Olympics CIO faces network challenges of alpine proportions

Ward Chapin, CIO of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), smiled slightly as he discussed the technological details he must oversee to ensure the event's communications systems work smoothly. But sometimes his words belied the grin: "I feel like the dog that chased the car - and caught it."The former HSBC bank executive's task list is overwhelming. Consider how big an affair this is: the Olympic and Paralympic games, scheduled for February 12 to 28 and March 12 to 21, respectively, in Vancouver and Whistler BC will host 5,500 athletes and 25,000 volunteers, Chapin said during a keynote speech at Global Connect 2007, the International Nortel Networks Users Association's (INNUA) conference in Tampa FL last week.Nearly 2 million tickets will be sold for the Olympics, and up to 3 billion people will watch the opening ceremonies on TV. Journalists will pack the west coast host towns, looking for Wi-Fi and broadband connectivity to file their stories.Broadcasters will need scores and times fed to their systems in a fraction of a second. Websites will require tending. Back-end computing platforms will need to be secured. All in all, Chapin will have to ramp up an enterprise-class network for less than a month's worth of excitement.VANOC will have help from sponsors such as Nortel, which is providing the LAN equipment, and Bell Canada for WAN management. Atos Origin, Samsung, and Omega will bring IT services, wireless telecom equipment, and timing equipment, respectively."Right now we're negotiating for PC products," Chapin said, indicating that even more sponsors are on the way.Balancing actBalancing the numerous stakeholders won't be easy. How does Chapin propose to manage it? Fitting for a sports event, teamwork is his catchphrase for success."My goal is when you walk into the VANOC IT department, you don't know who works for Bell, for VANOC or Omega," he said.Trust is an important part of teamwork, so VANOC and its partners are learning to treat each other as equal partners in a single venture, Chapin said. For instance, the Olympic committee has revealed its budgets to sponsors, and sponsors have revealed their staffing plans to the committee, to help eliminate job-description and responsibility overlaps among the various participating entities.Trust is also a crucial aspect of the technology that VANOC means to employ. According to Chapin, only technologies that have been proven in the public realm by 2008 will be used in the Olympics' IT infrastructure. Simplicity helps the technology department stay within its $343 million budget.The games will use Wi-Fi for media access to the Internet, and VoIP and VPNs for secure communications among event staffers. Radio-frequency engineering will help ensure the wireless connections that teams use to communicate among their own members don't interfere with - or eavesdrop on - connections belonging to rivals. The WAN will include redundant fibre-optic cables for failover, and Chapin's team is building two data centres, a primary and a backup. "We're in an earthquake zone," he said.Overall, the games committee is on schedule with infrastructure building, including the venues that will house the events, Chapin said.Success for his crew won't come with a gold, silver or bronze medal, but perhaps a quiet distribution of the network equipment that went into a glitch-free event."There will be one heck of a fire sale at the end of 2010, if you're interested," Chapin said.

Olympics CIO faces network challenges of alpine proportions

News | June 18, 2007

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