Racing

The amazing world of F1™ technology Modern F1 could not exist without Contents computers…

IF EVER A point illustrated the importance of computers to Formula 1, it’s that you can’t even fire up an F1 car without a laptop. “0.1 of a second can be the difference The unquestionable fact is that advances in IT have made the cars faster, safer and THE ROOM wHERE iT among the most aerodynamically all bEgan After getting their entry to Formula 1 approved, the Team (then operating under the Lotus Racing banner) had just 22 weeks to make the first race of the 2010 season. Needing serious computing help, between winning and losing in . sophisticated machines on this planet. and fast, they ended up here at Cambridge University…

4 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with

The influence of technology touches every Dell p4-7 Began 9.1.indd 4-5 11/01/2012 15:40 corner of this beautifully complex sport. Where it all began Data analysis doesn’t get much Huge supercomputers the size of five fridges 04 How Dell and Cambridge perform billions of calculations within University helped create an F1 team more critical than that.” hours just so engineers can decide which of a hundred front wing endplates will work best. Mobile servers are lugged to every race

This is Antony Smith. to provide a mobile office for over 60 people, He is Caterham’s F1’s hardest worker trackside IT engineer. MikeMike GGascoyneascoyne And the team can’t go 20 times a year. Gigabytes of data travel racing without him… 20 The supercomputer that CChiefhief TTechnicalechnical OOffiffi ce rcer through virtually bulletproof laptops before thinks 163,000 times a second Caterham F1 Team being beamed back to a team’s base on the

8 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with

other side of the world, only milliseconds Dell p8-13 AnthonyS 9.1.indd 8-9 11/01/2012 15:41 after they’ve been collected. It’s a totally Antony Smith different sport to the one Juan Manual 08 An ordinary day in the life

MAs Head of IT for Caterham r F1, Bill Peters has to make I sure.T. everyone from car designers to aero boffins have the tools for the job. But that’s easy Fangio starred in back in 1950. of Caterham’s trackside IT engineer compared to getting the team up and running from scratch in just 22 weeks… But one of the great things about

Formula 1 is that it is always relentlessly Pity the fool? Bill Peters faced a tough job to set up The Dell Half-Rack. systems in record time It looks like a fridge freezer from Darth Vader’s Death Star, HOW THIS BOX and indeed the force is strong 26 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with within it. But this black box is not from the set of a sci-fi REVOLUTIONISED and unashamedly moving forward. Without blockbuster; it is the brains Dell p26-9 BillPeters 9.1.indd 26-27 11/01/2012 15:43 behind Caterham’s entire F1 RACE WEEKENDS trackside operation.

Without this black box, Caterham’s F1 cars wouldn’t even get assembled, let some of the truly mind-blowing equipment alone race. F1 Racing peers inside the mind-boggling world of Dell’s ‘Half-Rack’ Mr I.T. o what does this piece of kit towards the front of the grid,” estimates says Bill. “Engineers access these from do and why is it so important? Bill, “but I think some other teams have trackside and the factory. Rather than First of all, it powers the team’s seen how compact our rack is and are in having a physical server for every single Sentire trackside operation the process of reducing their footprint as application that you need to run, we have for the duration of a race weekend. well. Sending trackside equipment round some larger servers which run virtual “It contains our servers – where all our the world is a huge expense for F1 teams machines, inside which these applications computer power is – so all the trackside – probably far more significant than are run. It gives us the ability to shrink the laptops have their network provided by it,” people imagine.” amount of kit we take away with us and Just 22 weeks to get we celebrate in this supplement, that says Bill Peters, Caterham’s Head of IT. Senior IT Support Engineer Antony better manage that environment.” And, vitally, the half-rack collates and Smith agrees. “It has condensed our The half-rack has battery back-ups at processes all telemetry to enable the trackside operation down massively; its base to ensure it can be kept running 26 engineers to improve car and driver anything we can do to take up less space, in the event of any power issues, quite performance and optimise race strategy. less weight, less heat, it all helps us a common occurrence in F1 as it “The other major element within it is its because we’re really really tight on space depends on the infrastructure of the storage capability,” adds Bill. “We during a race weekend. In terms of the country hosting the race. “At the moment capture a huge amount of data from both practice sessions, qualifying and the race It makes the complex task of having to serve 60 people itself, and all of it has to be stored and run two racing cars surprisingly straightforward everything working? No problem! simply wouldn’t be possible. trackside. We also transfer it back to the factory in the UK from wherever the race weight, I think it costs the team in the we’re even looking into ways of having is.” This innocuous-looking cabinet is region of $100 per kilo to ship equipment external battery back-ups and shipping basically an entire IT infrastructure round the world for F1. These servers are those by sea freight to all the races, which that’s simply a smaller version of the pretty hefty and the UPSs that power them means we can avoid those heavy air freight team’s set-up back at the factory. are even heavier, so you can imagine that costs,” adds Bill. having a rack of servers that’s half the size Small footprints makes a big difference to us.” An easy start Taking about a week to build when the As for the equipment itself, it makes Fortunately for such a complicated and Caterham’s rack is roughly team was first assembled ahead of the the complex task of having to serve 60 impressive piece of equipment, it’s quite half the size of the ones 2010 season, one of its benefits is its size people and run two racing cars surprisingly easy to set up – and that’s good news for that other teams take to races, especially those at and reduced weight. “Our rack is roughly straightforward. “The half-rack runs what’s Caterham’s Senior IT Support Engineer the front of the grid half the size of the ones that some of the called a ‘virtual environment’, with 20 Antony Smith, who has to get it working other teams take to races, especially virtual servers, each doing specific tasks,” at every race. “It’s very easy to get

The Precision mobile In association with workstation is tough 14 F1 Racing February 2012 enough for life on Hans Seeberg, Editor, F1 Racing the Formula 1 grid Dell p14-17 HalfRack 9.1.indd 14-15 11/01/2012 15:42 Dell’s Half-rack 14 A little black box powerful enough to drive a Grand Prix team

Formula 1 is a harsh environment for a delicate piece of equipment like a portable computer – but this innocuous-looking PC can take anything Caterham throw at it

The power behind the passion Want to go racing? You’ll need some seriously impressive computing kit…

AT THE FACToRY The hPC suPerComPuTer ConsisTs oF: inSiDE An F1 Team 186 Dell PowereDge servers 100Tb 250 30 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with SToRAgE Caterham F1 Team employees, which 1kmthe length of cabling that caterham Dell p30-33 Laptop 9.1.indd 30-31 11/01/2012 15:43 EnougH To KEEP six monThs 1,488 Intel Xeon cores WoRTH oF CFD WoRK on iT includes ten IT staff lays to connect its It equipment at races The team’s Capable of: WhICh results In: IT kit for Grands Prix can all fit into just 70-100 numbER oF iT ‘man-hours’ 10,000,000,000 one truck 400x 1 REquiRED PER gRAnD PRix Hard case C alCulatIons 200 pictures faster AT THE FACToRY oTher ComPuTing F1 Racing Art Editors In seventeen hours}eight videos than your PC at home Dell Precision Dell optiplex the team generates high-powered desktops standard desktops 20 gigabytes 45 sixTy 60 of data over a race weekend Virtual servers The laptop that can handle

Magazine Editor Ben Serbutt, TRACKSiDE The iT seTuP 30 Dell PowerEdge servers 2 0 6 5} Physical servers Hans Seeberg Mikey Carr THE HALF-RACK: anything that Formula 1 throws at it

TwenTy storage Trackside using Dell EqualLogic Dell PowereDge virTual servers 100 tW entY Dell PowerConnect switches 1 0Dell powerconnect switches HUNDRED HigH2-PoWERED 0 Dell laTiTuDe Account Director Contributors half the size DELL PRECiSion 30TerabyTes

of other teams’ racks laPToPs 1 0 T b LAPT oPS Emma Shortt Stuart Codling storage using Dell equallogic 18 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with F1 Racing Custom Production Manager Dell p18-19 Info 9.1.indd 18-19 11/01/2012 15:42 IT power Group Editor Helen Spinney “We could feasibly get THE CLOUD: to the stage where we don’t have to take much F1’s FUTUrE? IT kit to a race. It could reduce Caterham’s Steve Bidmead Images All the IT equipment you In a sport where gaining tenths of a second is vital, teams are 18 looking to advances in IT to give them the edge – and save money overheads massively.” ormula One may be a test of a where data and information is stored would allow us to focus more on the so it would be very much a phased thing But in a sport as secretive as Formula systems as bulletproof and available as driver’s ability, man and machine and accessed on remote servers, rather application side of things which is where for an operation like an F1 team,” reasons One, are there any potential drawbacks of possible. In a sport like Formula One, where in harmony under extreme than on physical machines owned by F1 the real value is for an F1 team – because Bill. “You would be using someone else’s handing sensitive data to a third party? Bill a third of Caterham F1 staff can be travelling Sub Editor LAT Photographic, Fcircumstances, but all those teams themselves. the main thing in this job is helping the equipment and have your applications Peters doesn’t think so. at any one time, that’s a huge benefit.” daring overtaking moves, fast qualifying “Within the IT industry, you hear engineers get more performance out of hosted remotely, with users connecting “We would embrace this! We already Antony Smith, the team’s Senior IT need to set up your own team laps and breathtaking straight-line a lot of talk about the Cloud and this is the car. So if we could focus our attention into that remotely. Now obviously all have a complete back-up email system in Support Engineer, agrees. “The progress I’ve speeds would not be possible without something we’re investigating with Dell on looking after the applications that do that depends on having a very good the Cloud. If our email system goes down seen in F1 IT in the last ten years has been computers. Ever since the days when at the moment,” he says. “It means that that rather than worrying about whether communications infrastructure, but if in the factory, we can fail it over to the incredible, in terms of the links and the championship-winning cars were created instead of having lots of local applications the back-ups have been done or whether you think about it, if we had everything Cloud and people can still get email and the WAN (wide area network) connections that ® in oily garages no larger than Caterham’s and huge amounts of investment in a particular server is performing as well hosted in the Cloud, managed by Dell, and trackside operation can still continue to we use,” he says. “The Cloud is incredible; Jon Crampin DELL Inc. HPC room at Hingham, such as the shed infrastructure and storage at the factory, as it should be, it would be a better use it was accessible all over the world, we could work through that connectivity,” he says. the slight issue in F1 is that we never know in which built his first car you have your things hosted by a third of our resources.” feasibly get to the stage where we don’t have “The way I can see it happening is that what our WAN connection is going to be like four decades ago, Formula 1 has been party and many of your applications One of the other benefits could to take much kit to a race. It could reduce initially you use it for remote access and at a racetrack. If we had everything in the reliant on them. hosted as a service. Something like ultimately be a reduction in the amount Caterham’s overheads massively. support as a form of back-up. Cloud and we lost our connection it would be See how Dell and Intel helped Caterham F1 Team Like any other industry, IT is Google Mail, for example, is essentially of IT equipment Caterham takes to a “It may not happen within the next “But also you could use it for extra storage tricky. The thing with F1 is that when you’re constantly evolving and progressing, and a Cloud-based service. There’s definitely race; an interesting avenue given that couple of years, but I can see it happening demands – we have huge amounts of data, at a race you can’t control something like a more advanced IT systems mean better a trend of businesses moving towards the team already powers its trackside eventually. You’d probably always need for example, so if we ever ran out of storage digger ripping through a pipe into the circuit, and faster racing cars. According to Bill this route,” Peters concludes. operations with one of the most compact a certain residual capability back at base we could use some of the extra capacity on which is what happened in India last year. Peters, Caterham’s Head of IT, one of the “This means we could essentially have racks of servers in the F1 paddock. so that you could carry on if you lost your the Cloud, or archive things there to give us “But there’s no doubt about it: the biggest potential changes on the horizon resources we can turn on and off and help “Ultimately using the Cloud would communications for a period of time, but more storage in the factory. At the end of the Cloud is a fantastic idea for reducing costs deploy an enterprise-class IT system able to do real-time is the rise in the use of Cloud technology, us to scale things much more easily; it mean having less physical equipment, it’s certainly a very interesting thought.” day, all we’re trying to do is make our and equipment.” © F1 Racing Custom. Formula One, Formula 1 34 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with analysis of data sent from the car, while withstanding the and F1 (trademarks of Formula One Licensing “Imagine building an Dell p34-35 Future 9.1.indd 34-35 11/01/2012 15:44 intense heat and vibration of the Formula 1™ trackside BV, a company) are used The Cloud: F1’s future? under licence. Material from this magazine office in a different environment. Learn more at TeamDellRacing.com. 34 The new technology that must not be reproduced without the prior location 20 times a is taking Formula One by storm permission of the publisher. All information correct at time of going to press. All images year – that’s my job!” date from 2010 and 2011 seasons. Antony Smith, p8

Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. In association with

Dell_EIT_Caterham_205mmx275mm_PRINT.indd 1 1/12/2012 11:31:44 AM THE ROOM wHERE iT all bEgan After getting their entry to Formula 1 approved, the Caterham F1 Team (then operating under the Lotus Racing banner) had just 22 weeks to make the first race of the 2010 season. Needing serious computing help, and fast, they ended up here at Cambridge University…

4 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with implementation of their system, we had to understand what kind of calculations they wanted to perform, how they wanted to do them and what sort of turnaround they wanted,” says Paul. “We worked with them and Dell to advise them, and I think they ended up with a great machine.” A great machine it is, but modest in size compared to the one at the university. The Cambridge HPC’s 3,584 cores dwarf the 1,488 in the Caterham one, giving it roughly five times the power. It’s currently getting an upgrade that will give it around 9,600 cores and return it to the top 50 of the world’s top 500 supercomputers. It was a tough period for Caterham F1, but thanks to Dell and the team at Cambridge, they must have broken a record for making an F1 car from start to finish in the modern era. “I’ve had about 15 years experience in this industry, so I knew the suppliers that were out there when we were starting up,” says Bill. “With Dell, we started talking to “I’ve had experience them in November and we’d signed up with Dell before so I with them the following month. I’ve had experience with them before so I knew their knew their support support and reliability was great, but they and reliability was moved heaven and earth for us.” The sight of and Jarno great, but they Trulli lining up on the grid in Bahrain 2010 moved heaven and was an incredible feat of organization, Getting Trulli and Kovalainen tenacity and hard work. But don’t on the grid for the first race of 2010 was an incredible feat earth for us.” underestimate the importance of the blue room in getting them there.

Formula 1 car normally the team could never have made it to that “Also, with the deadlines they were It meant that during the winter of 2009, takes up to nine months first race of the season. working to, it wouldn’t have been possible the team were in Cambridge constantly as to make, from initial The HPC (High-Performance Computing) for Dell or anyone else to supply them with a they worked frantically around the clock sketches through to cluster at Cambridge is an impressive piece big enough machine in time,” says Paul. “So to get the car ready. “They were here for the machine being fired of kit – and just what the newly-born team the idea was that we’d supply them with time about six months in the end,” laughs Paul. up for the first time. So needed. “In 2006, this used to be the biggest on our system initially, and then they’d “We actually ended up renting them some you can imagine the academic system in the country and the eventually migrate over to their machine.” office space in Cambridge for a while task facing Caterham 20th biggest in the world,” says Paul Calleja, Bill Peters, Caterham F1’s Head of IT, because they were here so often!” AF1 (then called Lotus Racing) in September the university’s Head of HPC. remembers the Cambridge period well. Paul and his colleagues at Cambridge 2009, when they first learned that they had “It was even faster than the HPCx National “As soon as we’d sorted out our trackside even ended up helping Caterham F1 been given an entry for the 2010 season. They Supercomputer in Edinburgh. It’s normally IT environment, we kicked off work with the with the design of their HPC. “They’ve had four staff, no equipment – and 22 weeks used for lots of work in biology, chemistry supercomputer around the same time as we got a lot of experience with using Dell until the first race of the season in Bahrain. and astronomy – there are astronomers here started getting the factory up and running,” supercomputers, so they were very much That they made the grid for that grand using the machine to analyze data they get he says. “You have to build a physical involved with giving us advice about our prix – and managed to secure the ‘best of from satellites and people doing jet engine environment to house a supercomputer, equipment,” reasons Bill. It meant that Paul the new teams’ tag by the end of the 2010 simulations. It’s even being used by a team and it’s a very complex system. At the same needed to dip his toe into the world of F1 season – is an incredible story in itself. that link into the work going on at CERN time, the company was recruiting CFD and CFD to find out what the team wanted. But instrumental to those two cars being with sub-atomic particles.” engineers to help get the cars ready for the “To help them with the design and designed and made was this intriguing- The machine was more than up to the first race of the season, so they needed tools

looking blue room at Cambridge University. complex equations the F1 team needed for to use. That’s why we made use of the HPC From day one, Dell has worked with Caterham, Without it and its giant Dell supercomputer, the CFD work on their 2010 car. facility at Cambridge University.” formerly called , to find IT solutions

6 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with This is Antony Smith. He is Caterham’s trackside IT engineer. And the team can’t go racing without him…

8 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with Antony gets the team’s “Imagine pitwall IT up and running An F1 car can’t even run without well ahead of the race building an being fired up by a laptop, so office in a the role of a Senior IT Support Engineer is vital. This is a diary different of Antony’s typical race weekend location 20 times a year – that’s essentially what my job at the race is”

hen you turn on your TV on a Sunday Wto watch an F1 race, an incredible amount of work has been going on behind the scenes to get those 24 cars on the grid – and few jobs in the sport are more vital than that of Antony Smith. He is Caterham’s ‘Senior IT Support Engineer,’ or, as we like to call it, ‘The bloke who gets the team’s entire IT infrastructure in the pitlane up and running so that the FRIDAY cars can run’ (although admittedly that would be slightly lengthy for a business card). His job is literally this: set up the entire network and computers for 60-odd people – “For a European race our trucks would on the grid – and all teams are limited on By Tuesday lunchtime I’ll usually have and very quickly. normally set off from the factory on a how many people they can take to a race – all the servers up and running, which is “It is a stressful job,” says Antony. “Everything hinges Sunday, although what makes the race at Caterham F1 has a culture of ‘mucking in’. very useful because ours are condensed on me in the early part of the week in the setting up of the Silverstone a bit different is that our three My job really kicks in once the trucks have into just three machines. Not only is this equipment, and then I suppose everything hinges on me race trucks are all at Kemble Airfield in the been unloaded and I can get on with setting handy for me but when you have to pay for the rest of the week in a way as well because we can’t south-west of , due to us doing up the IT. I’m the only person who does this. $100 per kilo to transport things, it’s send the cars out if the computers aren’t working properly. straightline testing in the days before the When people ask me what it involves I say, pretty handy for the team’s budget too. One of the reasons there’s so much pressure is because race. If it’s a race somewhere like Italy or ‘Imagine building an office in a different By Wednesday a lot of the team are you can never say no! You can’t turn round to someone Germany I’ll usually get to the country location about 20 times a year’ – that’s starting to get to the track and everyone and say, ‘Sorry, I can’t get the network going’ – it’s always early on the Monday afternoon and head essentially what my job at the race is. has to be to the circuit by 8am on the got to work, simple as that. to the track – straight from the plane in a The tricky thing is that all circuits are Thursday, so the entire IT operation has “The other thing is the hours – you’re easily working lot of cases! The urgent thing I need to do different, and even if you go back to the same to be running smoothly by then. 16-18 hour days quite a few days in a row at a race, and is get to the garage to start laying the one you went to last year someone will It’s quite a lot of pressure, I suppose, that’s very tiring. But even during the two-week summer cabling to get the power and network in. probably have trashed what you put in, or and it’s even more intense when there’s a break that F1 has there’s stuff to do – there’s no holiday in When I get to a circuit, the first thing I do you’ll be in a different garage altogether. back-to-back race [races on consecutive IT, you know! Plus you’ll walk past someone and they’ll is start unloading the trucks with the So I always have to start from scratch. weekends]. The cars need to be rebuilt want their machine fixing – you can never escape! But truckies. As well as the three race trucks We have our own electricians who put in between each race because they are set up it’s a great job.” there are three support trucks, and all the the 63amp 3-phase power feeds which are differently for each circuit, and to do that In Antony’s own words, this is what he gets up to IT equipment is in there somewhere; I can’t mainly for the tires, but we also have to have the engineers and mechanics need build throughout a race weekend while you’re watching the access it until everything’s been unloaded. solid power for the racks and the entire sheets to tell them what specification they’ll action unfold at home… So before I do anything computer related garage. I have to make sure this power isn’t be building the cars to. To get these build I’m usually helping to build the garage, sort flaky in any way, because the power can be sheets, they need the network. Everyone As soon as the team’s IT equipment is unloaded the paneling and generally helping out. really up and down at some circuits and that relies on communications – in F1 you can’t from the trucks, Anthony has sole responsibility for setting it all up – or “building the office” Because we’re not the biggest-budget team can impact on how everything runs. even turn the car on without a computer.”

10 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with SATURDAY

“The strange thing about my job trackside Of course there can also be issues, but is that by the time Saturday comes they’re usually pretty simple things like around, the main part of my work has running out of disk space on machines. been done because the entire IT People are also under a lot of pressure, infrastructure is up and running. Quite and sometimes issues that you might unlike most other people in Caterham, solve quite easily with a machine are Saturday and Sunday should be my not as simple to deal with when you’re quietest days – in theory at least. I have to trying to analyze mountains of tire data. say that setting all this up does get easier There are 60 users who want quite a lot “The few hours after the as we go through the season: for the first of my time, and it’s my job to help them few races it can be a bit frantic, but if I and make sure everything’s running race are still incredibly haven’t got things working smoothly by correctly for them. By the time the race starts much of Antony’s vital for the engineers, so the time the Canadian Grand Prix rolls Elsewhere I’ll generally be making work is complete, but he the IT infrastructure has around in June, I’m in big trouble! sure everything is working at its best, can’t switch off just yet One of the main things I have to do that there are no bottlenecks anywhere to work just as flawlessly” throughout the weekend is make sure the in the system, that nothing unnecessary data gets back to the team at the factory in is clogging up the bandwidth and that SUNDAY England without any problems. We have every piece of equipment has the right acceleration software to help with this; amount of power it should have. I say it’s we’re sending a phenomenal amount of my quietest period, but ultimately you’re “Usually Saturday passes without too much Another task that needs doing is that all packing everything up and getting out of the 3pm, and if things go smoothly we’ll get out data across the world and there’ll only be still talking about 80 PCs just to run two incident, and Sunday is the same – the vital parts on the car have to be ‘lifed’ – we have to circuit is that immediately after the race, the of the circuit by 10pm. a time delay of 40-400 milliseconds. racing cars, so there’s still a lot to do…” part of my role has been performed earlier in know how many miles each part has done cars go to a place called Parc Fermé. This is The thing about my job is that it doesn’t the week. Unfortunately I can’t just switch because they all have a certain lifespan, and an official area run by the FIA where the cars really stop. I mean, the races take up a whole Antony is responsible for getting the IT off the network as soon as the checkered flag after a certain mileage they will either have are inspected thoroughly to make sure they weekend but we fly out to get there quite a bit infrastructure up falls though, because lots of people in the to be reconditioned or discarded. are the correct weight and dimensions, to beforehand – for somewhere like Australia and running before the drivers can get team still need to use it. On top of this, data still has to be sent back ensure that everyone has adhered to the I’ll fly out on the Saturday before. You’d onto the track The few hours after the race are still to the factory in the UK for further analysis rules. So we don’t even see the cars until at think that the off-season would be very quiet incredibly vital for the engineers, so the IT and we also have to wait to receive official least two-and-a-half hours after the race. for someone like me, but it’s the only time we infrastructure has to work just as flawlessly track data from the FIA and FOM, who run I’ve tried to optimize things so that get to do anything to the equipment. While a long after the winning teams have finished the sport. All this means that I won’t switch people can work on the network as long as lot of people might be winding down a celebrating on the podium. Race engineers off the network until around four hours after possible and I’ll give some people a WiFi couple of weeks before Christmas, we’re might not be analyzing live data at this stage, the race – and even then people are still connection so they can still be online once making plans to improve all our equipment but they still have to compile reports and saying, ‘Don’t turn it off – I still need it!’ the network has been switched off. A for the 2012 season because it has to be up send them to various people. One of the other things that delays us European race will be finished by about and running by the end of January.”

A WEEK IN Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday, Saturday and Sunday THE LIFE OF “If it’s a flyaway like Australia, “Normally this is for cabling “Time to get the engineers’ “I’ll get the pitwall up and “This is practice, qualifying ANTONY SMITH we’ve got to set up everything the entire garage, including office sorted, because they tested, and all of our TV and the race. Obviously I’ve The manic working life from scratch – cables, tables, all the connections to the need a very high performance feeds too because there got to be on hand if there of a trackside IT guru chairs, the lot. Then it’s setting cars. It’s basically sorting network. We have this office are an awful lot of those. are any issues – then it’s during a Formula 1 race the network up and getting out anyone who needs a in a single box to make it We get the feed from the just a case of packing it all the WiFi working so everyone wired connection.” easier, so we can just wheel circuit, put it onto our up and going home…” can access their emails it in and throw the cables in. network and then feed it without me having to get a We’ll also get the marketing out to whoever needs it.” load of cabling out!” team up and running.”

12 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with The Dell Half-Rack. It looks like a fridge freezer from Darth Vader’s Death Star, HOW THIS BOX and indeed the force is strong within it. But this black box is not from the set of a sci-fi REVOLUTIONIZED blockbuster; it is the brains behind Caterham’s entire F1 RACE WEEKENDS trackside operation.

Without this black box, Caterham’s F1 cars wouldn’t even get assembled, let alone race. F1 Racing peers inside the mind-boggling world of Dell’s ‘Half-Rack’

o what does this piece of kit towards the front of the grid,” estimates tasks,” says Bill. “Engineers access these do and why is it so important? Bill, “but I think some other teams have from trackside and the factory. Rather than First of all, it powers the team’s seen how compact our rack is and are in having a physical server for every single Sentire trackside operation the process of reducing their footprint as application that you need to run, we have for the duration of a race weekend. well. Sending trackside equipment round some larger servers which run virtual “It contains our servers – where all our the world is a huge expense for F1 teams machines, inside which these applications computer power is – so all the trackside – probably far more significant than are run. It gives us the ability to shrink the laptops have their network provided by it,” people imagine.” amount of kit we take away with us and says Bill Peters, Caterham’s Head of IT. Senior IT Support Engineer Antony better manage that environment.” And, vitally, the half-rack collates and Smith agrees. “It has condensed our The half-rack has battery back-ups at processes all telemetry to enable the trackside operation down massively; its base to ensure it can be kept running engineers to improve car and driver anything we can do to take up less space, in the event of any power issues, quite performance and optimize race strategy. less weight, less heat, it all helps us a common occurrence in F1 as it “The other major element within it is because we’re really really tight on space depends on the infrastructure of the its storage capability,” adds Bill. “We during a race weekend. In terms of the country hosting the race. “At the moment capture a huge amount of data from both practice sessions, qualifying and the It makes the complex task of having to serve 60 people race itself, and all of it has to be stored and run two racing cars surprisingly straightforward trackside. We also transfer it back to the factory in the UK from wherever the race weight, I think it costs the team in the we’re even looking into ways of having is.” This innocuous-looking cabinet is region of $100 per kilo to ship equipment external battery back-ups and shipping basically an entire mini IT infrastructure round the world for F1. These servers are those by sea freight to all the races, which that’s simply a smaller version of the pretty hefty and the UPSs that power them means we can avoid those heavy air freight team’s set-up back at the factory. are even heavier, so you can imagine that costs,” adds Bill. having a rack of servers that’s half the size Small footprints makes a big difference to us.” An easy start Taking about a week to build when the As for the equipment itself, it makes the Fortunately for such a complicated and Caterham’s rack is roughly team was first assembled ahead of the complex task of having to serve 60 people impressive piece of equipment, it’s quite half the size of the ones 2010 season, one of its benefits is its size and run two racing cars surprisingly easy to set up – and that’s good news for that other teams take to races, especially those at and reduced weight. “Our rack is roughly straightforward. “The half-rack runs Caterham’s Senior IT Support Engineer the front of the grid half the size of the ones that some of the what’s called a ‘virtual environment’, with Antony Smith, who has to get it working other teams take to races, especially 20 virtual servers, each doing specific at every race. “It’s very easy to get

14 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with started,” he says, “because at a track we equipment. “We did a lot of tinkering Increasing the size of the virtual get provided with our WAN (wide area with the half-rack after last season had machines, giving them more memory network) connection back to the UK and finished,” admits Antony. “We spent a and reallocating more processors to that’s the same every race – it’s just one lot of the off-season expanding what it them has been important; if you’re a cable. It takes longer to unpack the half- can do, changing the storage so it has data engineer at the track you’ll now have rack from the truck than it does to get more capacity, increasing the memory more power in your machine to process everything up and running. On a flyaway, to allow us to run more virtual machines the data live. This is vital for next year I can have the servers up and running by – just tweaking it and making it better. because our cars will be running KERS Monday lunchtime if everything goes It has been working brilliantly for the and this could potentially double our well – and that’s if I get there on a past two seasons, but all IT equipment data. At the moment we generate 20GB Monday morning. But by that time needs updating. of data in a race weekend, which all has we’ll have people coming in wanting “For example, on the half-rack we’ve to go back to the UK from wherever we to use it, so it’s got to be that quick.” been doubling up its capacity, going to are. And it’s not only a Given the nature of F1 and its newer higher-tech parts that will be question of that doubling – relentless march forwards, nothing stays smaller and generate less heat – basically there’ll be more complex the same for long – and it’s the same just tightening everything up and The team’s rack is constantly simulation models on the data, with a team like Caterham’s Dell IT improving things for the people who use it. updated, improving its capacity which will put a lot more strain on the and performance at race weekends virtual environment.”

Sensitive side Such an important and sensitive piece ANATOMY OF A HALF-RACK of kit needs some serious looking after, It’s slightly more complicated than your average computer especially given that it’s constantly being lugged around the globe and pushed in and out of trucks. That’s why it’s got a

Two Dell PowerConnect switches, At the moment we generate 20GB which are the core of the network – of data in a race weekend, and that all routing is done on these could potentially double next year

specially made outside case, built out of aircraft-spec aluminum honeycomb; A Dell PowerEdge™ R710 rack inside, it has suspended anti-vibration mounts to stop it getting knocked around. A keyboard and screen – “because server, a normal server that The one thing Bill, Antony or Dell can’t we always need to be able to get at acts as the machine’s back-up stop? The half-rack getting absolutely it and operate it,” says Antony filthy. “You’ve got to remember that it’s not kept in a nice server room – it’s out in Three Dell PowerEdge™ R710 rack the real world at a racetrack so it gets servers act as ‘physical’ hosts, caked in dust and sand and all sorts of with about 20 virtual hosts nasty stuff,” laughs Antony. “That means running off those under VMware. it needs cleaning – I have to take it apart “That saves us from having and get the vacuum cleaner to it. It takes a Two Dell Force10 switches for the SAN 20 separate machines, which whole day to do, because everything’s got would be enormous,” says Bill to come out. The servers have to be Two Dell EqualLogic SANS for removed, the hard drives have to be cleaned and the fans have to be taken storage – one of them has solid Two APC UPSs (Uninterruptible state discs and the other has apart and cleaned because there’s a Power Supplies) give power The half-rack gets caked lot of air going through them and they conventional spinning discs. The resilience and prevent in ‘nasty stuff’ on its solid state gives the half-rack its travels, so Caterham have pick up a lot of dirt that ultimately stops blackouts, sags or surges to pack a vacuum cleaner speed, and hosts all of the virtual them from cooling everything.” machines, while the spinning discs Small, money-saving and capable of give all the capacity. “It’s the best of allowing 60 engineers, managers and strategists to work non-stop, and two F1 both worlds for performance and cars to race at full tilt, for an entire Grand storage,” says Antony Prix weekend. Pretty impressive for something that’s just five feet tall.

16 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with The power behind the passion Want to go racing? You’ll need some seriously impressive computing kit…

aT THe faCTorY The hPC suPerComPuTer ConsisTs oF: INSIde aN F1 Team 186 Dell PowereDge servers 100Tb 250 STorage Caterham F1 Team employees, which 1kmThe length of cabling that Caterham eNougH To Keep six monThs 1,488 InTel Xeon Cores WorTH of Cfd WorK oN IT includes ten IT staff lays to connect its IT equipment at races The team’s Capable of: WhICh results In: IT kit for Grands Prix can all fit into just 70-100 Number of IT ‘man-hours’ 10,000,000,000 one truck 400x 1 requIred per graNd prIx C alCulatIons 200 pictures faster aT THe faCTorY oTher ComPuTing In seventeen hours}eight videos than your pC at home Dell Precision dell optiplex the team generates high-powered desktops standard desktops 20 gigabytes 45 sixTy 60 of data over a race weekend Virtual servers

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Dell PowerEdge servers 2 0 6 5 Physical servers

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TwenTy storage Trackside using d Dell PowereDge virTual servers 100 T WenTY dell powerConnect switches 1 0Dell powerconnect switches HUNDRED HIgH2-poWered 0 Dell laTiTuDe half the size deLL preCISIoN 30TerabyTes of other teams’ racks laPToPs 1 0 T b L apTopS storage using Dell equallogic

18 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with Never sleeps, never eats, no tea breaks... meet the hardest worker in Formula 1

Think you’ve got a lot on your plate? Spare a thought for Caterham’s supercomputer. When analyzing how potential new car parts will perform, it can make an astonishing 163,398 calculations per second, 24 hours a day, seven days a week

20 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with Caterham F1’s High Thanks to this technology, Performance Computer helps the team’s designers to analyze new car parts Caterham can dismiss any ideas that aren’t going to make their cars go faster

186 separate machines have been joined together to make one big one, with each one having 24 GB of RAM

Despite making an almighty racket when operating at full tilt, the HPC still manages to concentrate on millions of equations

hat is Caterham’s but the software that we run works very technology that creates a completely engineers can then see which endplate supercomputer? well with them.” accurate replica of the car to provide the performed best, and the part can be The supercomputer – or That is essentially all the machine consists team with detailed analysis of how potential physically made in order to be tested further. W HPC (High Performance of in terms of its number crunching new parts will perform aerodynamically. The main benefit of using the Dell Computing) to give it its technical name – capabilities, although on top of that there are There’s only one way to do this: perform supercomputer is saving time. In the ‘old is comprised of 186 Dell servers, with each three large servers that do what they call the several billion partial differential equations. days’ of F1, before technology like this server having eight cores – that’s 1,488 ‘visualization work’ in F1. “These servers That’s where the supercomputer comes in. existed, teams would have to hand-make Intel CPUs (Central Processing Units). take the data from the other 186 servers and The team might feed it a hundred slightly all the parts to be tested – incredibly time- “The core is effectively your mathematics produce the results in the form of pictures, different versions of the same part, such as a consuming, much more expensive and processor – a calculator, in other words,” videos and graphs,” says Geoff. “This helps front wing endplate, with the aim of finding nowhere near as comprehensive. says Caterham’s Geoff Dunk, whose job it our engineers see what they’re looking for, out which one is best. Over the following Nowadays a team like Caterham can is to look after the HPC environment. “Each because millions and millions of numbers 17 hours, the HPC cluster will do over ten instantly dismiss ideas that aren’t going core does a portion of the maths; we join mean nothing to anybody.” billion calculations, eventually whittling to make their car go any faster round the those cores together to be able to calculate them down to around 800 million pieces track, all it takes is 17 hours in their Dell larger problems in a shorter space of time. What is it used for? of data. Rather than just present these on HPC cluster. We use Intel Xeon cores, which you could The HPC cluster’s role as a gigantic number a spreadsheet, the final two hours of the Dell technology plays a vital role in making actually go out and buy if you wanted to – cruncher has only one purpose in F1: process is called ‘Post Pro’, which condenses How was it made? Caterham’s F1 cars as you’d certainly have a very quick machine if to help out with Computational Fluid all the information into around eight videos, Supercomputers are entirely bespoke fast as they can be you did. Not only are these incredibly good, Dynamics, or CFD as it is known. It’s a 200 pictures and some graphs. The CFD machines made to the individual

22 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with In 2011, an F1 specifications of the team is capable of and storing bits and be as fast as they can be out on track, which hours a day, 365 days a year. “It usually has says Geoff. “Basically, blue lights are onto something else in the factory to make customer, and are performing approximately pieces on it. But is what matters in this game.” a maximum of six 17-hour ‘jobs’ running good and orange lights are bad. We way for a new one. The replacement would used in everything because everything through it at any one time, meaning every do occasionally get them and we do just be made from the latest current from stock markets on the HPC is set in What if it breaks down? single one of the 186 servers is being used,” sometimes get hardware failures; it’s hardware; I’d imagine that would be in place to weather prediction. 100x stone, it doesn’t Next to the supercomputer is a slightly odd explains Geoff. “You tend to find that end of very rare, but you have to remember that sometime next year, because three years is This one took about more work on a get any slower,” sight: sixty 24-volt batteries which look play on a Friday is a very busy time for it, these things are running flat-out all the the maximum for a piece of IT equipment two months to build supercomputer than it explains Geoff. identical to the ones you might put in your because we’ll load it up to do a variety of time. It’s on for 365 days of the year. in F1 before you want to update it. before it was installed would have been able to “The other great thing road car but slightly more robust. The reason jobs over the weekend. Because of the Even though it’s not doing anything car- “The thing about technology is that it at the team’s factory in do ten years ago about our HPC is that for this is simple: if there’s a power cut, the amount of fans the HPC needs to keep it related during the two-week shutdown in moves on, so a machine that has a slightly April 2010 – with a further when we started talking to HPC won’t immediately stop working. cool, you need earplugs if you spend any August, I take this time as an opportunity smaller footprint would probably give us two months required to tune Dell about what we needed it to “If this happens, these 60 batteries length of time in the room – and a coat, to do some maintenance checks on it, do the same power and a machine that’s bigger it to get it running at its be able to do, we didn’t go for some won’t keep the supercomputer going on because it can get pretty cold.” a few updates, things like that. It’s hard would give us more power. The thing about optimum performance. sort of incredibly cutting edge set-up – this indefinitely,” explains Geoff. “They only The only time of the year the to do all these updates at any other time this machine is that we can’t make it any “You have to spend a lot of time tuning is standard, tried and tested Dell kit that power it for a total of 12 minutes, but that supercomputer isn’t in use is during F1’s of the year because it is always in use, faster now. I’d say our aim for the next a supercomputer,” admits Geoff. “That’s a lot of businesses around the world use. buys me enough time to shut the machine enforced two-week shutdown in August, although I can take a few servers off at supercomputer we get from Dell would due to the fact that you need to keep the If you start pushing the boundaries with down properly. HPCs don’t like being where teams are not allowed to do any work any time to do maintenance if I need to.” be to do a 17-hour CFD job in around ten machine as free as possible for memory computer equipment it can become turned on and off, but if you have to do it, relating to the car in a bid to cut the cost of hours,” says Geoff. and disk space so that it can be as fast as unreliable, and that’s not going to work you need to make sure it is done correctly.” competing in the sport. Will it be replaced? “Getting information about new parts on possible for what we need it for – crunching for us when we’ve got so much of our “We’re now two years in with this the same day rather than the following numbers. Your PC at home will probably development going through this machine all How often is it running? What maintenance does it need? supercomputer, so we need to start looking morning could make a massive difference get slower and slower the older it gets, the time. That decision has really benefited No piece of equipment in Formula 1 works “I have to do daily visual checks on the at an updated tech refresh version of it to us, because F1 is all about saving time – because you’ll be downloading applications the team and ultimately allowed our cars to harder than the supercomputer: it’s on 24 HPC to ensure it is functioning properly,” soon,” admits Geoff. “We could put this one both on and off the track.”

F1 is about constant improvement, which is why the supercomputer runs 365 days of the year

It usually has a maximum of six 17-hour ‘jobs’ running through it at any one time, The team can analyse virtual parts rather than meaning every single one of having to physically make the 186 servers is being used models at their factory

24 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with MAs Head of IT for Caterham r F1, Bill Peters has to make I sure .T. everyone from car designers to aero boffins have the tools for the job. But that’s easy compared to getting the team up and running from scratch in just 22 weeks…

Pity the fool? Bill Peters faced a tough job to set up systems in record time

26 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with It’s September 2009, and the Lotus Racing team has just had its entry into the 2010 Formula 1 World Championship accepted. Brilliant. All they are missing is a pair of drivers, two cars and a team of people to make them.

Team members demand How long after Dell came on board was it At the other end of the spectrum and now we’ve spent a lot of time putting fast, reliable IT during that you had what you’d call a proper you’ve got something like the marketing resilience into our systems to make sure the race weekend working IT infrastructure? department. They need lightweight laptops we’ve got disaster recovery and things like In terms of the numbers of people we that don’t require that much power but that. But F1 is a business where things are needed for that first year, with fully need to be able to communicate anywhere constantly evolving and being improved, functioning trackside, factory and HPC because marketing are very mobile users. and that includes the IT side of things. facilities, we were more or less up to strength Then you’ve got the race team which is We have to be constantly looking to the by about May 2010. Not bad, really. a mixture of the two: mobile users who future to make sure we can support the need a lot of power. They have incredibly latest and greatest applications that our What are the main challenges of being powerful laptops. In between all this there’s engineering and design guys want to use. Head of IT for an F1 team? a whole spectrum of people with a different It’s probably not dissimilar to being Head set of needs; finance users, for example, What if something goes wrong with one of of IT for a major corporation or a small have pretty standard computing needs. the machines or even the supercomputer? manufacturing business. The main thing That’s not really the sort of thing you can you need is to have visibility across the How does the relationship between take to PC World to fix, is it? business, because IT touches every part of Caterham and Dell work on a Not really! Right from the outset we’ve had

hey were also without any IT So Bill, it’s the end of 2009 and there are It took a few late nights it these days. You need to have a good grasp day-to-day level? this thing called Dell ProSupport, which equipment or, for that matter, an IT team. under three months to go until the first race to get the team’s IT of the problems and issues each department It’s an ongoing relationship, really. While provides us with support 24 hours a day, Getting a company’s IT infrastructure up of the season. What was the first thing you systems up and running faces, so you can provide the tools for people we got everything up and running for that seven days a week, 365 days a year – so and running usually takes at least a year – did to get the team up to speed IT-wise? to be able to do their jobs. first season and it did the job, there weren’t anywhere in the world, whatever time of day, especially for something as bespoke and Well, normally there would be a process For me, that means understanding how huge amounts of resilience built in and not we can get help. We’ve used it too – it could complex as that required in Formula 1. for building an infrastructure in a business people like aerodynamicists and designers a lot of process available. In between then be during a race weekend and 3 or 4am at Team Lotus had 22 weeks until the five like an F1 team: you’d get the factory work. It’s a pretty complicated job but it’s our factory in the UK and we can have Dell red lights went out in Bahrain. infrastructure in place first, then the a great one too. I mean, I love racing and people available to us. Bill Peters joined the team now called trackside up and running followed by the I love IT – bringing those two together is It also includes them bringing hardware Caterham F1 as Head of IT in October 2009 various other systems layer upon layer. a bit of a dream job really. replacements to us within four hours, and was, as he recalls, only the eighth person What we had to do was put that whole manufacturing things like purchasing and wherever we are in the world. Coupled with in the entire company to be brought on process in reverse and get the trackside finance, CAD, data acquisition systems and So presumably different departments that and because of the partnership we have board. His immediate task? Get the team up stuff done first, because we had to be able so on. Now, any one of those would normally need their computers to do vastly with them, we have a fast-track into the and running to be able to design parts and to perform at testing and at the first race take at least six months from start to finish different things? product groups at Dell, because normally function during a race weekend. of the season in Bahrain come March; if to get something up and running; the Yes, but it’s more the applications that the sort of problems we might encounter Not easy… there were certain things not working at manufacturing system usually takes at least different people need to be able to use. are not the sort of things that their first-line the factory by that time then we thought we a year to get in place. What we achieved in The actual hardware, the tin underneath A plan comes together: support might be able to help us with. could just work around it. So we sorted the getting the team to a point where everything if you like, most of our staff don’t tend to Peters has established trackside, factory and trackside systems out and made sure we had worked by March was truly incredible. When mind too much about that – they just HPC facilities Finally, how often do you have the bare essentials at the factory to be able to I joined the team I was the eighth person to want the tools to be able to do the job in to replace computers in F1? communicate with the team while they were join; by the time March came around we were hand. By far the biggest power users in We’re still using most of the same stuff at a circuit. After that we started focusing on pretty much up to full strength as far as the the whole of Caterham F1 are the CFD the team started with. We’ll replace the supercomputer, or HPC, environment. race team was concerned, even though we guys who use the HPC; they also have a lot of kit for this coming season were still building the factory! incredibly powerful desktops because because we have to minimize risk How long would it normally take to set up In the early stages I didn’t even have a full they’re doing work that requires a lot and balance the possibility of the IT for an F1 team from start to finish? IT department, so we were very reliant on of graphics capabilities and a lot of things going wrong, but I would We really boiled everything down to about Dell to help us. We had about ten of their pre- and post-processing work. We quite happily run all of our race eight significant IT projects: factory consultants based here at Hingham up until have to make sure that we’ve got big team kit for another season. infrastructure, trackside infrastructure, March and we had some all-nighters working performance for these people, because That’s quite a testament to supercomputing, ERP systems for with them, there’s no doubt about that! the CFD department is working 24/7. how good it is.

28 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with The Precision mobile workstation is tough enough for life on the Formula 1 grid

Formula 1 is a harsh environment for a delicate piece of equipment like a portable computer – but this innocuous-looking PC can take anything Caterham throw at it

30 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with The Dell Precision M4600 is the world’s most powerful 15.6” mobile workstation

gave up the ghost as soon as the car was started. But you have to remember that you have to plug a laptop into an F1 car to start it up, so the computer has to be pretty well protected. You also have to remember that the Dell kit like the M4600 that we use trackside is just their standard, high performance equipment, and so far it’s stood up to everything we’ve thrown at it. And believe me, over a race weekend quite a lot gets thrown at it.” It certainly does, as Antony explains:

“An F1 car has a few hundred sensors on it Powerful processors to record every conceivable piece of data you are vital given the could imagine to feed back to the engineers amount of data being handled about how it’s performing. Now, one run of data from a practice session or the race is nocked about on planes, equipment has to be able to function “One of the key things about the M4600 is probably about one-and-a-half gigabytes, expect to refresh our trackside equipment season, and we’ve had very few reliability accidentally bashed flawlessly in all of them.” that it has solid state hard drives. Basically, a which is data that all needs to be loaded into once every two years,” admits Bill, “This issues with any of the kit, to be honest.” around in the garage, What allows the Dell Precision to be typical home-use computer will have RAM and accessed quickly. There’s a huge stuff is doing a lot of mileage and getting Antony agrees. “We’ve had these laptops inadvertently dropped on able to withstand all these and more is the spinning discs, so they’re actually mechanical demand on the Intel processors and the knocked around a fair bit – that’s just the since the start and they’re really fast, but the floor – not to mention bullet-proof build quality, as Bill explains: – imagine a whole stack of CDs going round memory of these systems. Not only that, nature of Formula 1 what with hauling we’re getting some new ones for next year being expected to work “The difference between this laptop and and round. Solid state hard drives have no but they’ve got to have an awesome screen equipment all over the world nearly 20 which will be able to do even more. They when about 800bhp of F1 car is fired up two a standard one you might have lying moving parts in them. There’s lots of reasons on them; engineers look at all the data times a year. Generally speaking, the are pretty chunky but they’re incredible – meters away from it. These are just some around at home is that the build quality for that, but some of the benefits are that it graphically, and the more you can fit on attrition rate on an F1 race team’s IT kit is you’re talking a complete workstation of the things expected of a laptop during a and resilience on these tends to be stronger. makes the equipment lighter in weight and screen at once the more chance they’ve got quite high,” adds Bill. PC in a laptop, with incredible amounts race weekend in the Caterham garage, as They have better power supplies and more less likely to be physically damaged.” of seeing what they need to be able to see.” “Having said that – and I’m not just of processing power. well as working perfectly and processing robust casings, for example, both of which It’s also helped solve an issue which had Given that IT as an industry is saying this – our mobile workstations are “They’re as fast as any PC you could enormous amounts of data in order to help you definitely need working trackside in F1. F1’s computer boffins scratching their heads constantly evolving, even a Dell Precision still going strong. The team has been using have. For us, to get that amount of power the team make the car go faster. As you can They also have Intel Extreme Edition a few years ago. “We spent a long time in the laptop has a shelf life. “Typically we’d these since that first race of the 2010 in a portable box is brilliant.” imagine, not just any ordinary laptop will processors for sheer processing power – sport a few years ago trying to work out why do. Then again, a Dell Precision M4600 isn’t in fact, everything across the board at laptops would crash as soon as the car fired just any old laptop. Caterham has Intel processors in them. up!” says Antony Smith, Caterham’s Senior Although it looks like the sort of thing a IT Support Engineer. “Basically, as soon as lot of people might use at work or at home, you start an F1 car near a normal laptop the this piece of kit is seriously advanced – hard disk can’t cope, so the machine blue- as it needs to be to be able to cope with the screens.” It doesn’t mean there’s anything CONDITIONS IT CAN WITHSTAND demands that people like F1 race engineers This piece of kit is wrong with that computer, simply a case The Dell Precision is designed to withstand extreme temperatures, dust and vibration place on it. One of the first things it’s got to of the vibration of the F1 car making the be able to do is work in a variety of different seriously advanced spinning discs crash. climates. “You’ve got to remember that – as it needs to be to “We have to take the environment of these laptops are subjected to incredibly the F1 garage into account with all the IT 200,00km harsh environments a lot of the time,” says be able to cope with equipment we need over a race weekend, Distance traveled between races during an F1 season 77% Caterham Head of IT Bill Peters. “There are and you have to remember that when an F1 Average humidity extremely cold temperatures, extremely the demands that car is fired up it’s an incredibly loud thing 6°CWinter testing in Spain can get Decibels of an F1 car expected during the hot temperatures in places like , which vibrates an awful lot,” says Bill. people like F1 race very chilly, while temperatures firing up, which also Malaysian Grand extremely dusty places in desert locations “Antony’s right – a few years ago in F1 in Abu Dhabi can exceed 40°C in the Middle East – our computing engineers place on it you’d see people using laptops that literally during a race weekend 140 creates vibration be can Bahrain in race The huge in blowing windy, very sand and dust of amounts Prix race weekend

32 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with “We could feasibly get THE CLOUD: to the stage where we don’t have to take much F1’s FUTUrE? IT kit to a race. It could reduce Caterham’s In a sport where gaining tenths of a second is vital, teams are looking to advances in IT to give them the edge – and save money overheads massively.”

ormula One may be a test of a where data and information is stored would allow us to focus more on the so it would be very much a phased thing But in a sport as secretive as Formula systems as bulletproof and available as driver’s ability, man and machine and accessed on remote servers, rather application side of things which is where for an operation like an F1 team,” reasons One, are there any potential drawbacks of possible. In a sport like Formula One, where in harmony under extreme than on physical machines owned by the real value is for an F1 team – because Bill. “You would be using someone else’s handing sensitive data to a third party? Bill a third of Caterham F1 staff can be traveling Fcircumstances, but all those F1 teams themselves. the main thing in this job is helping the equipment and have your applications Peters doesn’t think so. at any one time, that’s a huge benefit.” daring overtaking moves, fast qualifying “Within the IT industry, you hear engineers get more performance out of hosted remotely, with users connecting “We would embrace this! We already Antony Smith, the team’s Senior IT laps and breathtaking straight-line a lot of talk about the Cloud and this is the car. So if we could focus our attention into that remotely. Now obviously all have a complete back-up email system in Support Engineer, agrees. “The progress I’ve speeds would not be possible without something we’re investigating with Dell on looking after the applications that do that depends on having a very good the Cloud. If our email system goes down seen in F1 IT in the last ten years has been computers. Ever since the days when at the moment,” he says. “It means that that rather than worrying about whether communications infrastructure, but if in the factory, we can failover to the Cloud incredible, in terms of the links and the championship-winning cars were created instead of having lots of local applications the back-ups have been done or whether you think about it, if we had everything and people can still get email and the WAN (wide area network) connections that in oily garages no larger than Caterham’s and huge amounts of investment in a particular server is performing as well hosted in the Cloud, managed by Dell, and trackside operation can still continue to we use,” he says. “The Cloud is incredible; HPC room at Hingham, such as the shed infrastructure and storage at the factory, as it should be, it would be a better use it was accessible all over the world, we could work through that connectivity,” he says. the slight issue in F1 is that we never know in which Ken Tyrrell built his first car you have your things hosted by a third of our resources.” feasibly get to the stage where we don’t have “The way I can see it happening is that what our WAN connection is going to be like four decades ago, Formula 1 has been party and many of your applications One of the other benefits could to take much kit to a race. It could reduce initially you use it for remote access and at a racetrack. If we had everything in the reliant on them. hosted as a service. Something like ultimately be a reduction in the amount Caterham’s overheads massively. support as a form of back-up. Cloud and we lost our connection it would be Like any other industry, IT is Google Mail, for example, is essentially of IT equipment Caterham takes to a “It may not happen within the next “But also you could use it for extra storage tricky. The thing with F1 is that when you’re constantly evolving and progressing, and a Cloud-based service. There’s definitely race; an interesting avenue given that couple of years, but I can see it happening demands – we have huge amounts of data, at a race you can’t control something like a more advanced IT systems mean better a trend of businesses moving towards the team already powers its trackside eventually. You’d probably always need for example, so if we ever ran out of storage digger ripping through a pipe into the circuit, and faster racing cars. According to Bill this route,” Peters concludes. operations with one of the most compact a certain residual capability back at base we could use some of the extra capacity on which is what happened in India last year. Peters, Caterham’s Head of IT, one of the “This means we could essentially have racks of servers in the F1 paddock. so that you could carry on if you lost your the Cloud, or archive things there to give us “But there’s no doubt about it: the biggest potential changes on the horizon resources we can turn on and off and help “Ultimately using the Cloud would communications for a period of time, but more storage in the factory. At the end of the Cloud is a fantastic idea for reducing costs is the rise in the use of Cloud technology, us to scale things much more easily; it mean having less physical equipment, it’s certainly a very interesting thought.” day, all we’re trying to do is make our and equipment.”

34 F1 Racing February 2012 In association with Find the cloud you didn’t know you already had.

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