Such has been the progression of professional sailing that racing syndicates now sink tens, sometimes even hundreds, of millions of dollars into winning regattas. The America’s Cup, sailing’s penultimate challenge, attracts the biggest budgets.

But in the bid for sailing glory, money will only get you so far. In the four years between America’s Cup regattas, syndicates compete in a different race involving a marathon of planning, design, testing and fine-tuning. Never mind the ongoing calendar of regular international racing. IT infrastructure might seem a few steps removed from the hype of America’s cup racing. For the most part IT remains sight unseen. However, with so much hanging on design and communications, the technology has to work continuously and in all conditions. With its eyes on the big prize, Emirates Team New Zealand looked to Fujitsu to stiffen up its IT operations and manage mission critical support.

Ten years ago Emirates Team New Zealand had what designer and IT caretaker Nick Holroyd describes as a barebones IT infrastructure. But what started out as four laptops which relied on disk swapping for communication quickly grew in size and complexity. Today, terabytes of data are shared between 100 plus users at bases in New Zealand and Valencia, and every aspect of the organisation uses some element of technology. However, the sheer pace of IT adoption inadvertently nurtured a complex gallery of systems and add-ons, which increasingly distracted from the business of making the boat go faster.

Unlike conventional businesses, Emirates Team New Zealand is a relative short-term undertaking, existing for the life of a single campaign. The short window is disproportionately dominated by intense periods of design and testing, which on their own demand a certain level of IT entrepreneurship that frequently deviates IT from standard practice. Holroyd, himself, is a good example of this predisposition, writing software to extend the boundaries of computation fluid design dynamics in the quest to capture a performance edge.

Without a formally appointed IT manager the task of holding things together fell onto the shoulders of Holroyd, who, though capable, didn’t want IT management distracting him from his “real” job. “I needed to concentrate on what I am paid to do – make the boat go faster. The nature of our growth meant our IT was no longer a tenable solution, creating a lot more work and introducing vulnerabilities,” says Holroyd.

IT infrastructure design and deployment
Holroyd approached Fujitsu with a wish list. He wanted to minimise his IT management workload, standardise hardware, centralise administration and introduce enterprise-grade server and information management. However, against the backdrop of a short campaign lifespan and without the budget of most other syndicates, Holroyd had to put every decision under the microscope.

Perhaps the most critical IT decision related to the design and installation of high performance IBM xSeries 346 dual processor server infrastructure, on which the syndicate’s entire operation now runs. The demand for processing power often spikes, particularly with the volume of telemetric data capture and interrogation that attaches to Holroyd’s computational fluid design and analysis. Analysing the point-in-time performance of a Genoa sail shape, alone, requires 32 processors and takes 24 hours.

When there’s so much data – over 30 sensors wirelessly transmit real-time data, including sail images at one-second intervals back to base – storage is critical. Compounding matters are the fact that operations are based on different sides of the world, both requiring access to symmetrical information. To do the job Fujitsu deployed twin NetApp FAS250 enterprise-class storage solutions, taking care of data mirroring and incremental backups. Additional functionality in NetApp SnapRestore has brought instant recovery and restoration functionality down to individual users – a simple right mouse click instantly retrieves past file versions – easing the administrative burden.

Alongside the infrastructure, Fujitsu has deployed Microsoft Exchange, Office and desktop programs, forming the basis of Emirates Team New Zealand’s front office applications and communications platform. It has also architected the data network, including a VPN connecting the syndicate’s two bases, and both remote static IP and wireless access, working with Vodafone and networking provider D-link. Underneath, Fujitsu SmartSupport maintains optimum usability, using smart agents to perform background administration of servers and desktops.

All eyes on the prize
“Fujitsu helps me to get my real job done,” says Holroyd. While it’s easy for an outsider to understand the advantages of a centralised enterprise-grade platform over suburbanised IT, taking care of the less visible and so called ‘small stuff ’ has really freed-up Holroyd. “I can concentrate on what I’m supposed to do focusing on the boat,” he says. “All the server side patching and change management just happens invisibly. It’s these small big things that are efficient for Fujitsu, but hard for us.”

A good example of hardware standardisation shrinking the administration overhead is in PC rebuilds. Holroyd says rebuilding a mixed bag of laptops in the past was a nightmare involving disk swapping and manual reconfiguration. These days, by pulling a standard image and profile off the server, rebuilds are completed within an hour. Communication has also leapt forward, with the simple achievement of reliable remote access and a standard email platform helping to run a much tighter ship. “Communication is key. What we do is weather dependent and to conduct testing on a given day means satisfying a whole lot of upstream production scheduling. With so many people travelling and working remotely good basic communications is imperative.”

Emirates Team New Zealand will soon export itself, IT included, to Valencia. Despite the tyranny of distance Fujitsu SmartSupport will keep tabs on IT and administer support in the background. Pairing both sites will also add extra redundancy and true failover capability. In this regard, eliminating risk is critical, says Holroyd. “We can’t afford downtime. You don’t want that possible aggravation in the back of your mind, especially during round robin racing.”

In project terms, things are nearing the sprint finish, which places even more pressure on IT, says Holroyd. “We’re a much different organisation to, say, a law firm, where few users deviate from standard tools and structure. We are at the opposite end, requiring huge flexibility at user level. We’re never short of ideas to test and having a relationship with a company like Fujitsu, who has that range of expertise and services, has been extremely useful. The great thing is the access to specialisation you get – I could try to keep up-to-date with Windows server administration or NettApp administration, but you know the people at Fujitsu do it everyday.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION//

FUJITSU NEW ZEALAND
+64 9 921 8093
www.fujitsu.co.nz