A lasting legacy

With the hype of the 2012 Olympic Games reaching fever pitch, little attention is being given to the legacy the Games will leave behind. Sara Yirrell finds out why Cisco is equally concerned with the before, during and after

In just a few short months London and other areas of the UK will be swamped with sports fans from across the globe as people flock to be part of the 2012 Olympic Games.

Cisco is one of several technical partners behind the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and is the official network infrastructure provider, supplying all the routing, switching, firewall and IP telephony that the Games will require.

And with a global audience of several billion, the pressure is on to ensure optimum performance 24 hours a day.

Ian Foddering, chief technology officer UK and Ireland at Cisco, told CRN the networking giant was delighted to be involved with such a large project.

“We have not supported anything of this size before,” he said. “We have acted as suppliers and providers of equipment to other people who are sponsoring events, but for us to do this as a standalone project is incredibly exciting.

“We will be working alongside BT and other suppliers in what we believe will be the most connected Games ever. For us it is all about providing connectivity for the Olympics to run effectively, and we are connecting not only the business side of the Games, but also the back-office connectivity to the stadium and various venues throughout the UK.”

Scaling services to fit

Foddering said that with more than 100 venues across the country needing Cisco’s services, it is a huge opportunity for the vendor.

“The funny thing is that we have talked about our involvement to a number of different people and they are surprised that the technology going in is so tried and tested. There are lots of parallels between the technology going into the Olympics and that which is already in place with a vast majority of customers. The technology is very similar to what we see day in, day out,” he said.

And the scale of the operation is almost too grand to be believed, Foddering added.

“During the Games there will be 6,000 people working for [Games organiser] Locog (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games), plus 70,000 volunteers, but after the Games have been staged, that shrinks back down to just 100 people again,” he said.

“This shows an ability to utilise cloud services and a true utility model. As it ramps up in size, Locog will be the same as a FTSE 100 company. It is a great opportunity for us. We are putting our best and brightest on it, and we will have about 50 to 60 people working full time in the run-up to the Games, which will increase nearer the time.”

“We have been working on this for four years now and it started off with a relatively small team, but it has grown over time and we are also calling on global colleagues to support this activity as well. You never know when you are going to get a failure so you need 24/7 coverage around the globe,” he said.

OLYMPIC HERITAGE: A CHANCE TO SHAPE THE FUTURE

It is the legacy of the Games that holds a particularly special place in Cisco’s heart, Foddering said.

The vendor is trying to drive awareness of STEM – science, technology, engineering and maths – in schools to attract the next generation of talent to an industry that is suffering from a skills shortage.

“The question is how we get the next wave of talent into the industry,” he explained.

Together with the Pearson Foundation, Cisco has created teaching literature for Key Stage 4 pupils at 4,000 UK schools, known as its Out of the Blocks initiative. Under the scheme, the schools will receive the Cisco Maths and Science Series 2012 – a set of activity books based on the 2012 Games.

“We wanted to put together something that the kids can enjoy on subject matter that is not that exciting to most of them,” he said.

The vendor also recently unveiled the British Innovation Gateway, or BIG, Awards which are aimed at nurturing the IT giants of the future. With five categories comprising big data, collaboration, future of cities, the internet of things and mobility, the competition will run until September 2012 and again every year for five years.

Entrepreneurs are being asked to submit their ideas, and will retain the intellectual property of those ideas if selected.

The winner will receive a ￡100,000 cash prize as well as support and mentoring from a number of high-profile companies on how to make the business idea a reality. Second and third-placed entries will also receive cash prizes and mentoring, and the top 20 entries will receive mentoring and support.

“There is a huge amount of interest around this, about helping to support and nurture start-up organisations that exist across the UK and leave a lasting legacy. Cisco was a start-up company 26 years ago and now employs 72,000 people globally,” Foddering said.

CISCO’S TASK IN NUMBERS

Cisco is supplying the routing, switching, firewall and IP telephony to about 100 venues, including:

■ 34 competition venues across the UK from Manchester to Weymouth

■ 20 mission-critical venues such as the Olympic Village and network operations centre

■ 40 to 50 spectator and athlete sites including transport hubs, training grounds and ticketing booths