INTERNET
Special Olympics VPN is deployed
20-06-2003
by Andrew McLindon
Eircom has donated a telecoms network it claims is worth nearly EUR1.3 million to the Special Olympics.
The voice and data network will perform a wide variety of tasks during the Special Olympics World Games, which will be the biggest sporting event ever hosted in Ireland. These include capturing and storing each athlete's medical history, continuously updating athlete and volunteer information, supplying Internet and e-mail access to the media, and ensuring that event results are available in "real time" in the Games' headquarters in Dublin.
One of the main features of the solution, which was developed in conjunction with Eircom subsidiary, Lan Communications, and telecoms equipment firm Nortel Networks, is the virtual private network. According to Eircom, it will be the biggest deployment of the teleco's Business IP+ network outside of the government's own VPN.
The VPN is designed to allow Olympics' personnel to securely communicate and share data with each other, regardless of where they are based.
Eircom said that it will also provide voice communications via a new, "state-of-the art" exchange located at the Games headquarters. This, it said, will enable Special Olympics staff throughout the country to talk to each other by dialling extension numbers rather than full dialling codes.
According to Barry Dillon, business manager, enterprise solutions, Nortel Networks, the design of the network was drawn up after 12 months of consultations, with the network rolled-out over three to four weeks.
"The main objective was to deploy a network that was highly resilient and highly redundant. It had to be able to cope with problems such as switches failing or cables going because if it didn't then the running of the Games could be seriously affected," remarked Dillon.
Nortel said it was confident that the infrastructure in place would be able to withstand any such difficulties and cope with the large amounts of data passing over it.
Geraldine Minogue, IT manager of 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games, said that the building of such a complex network in three months was a "huge achievement" for all involved.
The 2003 Games are expected to host more than 7,000 athletes from 160 countries. Eircom is a sponsor of the Games and for the last 18 years has sponsored Special Olympics Ireland.
Meanwhile, AA Roadwatch is to provide regular Special Olympic updates concerning traffic information, how to get to the venues and news about capacity at the Games on the Web at http://www.aaroadwatch.ie.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 