Integrator Hopes To Score Olympic Gold
SchlumbergerSema, a New York-based systems integrator, is spearheading the $300 million project, leading a consortium of 15 technology vendors, including AT&T, Gateway, Panasonic, Qwest Communications International, Sun Microsystems and Xerox.
"We're putting together a one-team approach," said Jason Durrant, director of systems integration and testing at SchlumbergerSema, which replaced IBM in 1998 as the primary integrator for the Olympics.
\
SchlumbergerSema has 300 employees working on the $300M Olympics project.
The integrator is responsible for the IT system that tracks athletes' times and scores in realtime and distributes that data to the world's media organizations. In addition, SchlumbergerSema has developed software to manage other aspects of the Games, such as transportation, staffing, and medical and administrative systems, Durrant said.
The infrastructure implemented by SchlumbergerSema includes 4,500 Gateway PCs, 225 Gateway Windows NT servers, 145 Sun Unix servers and 1,210 Xerox printers, all connected by 32,000 miles of optical-fiber cable and monitored from a centralized facility, dubbed the Information Technology Center (ITC), in downtown Salt Lake City.
The solution spans 10 sporting venues, the Olympic Village, a media center and up to 30 other locations. Durrant said 300 SchlumbergerSema employees are working on the project,half on-site and half in Barcelona, Spain,and he expects the international IT team to number 3,000.
ANATOMY OF A SOLUTION
>> COMPANY: SchlumbergerSema, New York
>> FOCUS: Provides consulting, systems integration and manged services for verticals such as telecommunciations, transportation and government.>> 2001 REVENUE: $13.7 billion
>> PROBLEM and SOLUTION: The 2002 Winter Olympics needed to supply the world's media outlets with athletes' times and scores in realtime; SchlumbergerSema built the network to deliver that information.
>> PRODUCTS and SERVICES USED: Gateway PCs and Windows NT servers, Sun Unix servers, Xerox printers, HP OpenView, custom-built applications.
>> LESSONS LEARNED:
• Plan large implementations far in advance.
• Partner with other solution providers that have specialized expertise.
• Work with customer and partners as a team.
While SchlumbergerSema performed most of the integration services itself, the company turned to other solution providers for some necessary expertise, Durrant said.
Take IT PartsHouse, which is providing consulting services for Hewlett-Packard's OpenView network management platform. "We chose OpenView because it probably has the highest reliability of any management tool on the market," said Gregory Maisel, director of business strategy at IT PartsHouse, Dallas. "One failure will cost SchlumbergerSema millions of dollars in downtime and negative publicity."
IT PartsHouse recommended a distributed managed architecture, which places management stations at 12 different venues, Maisel said. "This enables the local technicians to diagnose problems." In addition, IT staff at the ITC have the same view into the infrastructure, he said. IT PartsHouse is in discussions to provide similar services to SchlumbergerSema for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Maisel said.
SchlumbergerSema also tapped security solution provider Satel, Salt Lake City, to help implement firewalls and antivirus protection for the Olympic network, said Matt McClung, director of security consulting at the company. "We're looking at anything that possibly could happen. We're thinking outside the box, but we're also looking for common things that folks try to do."
In addition, SchlumbergerSema worked closely with federal security agencies such as the FBI and the Secret Service, Durrant said.
The solution provider began working in Salt Lake City three years ago and has already started preparing for the Games in Athens in summer 2004, Durrant said. "Our goal is to carry knowledge about processes and procedures from Olympics to Olympics," he said.
MARCIA SAVAGE contributed to this story.