The year is 1960. The Summer Olympics unfurl in Rome. A burly Al Oerter captures his second of four consecutive gold medals in the discus. Ralph Boston outleaps the competition with a long jump of 26' 7 3/4"; and the quick and classy Wilma Rudolf streaks to two individual gold medals in the 100 and 200 meters, and cops a third gold medal as part of the 400-meter relay team. Her 100-meter Olympic record will stand for 24 years.
1960 was also the first year that computers were introduced to the Olympic Games. IBM was the technology partner of choice 35 years ago and has been supporting the Olympic effort ever since.
That commitment has grown to true Olympian proportions. Consider that, for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, the corporate clip-level for "Proud Sponsorship" starts at $40 million, or the equivalent in in-kind contributions. IBM's princely backing will include the installation and support of multiple ES/9000s, approximately 80 AS/400s, 6,000 PS/2s and an unspecified number of RS/6000s. Since June of last year, IBM has donated 19 employees full-time to The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG). But before the torch is extinguished, 15 IBM divisions or companies will have contributed hundreds of person-years to an event with the logistical complexity of conducting two Super Bowls a day for 16 days.
The scope and intricacy of IBM's involvement has led the corporation to form an internal Olympic Project Group. Representing ACOG, Bob Neal is the group's best and only customer. He is the director of Information Systems Services for ACOG and has been on Olympic-loan from IBM since July of 1991.
Neal compares the mission of ACOG to that of a company with a ramp-up rate steep enough to generate G-forces. In just five years, ACOG will grow from $0 to $1.6 billion in revenues, with the attendant complexities of such growth.
For Neal that means managing two data centers; 250 employees, contractors and sponsor personnel; and 4,000 technology volunteers who will staff individual venues throughout the competition. According to current plans, an ES/9000 720 will be the hub of the Olympic information octopus which stretches across a wide-area network. Competition sites span from Atlanta, the track and field venue, southeast to Savannah, which hosts yacht racing, and north to Ocoee, Tennessee, site of the white-water kayaking competition. In total, 40 separate event sites await attachment.
At each locale, a tentacle 3745 communications controller will be installed. The controllers will allow the mainframe to communicate to two AS/400s at each site (one primary and one backup). The AS/400s will, in turn, support a Token- Ring network loaded with PS/2s that will be available to the thousands of participants and media representatives covering the events.
At ACOG headquarters, another AS/400 provides operations, financial and administrative support for the nice group of folks who are throwing this modest party for the planet. If the party goes according to script, it will follow the prescriptions of three major application groupings: Operations Support, Results Management and Info '96, all developed with IBM's assistance.
A component of Operations Support, the Accreditation system, will register participants and provide Kodak digital image identification badges to more than 150,000 athletes, media members and volunteers. Voice and hand-print recognition are being considered to regulate access to restricted areas. A central database will store all identification information, including video images, which can be downloaded to the network of AS/400s and personal computers for onsite verification at each security checkpoint.
The Operations Support system will also allow ACOG to control the logistics of staging the Games, from hotel reservations to seat allocations. Several applications in this portfolio run directly on the AS/400.
The Results Management system will track the competitive fortunes of the 11,000 athletes competing in 26 sports. The software was originally developed for the Sarajevo Games and modified for use in Lillehammer. This year and last, 19 IBMers and ACOGers traveled to Norway to work with their counterparts in Lillehammer customizing the software for the 1994 Winter Games. In return for the programming and consulting services, Neal negotiated the use of the system in Atlanta.
Results Management is linked to the Commentator Information System and makes competition outcomes immediately available to television commentators. The information transfer will be accomplished by interfacing timing and scoring devices to a PS/2, which will upload results to the ES/9000. The mainframe will then distribute them to online news agencies and other competition venues. The entire three-step process will take less than one second. After judges' confirmation, the rest of the media will receive results and printed reports at each venue via the Info '96 applications.
But the press is pressing Neal for direct access to the network. They would prefer to download the information directly to their computers, rather than interrupt cocktail hour to transcribe data. Such access, however, would present two major quandaries: the potential introduction of a virus, and performance impacts on the network. But the ever-inventive Neal hopes to have a solution in place for Atlanta. Reporters may be allowed to rent a paging device with a serial connector which plugs into any portable computer. The pager will receive event results from an orbiting satellite and feed it directly to the journalist's computer, thus satisfying the needs of the press and maintaining the integrity of the network.
The Info '96 application will provide the entire Olympic family of athletes, coaches, volunteers, sponsors and assorted Carl Lewis wanna-bes with electronic mail support in English and French. Spanish is being considered as the third supported language. Athlete biographies, event start times, competition schedules, cultural events and transportation options will also be made available. The addition of full-motion video is being considered to capture photofinishes and other dramatic highlights. This data will reside on the AS/400s throughout the network, with shadow copies on the backup systems, and can be accessed from any of the networked PS/2s.
"How do you test all of this?" I asked.
"You don't really," Neal replied. "You have to get it right the first time." Neal went on to explain that portions of the system are actually tested at pre- Olympic competitions in the Atlanta area. But for obvious reasons, a full-blown test is impossible-and this is one deadline that can't be slipped. If Lillehammer was any indication, IBM's participation in the Olympic Games will rate a perfect 10.
I didn't ask Neal why ACOG chose that moronic Venusian eyeball to be Atlanta's Olympic mascot, but I did ask him if there were any special challenges in orchestrating the Olympic Games. He said that language was sometimes a hurdle, and he related a story about an American ACOG member who wanted to impress and be-friend several Spanish delegates. In his best high school Spanish, he asked them if they would like to join him for a hot dog? The bewildered look on their faces suggested some misunderstanding. He smiled hopefully, pointing to his open mouth, but to no avail. He had just asked the Spaniards if they wanted to eat a dog in heat. Bon appetit, y'all.
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