400 security events a second monitored on Olympics network

While Team GB was cementing its place as an Olympic superpower this summer, an IT supplier was breaking records of its own while ensuring the Rio Games ran smoothly.

The results of every event were shared with the world in less than half a second, through 100 million messages sent to media organisations.

Atos, which has been official supplier to the Olympics since 1992, had to deal with 400 potential security events on the Olympic network every second during the event, compared with 200 per second during the London 2012 Games.

These events are any unusual or unexpected activity on the network, which have to be checked out to see whether they are threats that require action. Back in 1992, when Atos ran its first Olympic Games IT, security events on the network were visible only after they had happened.

The network also sent more than 100 million messages to media companies to share real-time results and data from all 42 Olympic sports and 306 events. This compares with the 58.8 million messages sent at London 2012.

This year’s Olympics also saw a major milestone for cloud computing. These were the first summer Games for which the core volunteer portal, the accreditation and workforce systems were hosted in the cloud.

The 300,000 staff and competitors who took part in the Rio Games were all accredited through the Atos IT system – 20% more than at London 2012.

“Technology is critical to the success of each edition of the Olympic Games,” said Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee.

Before the Games, there had been concerns that mobile operators were not prepared for the deluge of network traffic expected during the event. ..............................................................