At the conclusion of the XXII Olympic Winter Games, Microsoft Russia summed up how the company helped in the smooth running and execution of the Games, working in close cooperation with ATOS, TOP IOC partner. It covered– areas from the official web site being powered by Windows Azure to the IT infrastructure solution designed and managed by IOC TOP Partner Atos being run on Microsoft Dynamics as well as design, development, and support of the solutions.
“It is a great recognition and honor for Microsoft Russia to become a supplier of the Sochi Olympics. Microsoft played an important role, ensuring that the innovative Olympic Games in Sochi were organized at the highest level and, in our view, contributed to the establishment of a new technological standard for large sports events organization in Russia and the whole world. The website sochi2014.com powered by Windows Azure will give the opportunity to Organizing Committees of the next Games to benefit from the experience and architectural solutions developed by Microsoft and other technology partners of the Organizing Committee “Sochi 2014”, noted Nikolay Pryanishnikov, the President of Microsoft Russia.
Windows Azure for millions of fans
Millions of fans and guests of the Games had continuous access to all information on the Olympic Games on the website sochi2014.com through the innovations provided by provided by close cooperation of Atos, Worldwide IT Partner for the IOC, and Microsoft . Windows Azure provided necessary computing power, which sustained peak traffic that was impossible to forecast in advance. The Windows Azure cloud platform is proved to be the ideal choice for rapid and cost-effective development and operation of a dynamic, high-performance site at scale.
For the entire duration of the sports events, the following statistics detail the success of the website sochi2014.com powered by Windows Azure:
- During the period of staging of the Sochi Olympics, more than 100 million visits hit the official website.
- The maximum number of visitors was from Russia, USA, Canada, Ukraine and France.
- The Figure Skating and unofficial Medal Standings attracted greatest interest.
- At peak load, more than 175 thousand visitors were on the website at the same time. The difference between the peak load and minimum load was 15-fold
- They browsed webpages with live results generating more than 90 thousand requests per second.
- More than 5 million users visited the website daily. They viewed more than 30 million pages.
- Windows Azure was used to provide information from mobile devices based on any type of platform (more than 6 million of app installations).
- Overall, during the Games, users viewed more than 500 million pages, generating more than 25 billion requests to Windows Azure virtual machines.
- Microsoft Enterprise Services designed and developed the web site solution, and had a team of 23 people standing by to assist 24/7 on site.
“Microsoft is the industry leader with a unique and convincing vision of the future. We are very happy that millions of fans and guests of the Games can get acquainted with Microsoft’s technologies. By collaborating with company, we were able to use the latest and most reliable software technologies during preparing for the first Olympic Winter Games in Russia, the most innovative Games throughout history”, noted President of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee Dmitry Chernyshenko.
Starting from 2011, Microsoft Russia is an official supplier of the XXII Olympic Winter Games in Off-the-shelf operating system software category, tier III partnership level.
Atos, MegaFon and Microsoft jointly developed a unified interface to news and results of the Games for various mobile platforms, which allows access to the Games’ news (its with infrastructure is deployed at in Windows Azure), as well as two mobile apps for Microsoft Mobile platform: Sochi 2014 Guide and Sochi 2014 Results. These two apps have been listed in among the Top 20 free applications at the Windows Phone Store in Russia and were installed by more than 1 million people.
Microsoft business solutions
(MBS)
for the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee
Microsoft not only allowed fans to have continuous access to all information on the Olympic Games, but also enabled continuous and effective operations of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee.
- Enterprise Resource Planning solution (ERP) for the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee based on Microsoft Dynamics AX covered different areas of operation of the Organizing Committee from finance and management accounting, logistics and procurement management to human resources and personnel management. The International Olympic Committee recognized the ERP system for the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee as the best ERP ever in the history of Olympic Games. The Olympics Committee requirements grew from having 50 people working with the system 5 years ago, to over 35,000 people working in the system today. The “Dynamics for Olympics” system managed 800,000 units of equipment, 36,000 square meters of warehouse space, 1,200,000 litters of diesel fuel, 18,500 truck deliveries in the last 3 months.
- Functional systems for managing the Games. Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Dynamics CRM helped to control the operations and administration of the Games. The complex of SW systems manages the basic processes to provide the proper service for various groups involved in preparing and staging the Olympics. This includes everything from arrivals and departures, Office of Protocol, Department of systems with the International Olympic Committee, and International sport federations, hotel and accommodation management, rate card management etc.
- The Common Information Space (CIS) for the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee was created. The CIS ensured a higher efficiency and quality of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee work and service level by facilitating information management and optimization of communications both between the committee members and outside parties. CIS and the functional management systems are located in the Unified Data Centre created by ATOS, TOP IOC partner and the team of technology partners of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee based on Microsoft Private Cloud.
“We are proud to play a part in celebrating human excellence. Owing to a wide range of Microsoft technologies and solutions millions of people in Sochi and around the world will have the brightest impressions of these unforgettable weeks,” said Kirill Tatarinov, Executive Vice President, Microsoft Business Solutions. “We are particularly pleased that important elements to ensure these games ran well were done by organizations that actively used ERP and CRM Microsoft Dynamics solutions.”
The Microsoft House was operating during the XXII Winter Olympic Games in the Olympic Park, featuring the ecosystem of the latest devices powered by Windows 8.1 Operating System for anyone to try. Guests also explored events automated through Microsoft Dynamics solutions that provided simple and clear examples of how complicated business solutions work. Around 100 000 people visited Microsoft hall during its work.