Technology+and+the+Winter+Olympics

toc

Taking into consideration that the [|2006 Winter Olympics in Turin], Italy are a major focus at the moment, I decided to look into the amount of technology that goes into making these games globally accessible.

There is a specific IT team that deals with amazing amounts of information and planning in order to ensure that proper hosting and distributing of the games occurs. The games are trilingual; therefore the team ensures that coverage is in Italian, French and English. The website for the games increases at astounding numbers daily, for the 15 days that the games run. In addition to ensuring global coverage of the games, the IT team also covers all major necessitates for the 90,000 athletes, staff and journalists; Such as healthcare and security.

There are a variety of programs and software that go into the operating the Winter Olympics and much of it is reused from the previous 2002 games. A quote by Michael J. Miller, author of "Technology at the Winter Games" puts into perspective the vast amounts of technology needed, "The IT team started training four years ago to build a system that mixes proprietary Unix, Windows, and open-source software. Lenovo is providing much of the equipment, including 5,000 desktops, 1,000 notebooks, and 350 servers. Other partners include systems integrator Atos Origin, Telecom Italia, and Omega." (Miller, 2006)

Obviously, when using such a wide variety of technology and programs, we wonder how the team would deal with any issues or disasters that may occur. We all know technology is not the most stable source for exchanging information, especially on global standards. Therefore, the IT team have tested and re-tested all programs and software. They have also created "disaster-recovery plans" to ensure the quickest recovery of any program failure.

Years previous, the winter games may have used minimal technology and been available to a very select few. With the change in technology, information is now available on global standards. We should all probably think twice before we switch on the T.V. to watch up-to-date information on where our favourite skaters have ranked, and realise the amount of time and preparation it takes to just do that.

=Works Cited=

Miller, M.J., PCMag.com. __http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1916722,00.asp__ Created: February 1, 2006, accessed: February 24, 2006

Images
Google Search - Winter Olympics Turin Italy http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3f/Torino_2006_logo.gif/180px-Torino_2006_logo.gif