I have to say, I look forward to the Summer Olympic Games every four years. For me it is a time to cheer for your country and see spectacular athletes competing against one another in hopes of winning gold, silver or bronze medals. But for some, there is something even more fascinating — the IT behind the Olympics. With over 205 nations represented and 26 sports being played, that’s a lot of IT Infrastructure that needs to be put in place. Footage of the Olympic games (which will run around 5,300 hours) will be made accessible worldwide via radio, television, online streaming and mobile apps, all from a local London data center. Managers of these data centers know that during the Olympics they need to be on-site at all times in the event something goes down. With increased traffic in the city due to the games, they needed to come up with a solution to ensure they were available on-site 24/7. In fact, engineers at a few London data centers have been set up with sleeping pods to crash in so they wont have to leave work. This is a testament to how important IT Infrastructure is to keeping the games up and running for audiences around the world to see. If you want to know more about the technology running the Olympics, check out some of these articles:
- The IT behind the Olympics
- Using IT to follow the London Olympics
- Managing the corporate network to plan the Olympics
- Data centers will be manned by engineers sleeping in these pods
Maybe this year when you are watching the Olympics you’ll remember that the technology behind the scenes is just as amazing and takes just as much preparation as one of your favorite athletes breaking a world record. And if you are up late watching one of the events and get sleepy, maybe you can find a pod to nap in!
