Beijing begins testing Olympics IT systems
Testing of information technology infrastructure for the 2008 Beijing Olympics kicked off in earnest this month, with authorities claiming smooth operations amid lingering concerns over internet security and reliability.
Hou Xinyi, deputy director for technology of the Beijing Organising Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, said the two major challenges for the event's IT and communications infrastructure - estimated to be worth US$400 million - are potential hackers and the sheer number of users expected to visit the Olympics' official website.
'We have to prepare, and prevent a lot of young and savvy hackers from breaking into our systems,' he said.
Sohu.com is responsible for the Olympic website. A network of Web servers has been set up in different countries and across the mainland to provide redundancy in case of a systems breakdown, Mr Hou said.
The setup would also help the network handle large numbers of users - media, worldwide television and online audience, and those on-site - who will access information on the public internet and mobile-phone portals established for the games.
'[The mainland], for example, has about 200 million internet users. So we must ensure the website is capable of handling even a tenth of that number,' Mr Hou said.
In last week's World Rowing Junior Championships in Shunyi district, the Beijing organising committee stepped up the tests with experts from official computer supplier Lenovo, precision watch maker Omega and IT services provider Atos Origin, the games' official systems integrator, providing support. Other IT partners were database software supplier Oracle and computer firm Sun Microsystems.
'We're testing a lot of different scenarios,' said Mr Hou. 'We have software that helps us simulate real cases when lots of data are running on the systems. With the IT vendors' help, we're creating problems to see how the backup systems and other infrastructure work.'
These tests are being conducted in all the 42 'Good Luck Beijing' sporting events slated until June next year, which will be held at the 31 competition venues and six other cities. The equestrian, sailing and football preliminary events are to be staged in Hong Kong, Qingdao, Qinhuangdao, Shanghai, Shenyang and Tianjin.
Lenovo has detailed 150 engineers and support staff to work in concert with various IT partners during the test events. By the start of the Olympics next year, Lenovo technicians and engineers working on-site will number nearly 400.
That includes a core team of more than 10 members with experience from the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games, according to Alice Li, Lenovo vice-president of Olympic marketing. The Beijing Olympics will also use about 14,000 pieces of computing equipment from Lenovo.
Jeremy Hore, Atos Origin's chief technology integrator for the games, said: 'The technology for the games is making very good progress and we are pleased to be on schedule with the system architecture.'
That infrastructure links more than 60 mainland competition and non-competition venues and uses more than 900 servers, 7,000 PCs and 1,000 network and security devices.
Wireless systems, for the first time, will play a role at the Beijing Games, according to Mr Hou. These include an extensive wireless local area networking systems and, if the government finally awards licences, third-generation mobile-phone coverage by China Mobile, the games' official cellular network provider.
