Last month, the OIT Networking Team completed the last installation of new equipment in the UDC and Patterson data centers as part of the 100G Edge Router Replacement Project. This project is one of the many building blocks being implemented to increase campus networking speeds specifically for research initiatives. In less than six months, the team oversaw a complete replacement of the core networking equipment to give SMU a tenfold increase in internal and external internet speed.
Dr. Michael Hites, SMU’s Chief Information Officer, shared his enthusiasm for the project, “Not only does this upgrade put SMU in the company of other R1 universities, but it aligns SMU with some of the largest research universities in the world!” 
Once completed and using the new infrastructure, the University can potentially send a terabyte in about a minute and a petabyte— that is 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of digital information or about 143 thousand hours of binge-worthy UHD streaming video — in about a day. We are currently running simulations in anticipation of the first documented speed tests using real research data.
