ICC CWC 2007 information technology on schedule

Information Technology (IT) & Telecommunications officials for ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 expect the majority of their implementation phase will be completed by December and be ready for Testing in early 2007.

Speaking after the first Information Technology & Telecommunications (IT&T) Forum in Jamaica recently, IT Manager in ICC CWC 2007 Events Department, Wayne Campbell, revealed that, given various deadlines and how far they have progressed already, the IT&T Team - comprising technology personnel from the nine Host Venues and technical staff from Official Sponsor Cable & Wireless' Core Team - are well on track for the mega-event in March and April 2007.

"We looked at the timelines and we feel confident that we will meet the deadlines we have set for this year. We want to have a mature infrastructure ready by yearend and we want to cover close to 90 per cent of the implementation; granted that some aspects of implementation can only be done closer to tournament time," he said.

Disclosing that "the technology programme will deliver infrastructure to support all the electronic applications and solutions for ICC CWC 2007 WI Inc. to host and operate the tournament", Campbell explained that IT&T personnel would be responsible for "providing an infrastructure across all venues and within stadiums as well".

This will include Wide Area Network within venues to link all the other networks. This infrastructure will deliver functionalities for various systems such as Accreditation, Medical, Security and Ticketing. The IT&T Team will also "provide support services for all the media who we expect for the tournament and who will be operating in media centres across the region".

"Based on all these requirements, we have created specifications that will help us get an idea of how each Host Venue will fit into the bigger, overall picture.

"This first meeting was to review these specifications and requirements. If a specification passed certain criteria, we ratified it and - if not - we made recommendations for improvement to the various teams handling these specifications," said the IT expert.

The next step will be to produce Detailed Designs for each stadium - a venue-specific design which would factor in how much of a particular item would be required at a particular venue or taking into account some other venue-specific issue. The Detailed Designs will therefore determine what products and services must be acquired and these are to be "ready for service activities" and Testing early in 2007.

Factors such as how cyber-security would be deployed will also be considered. Cyber-security will seek to minimise threats posed by viruses or external hackers or the misuse of services and equipment. The Team has also looked at "corrective actions" to be taken if systems are in any way compromised.

Those participating in the four-day forum at ICC CWC 2007 WI Inc. Headquarters in Kingston - Jonah Chisholm and Nigel Gobourne (Fiscal Services/Jamaica LOC); Alistair Clarke and Shauneil James (C&W Jamaica); Anthony Martin (Cable & Wireless Core Team/Dominica); Peter Constable (Cable & Wireless/Saint Lucia LOC); Michael Forde (Barbados LOC); Graeme Ottley (TSTT/Trinidad LOC) and Malcolm Williams (Guyana LOC) - spoke highly of the deliberations.

Chisholm said the Forum assisted the working groups in exchanging ideas and agreeing on the technical design for the Event's different IT needs. The final documentation will enable each territory to begin work on the Detailed Design and to prepare RFQs/RFPs (Requests for Qualifications and Requests for Proposals) to be sent out for networking equipment once the final document is ready. He added that integration meetings with the Design Team - who also convened at Headquarters simultaneously - also provided vital information for the Detailed Designs and specifications.

Noting that they had been working in "virtual teams" prior to the IT&T Forum, Forde stated they made "major progress towards arriving at the high-level technical requirements for telecommunications for ICC CWC 2007 venues across the region".

NOTE: The Cable & Wireless Core Team is a regional team established by Cable & Wireless - an Official Sponsor of ICC CWC 2007 and a key provider of telecommunication services throughout the Caribbean - to provide a central "one-stop shop" approach to working with ICC CWC 2007 WI Inc., the nine Local Organising Committees (LOCs) and the respective participating C&W Businesses. The Core Team's activities are geared towards supporting communication requirements and legacy solutions to enable ICC CWC 2007 to be "the Best Cricket World Cup Ever".