In today’s economic scenario, organisations are driven by a growing focus on analysing and streamlining their business; be it complex data, minimising infrastructure costs or maximising returns on investments. IT modernisation, cloud computing and Big Data have become top priorities in the last few years. However, if one delves deeper, these are all directed towards a common objective – driving business efficiencies.
The rising complexities in business and the principal need to gratify customers and stakeholders with exemplary services and accountability have led organisations to deploy, organise and drive efficiencies across all departments. One sport that organisations can consider for inspiration and learning in this regard is Formula 1. Formula 1 sets the yardstick for optimal real-time performance and intriguing race management across platforms. This brand of auto racing championships, held in the most difficult and challenging purpose built circuits and public roads throughout the world, is an excellent demonstration of how organisations should operate in this fast moving business environment. It uses latest technology innovations and seamless deployment strategies bundled with excellent teamwork to get that extra bit out of the car and team’s performance.
No matter how difficult or remote the location and terrain, every F1 race venue must be able to host thousands of people and be connected to fans from across the world. Every millisecond counters a challenge with no leeway for any downtime. Furthermore, the F1 team undertakes one of the biggest logistical challenges existent in the world of sport today – moving operations to a new race location every two weeks during the season. With global operations, geographically disparate teams, remote locations etc., the communication and collaboration technologies used by Formula 1 are an inspiration for today’s enterprises.
Truly global network
However large-scale an organisation may be, it is unlikely that it will require setting up an event for a global audience on a week’s notice. If yes, for any organisation that operates across multiple locations, the same principles apply: data and communication channels need to be fast, reliable, secure and available 24/7. While many of the generic requirements are the same from one business to the next, every organisation has its own individual culture that a communications platform needs to adapt to. It is therefore important to look for a partner that understands your industry and is able to offer a customised service and high level of support throughout the working relationship.
Therefore, it is prudent to look for a partner that understands your industry and is able to offer a customised service with the highest degree of support throughout the working relationship. Formula One Management (FOM), for example, chose a partner that was able to deliver a consistent and reliable connection that powers the organisation’s diverse global operations including the head office and temporary race locations. The organisation has access to one of the most advanced and largest submarine cable networks spanning the world, linking over 200 countries and territories, enabling the Formula One Management team and its stakeholders to tap into a resilient and super-fast connection that is able to transport vital real-time data securely across the globe.
At the race circuits, temporary 100M secure MPLS circuits are installed, configured and tested by the partner in just one week. Through this partnership, the FOM’s bandwidth speed at the grand prix venues has increased by a factor of ten compared to previously.
The benefits of fibre over satellite include speed, bandwidth and any-device content delivery. By having high speed connectivity at the trackside enables the F1 teams to transfer data, such as engine performance, in real-time to engineers on the other side of the world. It is no surprise then that the communications infrastructure is the crucial backbone of the F1 industry.
Managed Services
The Formula 1 website is a key destination for race fans all over the world. On any given race weekend, visitor numbers spike to up to 100 times as a vast amount of real-time data is shared with up to seven million viewers in over 188 countries. While most organisations won’t usually experience a sudden onslaught of such scale, for those operating in industries such as e-commerce, financial services or media, sudden traffic spikes are very common and advanced load balancing technology is required to keep the lights on. In case of the Formula 1 website, the diversity of content that includes rich-media, live-streams, live race reports and more, demands that the web systems provide consistent performance and user experience across a multitude of bandwidths and rich-media capable devices. It requires consistent delivery of content to users accessing the site from anywhere in the world, even on slow connectors such as 2G and dial-up, and requires instant-on delivery and highly reduced latency.
A bundle of services including a global content delivery network, global IP network, on-site engineering as well as comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery plans provide a fully resilient system with built-in redundancy. This ensures that in the event of an outage on the primary site, everything will switch over to back-up systems and the system will keep running as normal at all times – a crucial requirement for any business in today’s 24/7 business culture.
Communication
Formula 1 is an example of a truly collaborative operation - from high-profile race car teams to sponsors, media organisations and fans from across the globe - all come together to successfully deliver one of the world’s most illustrious sporting events. And at the heart of the organisations’ operation lies its resilient communications infrastructure – the backbone of this multi-billion dollar global business. Formula 1 is indeed the insignia of the agile modern business. Organisations can certainly learn a lot by observing its methodology and seamless operation, regardless of the sector they operate in.
(The author is Managing Director, F1 Business, Tata Communications)