TORONTO – Striving for even better performance than that achieved four years ago in Vancouver is the goal of not only Canada’s Olympic athletes but also the technology team behind the network supporting the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.
Dean Frohwerk is the chief solution architect for the Sochi Olympics, a role he also had at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games in 2010. Frohwerk’s position as the Ottawa-based director and technical architect for worldwide solution engineering at network equipment supplier Avaya led to his being made chief architect of the Olympic network in Vancouver four years ago.
Avaya is providing a full communications experience to more than 40,000 Olympic family members while interconnecting 11 competition venues, three Olympic villages, media centers, celebration centers, data centers and technology operating centers.
Speaking to Cartt.ca via telephone from Sochi, Russia, Frohwerk credited his previous Olympic experience with why a Canadian ended up as the chief architect of network solutions for the Sochi Olympic Games. “One of the reasons the IOC (International Olympic Committee) likes to trust Avaya to do these kinds of high-profile events is we have some experience. We’ve proven our products and our people previously in the Olympics, and so it’s a bit of a carryover,” Frohwerk said.
Frohwerk and his technology team have taken what they learned in Vancouver and refined the Olympic network design to achieve better performance along with several technology firsts in Sochi. For example, this is the first Winter Olympic Games to use network virtualization, Frohwerk said, adding that the network uses Avaya’s Fabric Connect technology.
“The physical layout of the network is quite similar to Vancouver, but what we were able to do is the virtualization,” Frohwerk said. “We’re able to – on one physical network – overlay multiple virtual or logical networks. On the same infrastructure, we could segment off the games network – where the games-critical applications run – from the admin or IT networks, from the voice network, from an IPTV network we deploy. It’s really about sharing one physical network with multiple logically secure networks.”
Avaya’s network for the Sochi Winter Olympic Games was rolled out over an 18-month period. One of the first steps was to build a backbone network between Sochi’s “Mountain Cluster” location – similar to the Whistler, B.C., venue for the Vancouver Games skiing and sliding – and the “Coastal Cluster” where Sochi’s brand-new Olympic Park is situated. Describing the town of Sochi, Frohwerk said: “It was a kind of Soviet-era beach resort that they’ve turned into a world-class winter sports mecca. But the thing is it’s all new build. From a telecom point of view, it’s a complete greenfield – so, sporting facilities, roads, power infrastructure, was greenfield as well.”
The core backbone network for the Sochi Olympics uses Avaya’s Virtual Services Platform (VSP) 9000 switches in four locations: the primary and secondary data centres in the coastal area, the main media centre in the mountains and a new train station also built in the mountains. “From there we distribute to the venues themselves – 11 competition venues, three different (Olympic) villages with a bunch of support sites, which totals up to around 40 (sites),” Frohwerk said. Avaya is using about 60 of its Ethernet Routing Switch (ERS) 8800s to connect those sites, along with 2,000 access switches and 2,500 wireless access points to extend high-speed WiFi connectivity to more than 40,000 Olympic Family members, which include athletes, officials and media.
“In Vancouver and London, they built separate CATV networks to deliver TV feeds to the Olympic family within the villages in their sites. In Sochi now, that’s an application that we just virtualize across the existing network. We just overlay it on top for free, virtually. It’s transparent to the end user, but it’s a huge cost advantage and operational advantage to build." – Dean Frohwerk, Avaya
Frohwerk explained: “Those 40,000 people we have to support are all accredited people, be it a journalist or an athlete. They’re all within the Olympic family, within the secure environment.”
In another technology first, the Olympic network is expected to support an anticipated 120,000 mobile devices at any given time, making the Games the largest bring your own device (BYOD) Olympics so far.
When asked about the potential security risks to mobile devices in a BYOD network environment, Frohwerk said the network provides users with secure connectivity to the appropriate guest network for their user community based on their log-in credentials. As in any public WiFi environment, it’s up to end users to keep their mobile devices secure, such as safeguarding against the downloading of malicious code, Frohwerk said.
The third technology first for the Sochi Olympics is the use of IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) technology to distribute 36 high-definition video channels to each of the Olympic venues. “It’s the first time we’ve done IPTV at the Olympics,” Frohwerk said. “In Vancouver and London, they built separate CATV networks to deliver TV feeds to the Olympic family within the villages in their sites. In Sochi now, that’s an application that we just virtualize across the existing network.
“We just overlay it on top for free, virtually. It’s transparent to the end user, but it’s a huge cost advantage and operational advantage to build,” Frohwerk said.
From a network resiliency point of view, the Avaya Fabric Connect technology provides quick recovery in the event of network failure. Frohwerk said the failover rate in the network core is 20 milliseconds. “Typically, a viewer watching the IPTV would not see the failover happen,” Frohwerk said. “It wouldn’t be visible to the eye.”
In terms of network bandwidth, there is a minimum of 20 Gbps to each venue, he said, adding the network was built to scale in place, in the event more bandwidth needed to be added. “The good thing about our technology is it’s active/active, so we use all available bandwidth for our applications, instead of stranding some just for backup links,” he explained, noting there are redundant connections at every location on the network.
Once the Sochi Winter Olympic Games are done on February 23, Frohwerk and his team – 21 shift-based operational staff and 19 expert support staff – will stay on to oversee the 24/7 operation of the network through to the end of the Paralympic Winter Games, scheduled to run from March 7 to 16. After that, some components of the Sochi Olympic network will be incorporated into new commercial endeavours, such as a new shopping centre and convention space expected to be built in the Olympic media centre. He added that Avaya has done commercial deals with about 30 different companies to use network equipment currently being used for the Olympics.
Frohwerk noted that about half of the Olympic network equipment will be removed, with the Russian members of the Avaya team staying on for an additional month to do the network teardown.
