Overview
Information and Technology Services has replaced the Border Interconnect Network (BIN) that serves the Ann Arbor campus including Michigan Medicine.
The BIN Replacement project involved changing out two critical border routers, which are mainstays of the institution's network. Now that the new routers are in place, the university community – particularly faculty and researchers – has been experiencing improved response times for data sharing and increased internet and Internet2 connection speeds.
The upgrade effort began in February 2024 with the installation of new hardware and equipment. The upgrade activities continued until early 2025 with no impact on day-to-day operations for the university community. Financially, there was no additional cost to schools, colleges, or units beyond the standard internet fees already being contributed.
This investment in the network is expected to meet the university’s needs for the next six to eight years. Nevertheless, ITS remains agile and open to advancing the timeline for replacement should future networking standards or university requirements mandate doing so.
Rationale
The University of Michigan relies on its network infrastructure to complete mission critical tasks and to properly support its faculty, researchers, staff, and students.
The previous BIN devices were outdated and limited the amount of data the university community and units could share with the external Internet as well as the speed with which it could do so. This in turn negatively impacted key institutional groups' ongoing work and limited the growth potential for the network as a whole.
Goals
- Decommission old hardware at the Arbor Lakes (AL) Data Center and School of Education Data Center (SEB)
- Install new equipment in the North Campus Data Center (NCDC) and SEB
- Move all needed existing BIN associated equipment (owned by both ITS and Merit) from AL Data Center to NCDC and reinstall to function with new BIN devices, including, but not limited to associated network border system (NBIS) equipment and associated fiber circuits
Team / Group Reps
- Project Sponsor: Andrew Palms
- Project Owner: Eric Boyd
- Project Lead: Dan Eklund
- Project Manager: Greg Stathes
- Project Communications: Dana Fair
The BIN upgrade has been supported by a dedicated ITS project team and includes representatives from Health Information Technology and Services and UM-Dearborn Information Technology Services, as well as the Merit Network, which upgraded its own network hardware in parallel with this project.
Additionally, the project team kept groups that were more directly impacted by this effort aware of the project’s status, including representatives from Advanced Research Computing, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Physics.
Timeline
- Merit Procurement and Hardware Installation: April 2024
- Hardware Ready for Migrations: July 2024
- Services Migrated: February 2025
Questions
Questions should be directed to the project team at [email protected].