Atos Building Cloud for Summer Olympics
The Olympics can be used as a case example of how the cloud can benefit large scale multi-national organizations. During the Sochi Winter Olympics, it was noted at NBC began testing cloud technology in order to deliver the Olympics to fans all across the globe. NBC specifically used Cisco’s Videoscape TV that was built on top of OpenStack.
The International Olympic Committee was pleased with this endeavor into cloud and now the IOC wants to expand their cloud palette even further by bringing in French technology giant Atos to build out a complete cloud infrastructure that will be used for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games being held in Rio de Janeiro.
Atos will build out the cloud solution on top of their vendor Canopy. Canopy will provide private cloud services out of their data center located London. In 2014, Marta Sanfeliu, a general manager at Atos, was tasked with building out cloud services for the IOC during the Sochi Games. Marta mentioned in an interview that the Sochi Olympics were a test run of sorts for a robust cloud platform that could handle the Olympics. Marta’s team was so successful that he was again tasked with building out a cloud infrastructure for the 2016 edition of the Olympics.
Sanfeliu mentioned in an interview with CRN, “We have been delivering solutions flawless for the IOC since 1992 so we’re comfortable the move to the cloud will not impact delivery.” Mr. Sanfeliu goes on to say, “We believe the Olympic environment is a perfect fit for cloud computing and essentially Canopy.”
Jean-Benoît Gauthier is the technology and information director for the International Olympics Committee and he is quoted as saying, “Atos is our long-term worldwide IT partner who has played a critical role in helping us deliver seven successful Olympic Games. We are now trusting it to transfer the delivery of the IT for the Games to the cloud, so we can continue to innovate and ensure an excellent Games experience for all.”
Industry analysts mention that they expect the IOC to operate the Olympics on a full-fledged cloud platform by the 2018 Winter Olympics.
