The IT systems for the London Olympics in 2012 will be the most
environmentally friendly yet,
says the games' integrator Atos Origin.
The company plans to build on its experience with the
just-completed
Beijing Olympics to reduce IT power consumption for the London
Games.
Jeremy Hore, Atos Origin's chief integrator for the Beijing
Games, told ComputerWeekly that reducing the computer hardware and
cooling required was one of the project's objectives.
"We have made a good start, but there is still more that can be
done for the London Games by working from the start to optimise
hardware use even further and make it as lean as possible," he
said.
Hore, who has spent the past four years in the Chinese capital,
said there were big benefits from getting involved with the local
Olympic committee very early on.
The Atos Origin team charged with managing the IT for the London
games is to begin work officially in November, but started talking
to local organisers a year ago.
One winning strategy in Beijing, that Atos hopes to replicate in
London, was spending 200,000 hours on systems testing before the
Beijing games.
"We did a lot more testing in Beijing then previous Olympic
Games and that helped ensure we were 100% ready for the start on 8
August," he said.
This involved a test event that was a real competition for each
Olympic sport at the venues that were used for the games as well as
several technical rehearsals.
These rehearsals tested the IT team's ability to deal with 500
problem scenarios such as the disqualification of an athlete or the
loss of a network connection to a venue.
Although it is impossible to test for every potential problem,
Hore said the extensive test programme meant the IT team had at
least 90% covered.
Although Hore is moving to other projects at Atos Origin, his
successor in the role for the London games will benefit from his
experience gained at Beijing.