The build up to the 2012 Olympic Games in London reached another milestone today – in exactly three years’ time the Olympic flame will be lit and the Games will officially begin. Atos Origin, the Worldwide IT Partner of the International Olympic Committee, has marked the occasion by unveiling a technology roadmap and revealed that all technology targets are on track.

The firm already has a large team of IT professionals working on the technology platform, and expects several thousand people to be working on the systems by the time the Games start.

Development of the mammoth IT systems is well underway and Atos hopes to have the preliminary design phase completed by the end of this year. The next phase will be the launch of a Volunteer Portal, offering information and online sign-up for up to 70,000 people wishing to offer their services to help the Games.
During the second half of 2010 Atos will begin the task of testing its IT systems to ensure they can cope during the Games. Over the following months, over 200,000 hours will be devoted to testing the infrastructure.

In February 2011, with just 18 months to go before the London Games begin, the Equipment Deployment Centre will open. This will be the hub of the hardware operation, where the 8,000 computers and 1,000 servers will be provisioned, configured and distributed to the 94 Olympic sites around the UK.

During the summer of 2011 it is expected that IT systems and infrastructure will be rolled out to all venues for more exhaustive testing.

 In February 2012, just a few short months before the Games begin, the Technology Operations Centre (TOC) will open. This is the nerve centre of the technological operation, with 120 staff constantly monitoring the systems. That month will also see the launch of the online Accreditation system.

During May 2012 a final technical rehearsal will take place to make sure the infrastructure is ready. The results system, responsible for sending results from the event across the world in a fraction of a second, will be launched in the final run up to the games.

Atos Origin’s Michèle Hyron, chief integrator at London 2012, said: “The technology roadmap for each Games is divided into four phases and we are now close to completing phase one – design of the technology infrastructure and systems that will relay the results to the world in a fraction of a second. We are working with LOCOG and our fellow technology partners, broadcasters and journalists to ensure the delivery of a solution that enables them to provide more news from the Games than ever before.”

Beyond the technology, the Games are well on track and all ten of the milestones the Olympic Delivery Authority had set for this stage of preparations have been met. “We are a little bit further ahead of bang on target. We are on time and we’re exactly where we want to be at this stage. It’s a big piece of project management and that’s why it’s so important that we’re ahead of schedule,” Lord Coe, chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG), told the BBC.

CBR profiled Atos Origin’s Michèle Hyron and the London 2012 Olympics Games IT infrastructure in May 2009. You can read the full article here.