LOCOG and their lead systems integrator, ATOS will spearhead the final testing of systems across 17 venues this week. This also includes a simulated disaster recovery event to ensure that systems are ready and able to recover within hours from any disaster.
This reminds HD of when I was working in the city of London during the 9/11 events in New York and elsewhere. It’s not something one tends to forget in a hurry when one sees live on the overhead monitor, planes crashing into office towers!
I had arrived late that morning not being an early bird, only to find everyone glued to the screens around the office. At that point no-one knew exactly what had happened in New York. Grabbing the mandatory coffee and sitting down to also watch the events unfold within ten minutes the second plane hit the other tower in front of our eyes. Everyone was mesmerized and it then started to dawn that something major had began to emerge. The next thing I noticed was that some of the data feeds to my Reuters terminal had stopped showing up as usual, but just then I never related the two events, not then anyway.
It was quite a few minutes later that the enormity of the terrorist attacks on New York started to sink in around the office. Within about one hour we had some sort of handle on what was happening, but there was little guidance from senior management. Being responsible for our disaster recovery centre as well as all the market data systems, I just got on with finding out what the effects on user data were and whether we needed to take actions regarding disaster recovery.
Within two hours I was at the recovery centre organising the possibility of gearing them up for action. It turned out that it was not necessary since eventually senior management gave the word for trading to cease and for all staff to leave the premises. I went back to the main office to find a few of my colleagues gathering tapes and all sorts of data up to take home with them. Just in case!
We left the offices at about 4pm, much later than the rest of the staff, and the talk by then was that maybe over 10,000 persons may have perished in the twin towers as they collapsed that afternoon(GMT). It was much later, probably days when I realized I had been sitting in an office on the ground floor of 33 Old Broad Street, adjacent to Tower42(formerly the NatWest Tower) and then still the tallest occupied tower block in the city of London. It would have been the equivalent to the Twin Towers of The World Trade Centre in New York, now just piles of rubble and mountains of dust particles. Had the terrorist chose London as their target Tower42 would have surely been on their radar for attack, but none of that sunk in at the time.
In the aftermath of events I learned that just one system had been affected, a system operated by Thomsons. It had operated out of one of the Twin Towers. Unfortunately its disaster recovery system was in the second tower and obviously it also failed that afternoon!
However, more importantly, we were learning that almost 3000 persons had lost their lives that day and that our experiences were insignificant in comparison to those of New York.
This is why I am reminded while ATOS and the other lead suppliers go through their disaster recovery exercise this week, that no matter how much you train and exercise events can overtake you very rapidly. LOCOG technical people say that if the technology works around all the venues then they and us technology volunteers of course, will just merge into the background of a truely great Games. That’s my wish and my goal in my small way through participation as a Gamesmaker and to make that a fact. I wish ATOS, etc. well this week in their final tests before the Games commence.
HD 22/05/2012
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As a volunteer heading to the Olympic Park soon, HD is relaxed by this report. With 900 servers and over 10,000 computers it is reassuring to know that the first full stress test went ahead without too much discomfort.