A Love Match
A Love Match
IBM has been working with Tennis Australia for the last 12 years to help it deliver the service expected from the hosts of such a high profile tournament as the Australian Open. Stuart Finlayson visited Melbourne Park to find out how it's done.
During the two weeks that it hosts the Australian Open, Tennis Australia needs to ramp up its technology infrastructure to over 70 times its regular capacity. Clearly, having such a massive IT infrastructure in place all the year round, when it would be lying virtually dormant for the remaining fifty Australian Open-free weeks, would not only be nonsensical, but also hugely expensive. This is where IBM comes in.
IBM's role as the official IT provider for Tennis Australia stretches back 12 years. Its remit includes the provisioning of equipment and services for match results and statistics collection; information and graphics to television broadcasters and other media; tournament data to on-site locations around Melbourne Park and to the Internet via the tournament's official website-www.AustralianOpen.com.
In addition to the high profile that such a prestigious sporting event offers, with a global audience of millions tuning into television coverage or logging onto the tournament website, the event presents IBM with a great opportunity to showcase its latest technology to potential customers, with the lure of a great day's tennis action thrown in to tempt said customers to have a look.
First and foremost in the thoughts of IBM officials though -according to Mitch Young, Regional Manager of Tivoli Software for IBM Australia/New Zealand-is to meet and surpass the expectations of tennis fans, both here in Australia and around the world.
"Our key priority is to help Tennis Australia deliver fans the Australian Open experience they want, when they want it. But IBM clients also appreciate the opportunity to go behind the scenes to understand how we deliver this. They are especially interested in how aspects of the products and services we use at the Australian Open can benefit their own businesses."
This year, IBM used the event to demonstrate its Infrastructure Management family of products and services, which work by automating processes in a data centre, so that when a large spike in business demand occurs (like at Tennis Australia during the Australian Open), computing capacity is allocated rapidly and on demand.
It also allows processing power to be distributed across a number of unrelated workloads, so that when demand is low in one area, that unused capacity can be utilised elsewhere.This was demonstrated by IBM at the Australian Open by linking the tournament's website to another two separate projects-a financial services offering that handles credit analysis and an IBM research project.
The set up meant that visitors to the website were still able to visit the site at all times to get live scores and results, while simultaneously, server resources were also being used on the other two unrelated projects. Being linked into such a system meant that Tennis Australia were able to call on that capacity to fulfil their needs during the tournament without having to meet the expense of having to support such an infrastructure all the year round.
"These technologies and services will allow organisations to shift workloads in their IT environment in real time- according to defined business policies, thereby using IT resources more flexibly and efficiently," says Janet Matton, Director e-Business on Demand, IBM. "The ability to manage two or more workloads on the same infrastructure in real time is something that offers a great potential in terms of cost, flexibility and resiliency for many Australian medium and large businesses."
IBM provides the information technology and official website for all four tennis grand slams-the French Open, Wimbledon, US Open, and the Australian Open. Since no two tournaments are the same, their technology needs vary, and so does the solution IBM provides. As such, the build up to the event in terms of the technology requirements, is a lengthy, thoroughly considered process.
"Our onsite setup at Melbourne Park typically ramps up about two weeks before the event starts," reveals Young, "but planning, preparation, and elements of the solution delivery happen weeks and months before.
"Tennis Australia has six full-time IT staff managing the organisation's year round requirements. Then, in the lead up to its biggest tournament, the Australian Open, Tennis Australia works with IBM to integrate a sophisticated, results and scoring system to deliver match and player information in real-time to media and fans onsite and around the globe."
IBM is responsible for all the stats that appear on our screens when watching the coverage on television, as well as on the scoreboards around the courts at the tournament itself and on the official website-recording information such as the number of unforced errors or points won at the net by each player.
"We have two skilled tennis statisticians on each court (the Australian Open can have matches on up to 22 courts simultaneously) tracking every ball using IBM ThinkPads and specialised software," explains Young. "Each point is entered as it happens-generating statistics for every serve, ace, fault, double-fault, winner, forehand or backhand, forced or unforced error. In addition, the popular speed serve radar systems on each of the seven show courts also track the speed of each serve."
Between them, IBM and Tennis Australia must be doing something right, with the tournament's official website receiving 11 million hits this year, up 11 percent on last year's total, with IBM serving up 81 million web pages.
"IBM's technology and services provides a seamless solution, allowing the tournament website to produce a rich, reliable Internet experience to tennis fans," concludes Chris Simpfendorfer, IT Manager, Tennis Australia.
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