IT industry set to take centre stage during London Olympics

The information technology industry is about to get a major boost in the UK with the arrival of the Olympics and the Paralympic Games.

Cloud computing technology, for instance, will be put to the test on a large scale as it makes its Olympics debut, delivering critical services to support the Games.

Other trends that have been sweeping the IT industry, such as mobile computing, intelligent network management and big data analytics, will similarly be showcasing their benefits, and attracting further interest from the IT community and the wider public.

The Games will be the biggest event London has ever hosted, with the world watching the capital throughout the 29 days of competitions at a cost of some £9.3bn. Ten million Games tickets have been sold and a workforce of 200,000 people organised to run the event.

Now, with just over four months to go before the Olympics kicks off, the question undoubtedly being asked is whether London is in the position to pull it off?

The event's IT partners, along with the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games' (Locog) have spent months securing infrastructure that will underpin the Games and ensure operations run smoothly throughout the capital.

V3 will be partnering with Cisco in these final months before the games to deliver a set of exclusive articles, videos, podcasts and live debates on the technology behind the event, and to explore the legacy the games is  expected to leave on the IT industry, technology skills and innovation. 

Members of the IT community will have watched the technology partners - Asos, BT, Acer, Panasonic, Cisco and Samsung - prepare the Games' infrastructure, and will now be interested in seeing new types of technology put to the test.

As Cisco chief technology officer Ian Foddering told V3, the advantage of the cloud is that its utility infrastructure can quickly adapt to large application demand increases that occur within short bursts of time.

One of the first support challenges the technology partners came across was how to support Locog when the organisation will rapidly expand from a few hundred staff to the size of a FTSE 100 company before vanishing again, he said.