Beijing Olympics diary: Serious games

Just 46 days remain until the start of the Beijing Olympics. So how will the systems fare? The only way to find out is tough testing, says Jeremy Hore, chief integrator for Olympic worldwide IT partner Atos Origin, in his exclusive silicon.com diary.

We've just cleared one of the final major hurdles in our preparations for the world's largest sporting event.

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The second technical rehearsal was one of the toughest exercises we've been through. It was three days of intense testing, simulating the three busiest days of the games against 500 scenarios.

Systems were pitted against everything from disasters, such as flood and network disconnections, to minor setbacks, such as software bugs and changes to the competition schedule.

We tested all the key parts of the infrastructure. It was a very stressful few days for the support team because they were put under a lot of pressure to measure their operational readiness.

This final technical rehearsal took place for 35 Olympic sports across 39 venues. It simulated our ability to process and send out the results from all those sporting events at the same time.

This test was harder than we will face during the games because we had fewer people and more problems to deal with. So it is a very good way of challenging the team's communications and ability to solve problems.

The rehearsal involved a 2,500-strong workforce from the Beijing 2008 Organising Committee, Atos Origin and its technology partners.

Everyone was very happy with the results. But, as always, there are things that can be improved. One key area is communication.

Problems need to be communicated as they arise. So we're working on getting past the language barrier and the helpdesk's ability to communicate problems in a precise way.

Another challenge is finding the right balance between providing enough control and security and the flexibility for the events to work.

I am pleased with where we are because if you look back at the Athens Olympics we're better prepared than we were at the same point before those games.

Looking ahead we will now concentrate on fine-tuning the systems and completing the installation of the infrastructure.