, and vendor ecosystems to deliver scalable, future-proof architectures. Passionate about transformative design, operational excellence, and aligning technology investments with long-term business value.
Overview
30
30
years of professional experience
Work History
Director Member of Technical Staff
AT&T Technology Operations
01.2009 - 06.2025
- The disaggregated white box initiative delivers significant Capex savings and allows great flexibility in NOS, Optics and Silicon selection thus eliminating vendor lock-in which was prevalent in OEM based technology.
- Led the organization in developing a Next Generation Core routing and Peering Edge platform solutions with disaggregated ODM hardware and NOS suppliers.
- Defined detailed technical requirements for the Vendor NOS releases, documented the detailed technical design documents (NDR/CCR).
- Led the discussion with the NOS and ODM hardware Vendors on feature priorities and release delivery roadmaps.
- Worked very closely with CSO partners to define and design requirements to support Dynamic NACM and Agentless data collection capabilities for the P-Leaf aand X-Leaf platforms.
- Worked very closely with CSO partners on designing port mirroring capabilities and delivery of mirrored data to the CSO Threat Analytics infrastructure on the X-Leaf Peering Whitebox infrastructure.
- Collaborated with Supply Chain to develop, prioritize and define AT&T POR, Vendor release deliverables.
- Modelling of the next generation core office footprint for National & Regional core. Optimizing Regional P-Leaf topology design to minimize Latency for ASE/Mobility services and gain Transport savings efficiency for Remote Aggregation Uplinks.
- Defined and developed the FFA Plan for introducing the Whitebox P-Leaf Core and X-Leaf Edge. This included FFA site selection, CRS connectivity, Edge, and controlled traffic migration strategy.
- Achieved successful FFA completion of the DDC (Distributed Disaggregated Cluster), which allows multiple pizza boxes to be connected in a fabric cluster configuration for Core and Edge routers. An Industry 1st led by AT&T labs.
- Designed, developed, and delivered a dedicated Virtual Route Reflector solution (vRR DCU) to replace the D1 RR platforms that have already been declared as End of Sale.
- We have architected a new Standalone vRR DCU solution that mitigated the VNF reliability and availability limitations with the previous AIC solution.
- The vRR DCU solution also incorporated a Accton white box Top of the Rack ethernet switch with Cisco IOS-XR based NOS to support connectivity between the Computes to the Core.
- All the technical design documentation (NDR and CCR) needed for the vRR DCU rack to support 3, 5 & 10 server configurations has been successfully completed and validated in the DV setup.
- VRR DCU solution has been successfully certified for the VPN and Flow Control applications and is ready for FFA into the field.
- Designed, developed, and delivered Local traffic routing optimization solution (LRO) via the fabric and bypassing the CRS Core routers.
- The Local Routing Optimization solution has TWO major drivers: Mitigate CRS Slot Capacity Exhaust without which we expect to hit a capacity 'Brick-wall' in the 5 Largest SNRCs in 2019 and $$$ Cost Savings due to cheaper Fabric ports (compared to CRS).
- Leverage the current Arista Leaf/Spine fabric that is being deployed for the DN solution for this optimization. Do not need any new software features or functionality from DN to support this.
- Local Traffic is predominantly between 'few' limited Large Internet Edges: Peering, ADI (Google, Netflix, etc.), and Cluster PEs (Eyeballs).
- Detailed design to create direct L3 adjacencies between local PEs supporting Content and Eyeballs via the fabric was completed and the solution was certified.
- LRO solution has been successfully deployed and selective PEs supporting Content and Eyeballs to the Fabric to realize best Capacity/Capital savings.
- This enabled us to mitigate the CRS Core exhaust by at least 2 years while we pursued the Next Gen Core.
- I was recruited by the VP of service development to deliver a new scalable IP/MPLS Core router platform to replace AT&T's then in-service backbone router that was declared manufacturer Discontinued (MD'd) by the Vendor due to their business conditions.
- I had to quickly assemble a team to evaluate the Vendor landscape, technology solutions that were available at that time. A new Vendor/Core platform was selected that met AT&T's next generation backbone requirements (Reliability, Scale projections) and the new backbone design; platform was certified and delivered to the field in record time.
- This platform enabled us to continually design, evolve AT&T's backbone network by delivering 40G/100G speeds and extend MPLS features like Traffic Engineering, Fast Convergence (FRR) on to the Core.
- Delivered a new Core router technology in record time that also delivered a 30%-unit cost savings (PMO vs. FMO).
- Enabled us to deliver 40/100G inter-city layer3 transport capabilities in the Core.
- Packet Core, Peering & Control-Plane Design
- IP/MPLS Traffic Engineering delivered FRR with <50ms backbone restoration and enabled us to improve Core Bandwidth Utilization by 20 percentage points (~$40M in cost avoidance).
- Virtualizing the Route reflector Infrastructure is expected to deliver ~$67 million in Capex savings to the company.
- Local Routing Optimization is expected to deliver ~$20+ Million in Capex savings to the company.
- White Box platforms are expected to deliver ~10x reduction in port unit cost compared to the D1 platforms.
- Industry first to deliver intercity 400G trunks in the backbone that significantly reduces our cost per bit.
Director Member of Technical Staff
AT&T Labs
12.2003 - 12.2009
- Responsible for setting up a state-of-the-art lab environment to facilitate design validation and end-to-end certification in support of the IP/MPLS Core and Edge infrastructure and services.
- Held all financial responsibility to maintain the certification lab in support of the design roadmaps and ensure timely update of the lab infrastructure in support of the business deliverables.
- Built a strong team of skilled engineers with technical depth, breadth that were responsible for developing, executing a comprehensive set of test suites covering use cases around new feature requirements, product regression to ensure integrity of existing features and delivery of a quality product/release.
- Responsible for defining expectations, negotiating SLAs with the Vendors on product quality, entrance and exit criteria for release acceptance, timely certification.
- Software Reliability Engineering models (SRE) to track product, release maturity throughout the certification cycle to determine deploy ability and drive appropriate corrective actions to meet TTM commitments with quality.
- IP/MPLS Packet Core/Edge - Certification
- Delivered Core Network Infrastructure, Service features on time with Quality.
- Continued efforts to improve certification cycle time to deliver faster TTM solutions.
- Improved Network reliability and Customer Experience (~99.999% availability).
District Manager
AT&T Advanced Technical Support
10.2000 - 11.2003
- Managed the Advanced Technical Support team (Tier4) that was responsible for facilitating technical expertise, trouble resolution to the AT&T NOC for network events in the field for the award-winning FR/ATM and IPFR services globally.
- The team developed tools, SMARTs capabilities that proactively monitored various network elements to detect, correlate and report various failures signatures, initiate alerts, rapid recovery actions before these anomalies result into service/customer affecting incidents.
- Led the negotiations with the vendor through sourcing on software/hardware quality, reliability requirements, set expectations in terms of DPM budgets (Defects Per Million), Product MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) and resolution times in support of our Customer SLAs (Service Level Agreements).
- Led the team in the major build out of the domestic network in AT&T's Global network with 250+ MPLS nodes.
- Led the team in the migration of the IP Enabled FR/ATM network to the common core (CBB) to consolidate network infrastructure and reduce CAPEx spend.
- Developed and delivered the Methodologies and Operational Procedures (MOPs) to Network Operations for critical network changes and upgrades.
- High Speed Packet Services
- Delivered proactive fault detection and rapid failure recovery capabilities.
- Faster Customer trouble resolution, shorter outage durations and Improved Customer Experience (~99.999% availability).
Consultant & Principal member of Technical Staff
AT&T Labs
05.1995 - 09.2000
- Work with the Architecture/Systems Engineering organizations to review, understand and provide feedback on design/service definitions that need to be certified.
- Define/review test cases/plans based on design/service specifications, procure/setup test equipment in the lab, and define entrance/exit criteria for test completion.
- Test execution, open MRs/track defects identified during test, set expectations to the vendor on bug fix priorities/resolution timeframes and publish acceptance notification with the test results/outstanding issues/workarounds.
- Document/Train other peer support organizations on new features/changes, upgrade procedures and outstanding known problems and workarounds.
- Interface with various support organizations pro-actively to identify test gaps and areas of improvement based on inservice issues/escape analysis.
- Interface with the vendor's management and development teams to get commitments for future hardware/software enhancements.
- High Speed Packet Services - Certification
Education
Master of Science - Computer Science
Alabama A&M University
Bachelor of Science -
Osmania University
Hyderabad, IndiaSkills
- Network architecture
- IP/MPLS design
- Technical documentation
- Hardware validation
- Systems engineering
- Vendor management
- Project delivery
- Process improvement
- Technical support
- Team leadership
- Risk assessment
- Strategic planning
- Relationship building
- Problem solving
- Effective communication
- Stakeholder engagement
- People management
- Employee development
- Decision-making
- Strategies and goals
- Project management
- Vendor relationship management
- Budget control
- Operations management
- Contract and vendor management
- Partnerships and alliances
Summary Of Experience
- 28+ years of professional experience managing diverse Technologies and Network services at AT&T.
- Proven track record of meeting and exceeding business unit goals, leading, inspiring change and delivering state of the art, scalable networking solutions.
- Managed end to end technical solutions comprised of Network, Security and Systems stacks and experienced in all aspects of a network lifecycle - Architecture, Design, Certification and Adv Tech Support.
- Proactive collaboration with partner organizations (Network operations and Vendors) to analyze network failures, determine trends, mitigate remediation, and minimize network downtime.
- Experience Managing Vendors, Negotiating contracts, Statement of work, Project Deliverables and Liquidated Damages.
- Proficient in Network best practices, Network Scalability, Network Security, Network Reliability & Availability, with focus on delivering best in class and second to none customer experience.
- Excellent leadership, communication, people, and negotiation skills. Ability to present complex issues clearly and succinctly, and tailor presentations to diverse audiences.
- Recipient of several VP and Directorate Achievement Awards.
Timeline
Director Member of Technical Staff
AT&T Technology Operations
01.2009 - 06.2025
Director Member of Technical Staff
AT&T Labs
12.2003 - 12.2009
District Manager
AT&T Advanced Technical Support
10.2000 - 11.2003
Consultant & Principal member of Technical Staff
AT&T Labs
05.1995 - 09.2000
Master of Science - Computer Science
Alabama A&M University
Bachelor of Science -
Osmania University