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The data center that travels with Williams

Eleven years ago, an eWEEK reporter, visiting Ferrari's headquarters in Maranello, Italy, discovered there, in addition to Formula 1 cars, a data center with ten racks of equipment, air conditioning and liquid-cooled servers. A lot has changed since then, but mobile data centers are still an indispensable attribute of Formula One teams.
In Formula 1, as elsewhere, there is an increasing need for more computing power and for computers to be as close to the race site as possible. This time, eWEEK talked about the British racing team Williams F1. While Williams has a data center at its UK headquarters, Williams also has a mobile data center that travels with the racing team.
"We have two racks of equipment that we transport around the world," said Graeme Hackland, CIO of Williams Racing. The Williams Mobile Data Center also includes workstations, air conditioning systems, uninterruptible power supplies and generators. According to Huckland, Mobile data center previously had more equipment, but the number was reduced thanks to virtualization (Nutanix) and the transfer of some computing tasks to the cloud.
"Before, before virtualization, we had four racks of equipment - he said." Our virtualization project was rewarded in nine months in one season, thanks only to the savings in transportation. " Hackland said it costs $100.00(kg) of equipment to deliver the data center to the location of each race, but that's only part of the costs. A separate cable for Internet access is being installed in the garage at the race location and a local network is being deployed in the garage by the IT team.
Hackland emphasized that they are using a physical wired network in the garage because "the wifi is unreliable over the weekend". Ethernet cables are routed to the well area through boxes. Hackland explained that the maintenance team needs access to the network to make changes during the race. "We offer 100% real-time access to the boxes," said Hackland.


Williams F1 Mobile Data Center. Foto: eWeek

The mobile data center (pictured above) receives a continuous stream of encrypted telemetry from approximately 300 sensors in the vehicle during the race, allowing the team to monitor their behavior for possible adjustments and possible problems. In addition, there is a direct link to the headquarters.
Part of the data is sent to the cloud, where additional computing power can be obtained, in particular, for analysis of racing video. Hackland noted that video footage of competing vehicles is being used to analyze their actions and, if something suspicious is found, it can be used to challenge the results of the race.

by: eWeek/Mundoquatrorodas