Olympic tech getting fit for Beijing 2008

Preparations for the Beijing Olympics in August are nearly complete and for Atos Origin, it's the end of an IT project that has lasted nearly four years.

The contract Atos Origin has with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is the largest IT contract in sport and Beijing will be the fourth games where the company has run the IT infrastructure - the first being the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

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Speaking at the RSA security conference in San Francisco, Yan Noblot, principal consultant at Atos Origin, said: "It's interesting to see how information security has developed since 2002 and the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and the one in Beijing."

When the Atos Origin team arrives in the host city, it has to build the infrastructure from scratch and operate it during the games.

On arrival the team analyses the risks and different security scenarios around the IT infrastructure, defines the processes and audits the venues - of which Beijing has 110.

Noblot said: "It's really an end-to-end project and as such, security has to be end-to-end as well. We deploy IT systems on new sites. We are the last ones in a long chain of suppliers."

He likened the process to an athlete running the 10,000m, with a long race before sprinting the final 500m during the games.

The Olympics is a hugely high profile event with 3.9 billion people estimated to have watched at least 15 minutes of the last Olympic Games in Athens.

Noblot said: "It's a project of high visibility. We have no second chance, we can't be late."

The IT infrastructure has to support three broad areas. The first is the system through which the organisers and IOC run the games. This includes accreditation, arrivals, protocol and staffing.

Alongside this, the IT has to support the transmitting of real-time results as well as timing and scoring technology - such as the pressure pads at the end of swimming lanes and the television graphics they produce.

Security is a major factor in helping the event and technology run smoothly and Atos Origin tests its systems extensively during the preparation period.

"We believe information security is an interactive process to keep up with new threats. It's the concept of trying to move security from an inhibitor to something that works well with the rest of the systems," Noblot explained.

He said the technology has to be proven to minimise the risk of any of the systems failing during the games.

"It's not a technology showcase, we don't do bleeding edge. We have to use proven technology in information security despite the threat evolving fast," he said.

During the event, the infrastructure - which consists of around 1,000 servers and 10,000 PCs - is centrally managed and monitored from the technical operation centre.

Once the games are over, the team has to take away the infrastructure and repeat the process again for the next games.

Although the Beijing Games hasn't even happened, Atos Origin is already preparing for the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010 and 2012 London summer Games.