Lotus F1 to revamp team’s IT infrastructure
The Lotus F1 Team aims to be the World Champions of Formula One by 2015 and it is aiming to seek a competitive advantage by starting from basics and providing its team members with a solid platform to work on. The team today announced a partnership with the NYSE-listed EMC Corporation for a complete overhaul of its IT infrastructure.
In 2014, all teams competing in F1 will be facing a new set of regulations that will bring about the most radical design changes since the introduction of the composite monocoque. All vehicles will be powered by 1.6-litre turbocharged V6 hybrid engines integrated with Energy Recovery System (ERS) technology.
In view of the massive fundamental changes that are set to take place, Lotus reasoned that the ability to rapidly collect data and subsequently make them readily available for analysis by the relevant personnel will be a key competitive edge that separates the front-runners and also-rans. It is estimated that the 2014 F1 car’s network of 200 sensors will generate in excess of 25Mb of data per lap for each individual car.
Lotus’ partnership with EMC will see the team adopt a cloud storage solution to manage its data. The following paragraphs are extracted from EMC’s official press release describing the arrangement:
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Lotus F1 Team will deploy a VCE Vblock System – integrating best-in-class compute, network, and storage technologies from Cisco, EMC and VMware – at its Enstone data center to underpin the Team’s Computer-Aided Design (CAD) program and its Microsoft Dynamics Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution.
EMC will also deploy its EMC® Atmos® object-based cloud storage platform to store, archive and access Lotus F1 Team’s unstructured content at scale; EMC Data Domain® deduplication storage systems to enable fast backup and recovery of the factory’s information estate; and its Cloud Tiering Appliance™ to ensure the secure and efficient tiering of the Team’s CAD files before they are moved to the cloud – key to reclaiming valuable primary storage space, lower operating costs and reducing backup requirements.
In order to facilitate secure CAD file-sharing and collaboration between the Team and its partners, Lotus F1 Team will also be using EMC’s Syncplicity® enterprise file sync and share solution and Documentum® Information Rights Management (IRM) technology which tracks and protects documents, messages and attachments while in transit, at rest and after delivery. At the trackside, a second VCE Vblock System, incorporating EMC’s award-winning VNX® solution, will be deployed to support the Team’s virtual desktop infrastructure as well as its on-track applications.
As part of a four-year deal, EMC will gain unrivalled access to the GENII Business Exchange platform –Lotus F1 Team’s elite group of IT and Technical Partners –in addition to a range of global hospitality and incentive packages.
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In laymen’s terms, we are talking about the development of a highly-secure cloud storage system that optimizes data usage and backup requirements, whilst facilitating seamless sharing of files between the team and its partners. The system will deal primarily with engineering computer aided design (CAD) files that needs to be effectively tracked and protected whilst in transit. A separate secondary architecture will then be deployed for on-track use.
Picture: Official Lotus release.
