Think you've got a tough IT project to complete? Consider what's on Claude Philipps' plate. The job involves managing a network that unites everything from Unix servers to precision timing devices. After installing several redundant systems, he must guarantee 24/7 reliability and instantaneous performance on a tight budget. And just to make things even more interesting, all this must take place in a capital city with a sometimes shaky power grid. Welcome to Athens, where Philipps is chief technology integrator for Schlumberger for the 2004 Olympic Games. The event will mark the second set of games at which the consulting firm will be responsible for ensuring that an intimidating grab bag of technology parts works flawlessly together. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded Schlumberger the contract to manage IT resources for the games after longtime contractor IBM suffered several embarrassing glitches that led to long delays in communicating results for key events at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Schlumberger, which got through last year's winter games in Salt Lake City without any major incidents, is on track in Athens, where the IT team recently ported over all the major processes used at the Utah location. Last week, the company announced that it implemented an identity and access management system for the Athens games, combining a physical ID badge and scanning system with back-office database applications. Even so, this is one contract where Philipps knows there's no wiggle room in deadlines. With delivery dates absolutely fixed eight years in advance, he has to get it right the first time. "That's the tricky thing about this project -- the dates can't move, as they often do on other IT projects," Phillips said. "There are no second chances." Philipps recently spoke with ZDNet UK's sister site CNET News.com about the truly Olympian nature of the IT challenges associated with the games. Q: Can you start by giving us a sense of the size of the Athens work?
A: The scope of what we're doing is that we're providing... key applications, we're providing integration services, we're working with the IOC and a consortium of best-of-breed providers in each area. We aggregate all the equipment, data and network resources together. We rehearse everything in a huge integration lab we have here. During the games, we lead the IT partners to run the integration during the games. Basically, we look at the best way of putting everything together. How much hardware are we talking about?
We're putting together an architecture that's quite big for a short period, but that's how it works. We have around 10,000 desktops, 500 laptops, 400 Unix servers, plus another 450 Windows servers. There are around 16,000 media people, and we provide them with ready-to-use tools that are focused on real-time results, so they can bring news to the world as it happens. This is part of what we call the results system. This is the critical piece that cannot fail. We have to get it right on the first try. How do you make sure that happens?
We spent the last year testing and testing and testing again, rehearsing, reviewing contingency plans. We go through a lot of "what if" scenarios -- what if we have a power failure, what if the network blows, what if the people cannot show up at the venues because of traffic or whatever? It's all about contingency plans, putting together plan B, plan C. For some really critical tasks, we have four or five backups.