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Avaya was selected as the official supplier of network equipment for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi taking place in February. They are providing network, collaboration and communications equipment to deliver a fully-connected experience for athletes, dignitaries, sponsors and fans worldwide.

THE DESIGN CHALLENGE
A secure and robust simplified network is to be expected, but the design specifics for the greenfield Sochi site also included:

• Delivery of seamless connectivity for both mountain and coastal sites
• The creation of a secure BYOD environment for a range of different user groups. The 2014 games will be the first where network access will be largely wireless
• The ability to cope with pervasive video; mobile video streaming is expected to make a breakthrough at Sochi
• The flexibility to handle huge traffic peaks and provision additional capacity quickly as audience figures spike during flagship events
• The facility for media, athletes and coaches to consume 30 IPTV channels across the network and to simultaneously watch multiple live events.

VALUE CREATION
The design requirement extends beyond capability. For example, the new network should have:

• A simplified fabric-enabled network which is easy to deploy, manage and troubleshoot with anytime, anywhere access using any device
• The ability to provision new services and adjust existing services on the fly while using fewer IT resources than might be expected
• Provide a truly connected experience without compromising security.

AN IMPLEMENTATION OF OLYMPIC PROPORTIONS
During February the Black Sea resort of Sochi will host approximately 5,500 Olympic athletes and 25,000 volunteers. It is forecast to attract approximately three billion TV viewers. Of the 75,000 people expected to visit the park daily, many will be using bandwidth-hungry devices - which they will expect to work without fuss or interruption.

Avaya has delivered a network to provide a rich communications experience to athletes, dignitaries, sponsors and fans worldwide. The solution will raise the benchmark set by previous Olympic Games by delivering the first fabric-enabled network to provide anytime, anywhere access to content, from any device.

VIRTUALISED REALITY
The Avaya solution uses Avaya Virtual Enterprise Network Architecture (VENA) at its core, running from the advanced Avaya Virtual Services Hardware Platform 9000. Other solutions are added to facilitate the demands of this large scale event.

For example these fabric-enabled games will leverage Avaya's Fabric Connect technology to simplify the design, deployment and management of the network. Avaya VENA Fabric Connect, a solution based on the IEEE 802.1AQ Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) standard, simplifies network complexity by eliminating the need to configure multiple points throughout the network. With support for integrated and scalable multicast, High Definition IPTV video will be distributed to each broadcaster and to locations in and around Sochi using the fabric-enabled backbone.

Additionally, Unified Communications will be deployed via Avaya Aura, providing a common architecture and management for all communications, including voice and video. This will help to ensure that athletes can stay connected with their coaches and their families.

The BYOD requirement will be facilitated using Avaya Identity Engines, which will assign network access rights and permissions using a user's credentials and role. This will determine where they connect from and how. Credentials can range from certificates pre-installed in Organising Committee devices, IOC smartphones and captive portal log-on's for press and broadcasters. Users will then be placed securely into the proper virtualised network with the predetermined level of service.

Finally, connectivity will be achieved through extensive Wi-Fi access throughout both the mountain and coastal clusters. This will be based on the scalable Wireless LAN 8100 Series which is a real-time optimised and secure wireless networking solution and is based on the latest 802.11n wireless standard. Let the games begin!