Tracking Marathon Runners’ Progress

When 20,000 athletes hit the road for the 108th running of the Boston Marathon, their family, friends and fans will be able to track their progress thanks in part to Hewlett-Packard technology implemented by a local solution provider.

Versatile Communications, an HP channel partner that specializes in events and trade-show projects, has been tasked with building the network that supports the annual sporting event and publishes race data to fans worldwide via the marathon's Web site.

The HP network supports multiple locations throughout Boston, including the marathon's downtown operations center, finish-line command post, family-gathering areas, medical tents and press rooms, as well as the race's Internet data center outside the city.

ANATOMY OF A SOLUTION>> COMPANY: Versatile Communications, Marlborough, Mass. >> FOCUS: Wired and wireless networking >> PROBLEM & SOLUTION: Boston Marathon needed a reliable, secure race-day network. >> PRODUCTS & SERVICES USED: HP ProLiant servers, HP ProCurve switches, HP Evo desktops and notebooks, HP iPaq Pocket PCs, Microsoft SQL Server database, security products from SonicWall and Symantec >> LESSONS LEARNED:  • Use equipment that is easy to configure and deploy in implementation time is limited.  • Tap security features such as authentication to extend wireless service to new user groups.  • Check frequencies of other wireless users to eliminate interference.

Each athlete who participates in the marathon wears an RFID tag developed by Netherlands-based ChampionChip on their shoe or wheelchair. The tags transmit data about the runners' progress as they cross sensor pads placed along the 26.2-mile course.

The data is transmitted via the Verizon Wireless National Access data network back to a Microsoft SQL Server database running on the HP infrastructure. The database and supporting gear are housed at Northeast Data Vault, the marathon's Internet data-center provider.

The marathon's Web site, www.bostonmarathon.org, is expecting more than 800,000 unique visitors on race day, April 19, as fans plug in athlete's names or bib numbers to track their times and progress along the course during the six-plus hours the race is run, said John Burgholzer, technical coordinator for the Boston Athletic Association (BAA), the group that runs the event.

About 75 volunteers also will man the course equipped with HP iPaq 5450 Series Pocket PCs to provide athlete tracking data to spectators.

"My requirement is 100 percent uptime," Burgholzer said.

The HP network Versatile is implementing for the race,which incorporates HP's ProCurve edge, core Gigabit switches, ProLiant servers, Evo desktop and notebook PCs and the iPaq handheld devices,is up to the task, said Kevin Meany, director of technology at Versatile, Marlborough, Mass., which has been providing IT solutions to the Boston Marathon for the past eight years.

"If we lose data coming from the finish line, it's going to delay everything. It has to be rock solid," Meany said. "I don't think we've ever had a device fail during the event," he said of the technology provided by HP, which loans the equipment to the BAA and has been a technology sponsor of the marathon for several years.

The equipment also needs to be easy to configure and install, since Versatile has less than one week to get the network up and running, Meany said.

In addition to the wired network, Versatile is also implementing a wireless network using HP's ProCurve Wireless Access Point 520wl and ProCurve Wireless Secure Access 700wl series products. For the first time in marathon history, the BAA is providing wireless Internet access and realtime race results to the 1,500-plus members of the press expected to cover the event.

The security features provided by HP, such as user authentication, enable reporters to log on to the network on guest accounts that are only given access to certified results, Meany said.

Security isn't the only concern Meany has for the wireless network. Versatile also has to contend with RF signals from television cameras covering the event.

"We're going to do an 802.11a implementation to get into the 5GHz range to avoid interference," he said.

Versatile plans to have about 10 employees onsite, part of a core IT team of about 20 to 25 people who, by the end of the race, will have run their own marathon of sorts.

"It becomes a 20-hour-a-day thing for the several days leading up to the race," Meany said. And, after the race is over, there's little rest for the weary. IT planning for next year's marathon begins on May 1, Burgholzer said. "It's really a year-round cycle."