Olympics diary: Stressed to the limits

Claude Philipps, chief technology integrator for Olympics IT partner Atos Origin, is keeping a diary of his Olympics experience here on silicon.com. See the first instalment. Here, in his second report, he describes how systems hold up on the busiest day of competition, making future Games the best they can be and the beginning of the tear-down process.

Day seven - Friday 20 August

I'm at the Technology Operations Centre (TOC) for 7am. It is day seven of the Games and the busiest day of competition with 26 sports being competed at 29 venues. This will be the biggest test of the IT systems. Things are going very well and our systems are holding their own against the heavy demand for information from the world's 21,500 journalists and broadcasters.

By now most of us have had a chance to see some competition and are well and truly into our Olympic routine. Two days ago saw the return of the Olympic Games to Ancient Olympia for the shot-put competition and for the first time in that stadium women were able to compete. Unlike the other sport events, the IT information systems for the journalists and broadcasters are not installed in the actual venue, but at the National Olympic Academy - so as to preserve this ancient historical site.

So far this week, it is the aquatics centre that has been the key focus of the world's media and without doubt our busiest venue. This is the first Olympics where all the aquatic events - swimming, diving, water polo and synchronised swimming - have been consolidated into one venue and today is one of four days when we have swimming, diving and water polo running simultaneously. This requires a very well organised team and a coordinated approach to managed operations.

Our busiest day runs smoothly, so I am able to leave the TOC and visit some of the venues and see how our on-venue teams are doing. All venues are staffed by a venue IT manager, who is responsible for the results team and several support staff; the exact number of staff depends on size of the venue. The venue team get to their respective venues a couple of hours before competition begins to set up the systems, so everything is operational when the broadcasters and journalists turn up and more importantly when the competitions begin.

Working closely with one of our partners, Swatch, the on-venue team plays a critical role and works under a lot of pressure. For timed events all the results data is recorded by Swatch and transmitted directly to our system. This data is then quality assured by the Atos Origin team to ensure it is accurate and corresponds to the official results signed by the judges from the respective sports federation. Once given the official sign-off, the data is sent direct from the venue to Info 2004, the Athens 2004 website, the world newswire services as well as to the printers for print distribution (all results are printed and distributed at the respective venues and the main press centre). All systems have double or even triple redundancies to ensure that no results are lost.

Each venue team grows quite proud of itself. Aquatics, for example, was pleased to report they were distributing printed results in three minutes to the media, which was well under the target average of six minutes after competition completes.

I end my day with a visit to the main Olympic stadium, which alone is bigger than the whole of the Winter Olympic Games with simultaneous events going on all the time. It houses 46 disciplines (24 for men and 22 for women), 329 sport events and 200 athletes competing. After a chat with the team, who reassure me all is OK, I take a seat to watch some of the world's best athletes compete.

Day eight - Saturday 21 August

Saturday is equally busy with 26 sports and 29 venues. I began again at 7am at the TOC, where we first review yesterday's performance and usage statistics. I spend the rest of the day overseeing activities at the TOC and at the venues. In addition, we have visits from clients, future Olympic organising committees and media.

The Olympic Games is a living case study for us and during the Games we are hosting a number of customers and potential customers in Athens. It is a great opportunity to spend time with our customers and to show them how we have designed, built and managed one of our most visible reference sites. Media too are interested to visit the mission control to appreciate the magnitude of the behind-the-scenes role of IT.

Knowledge transfer is critical to running the Games smoothly and we are happy to have this opportunity to share our knowledge with the future Olympic organising committees. All procedures, processes, incidents and lessons learned are documented, so we can ensure future Games are equally efficient. In addition, in the IT team we have staff from Torino and Beijing who at the end of the Athens Games will return to their respective cities to work on the next Winter and Summer Games.

Day nine - Sunday 22 August

With the temperatures heating up outside, it is pleasant to be back at the air-conditioned TOC, even if it is for the nightshift. Once competitions end at around midnight, I have time to concentrate on the tear-down plan.

Although we are only on day nine, the first venues have already come down - road cycling, archery and kayak. It is essential that we manage the tear down fast and efficiently to ensure that all equipment is returned securely and intact to the PC factory. There all Olympic Games-specific software is removed and the equipment is re-configured for the Paralympics that begin in September. I leave the TOC around 7.30am after our usual handover.

Stay tuned for more of Claude Phillipps' Olympic diary - available exclusively on silicon.com - as the Games unfold.