Great teamwork leads to Customer profile success on the track

F1™ racing team maintains its fast pace of development after getting off to a flying start with high-performance IT Company Caterham F1 Team Industry Sport Country United Kingdom & Malaysia Employees 355 Website www.caterhamf1.com

Business need Caterham FI Team knows that success on the track relies on teamwork. As such, it looks for IT providers that can develop strong relationships and meet increasing demands on IT.

Solution Together with Dell, the team built an Intel® Cluster Ready HPC cluster for designing cars and a resilient trackside infrastructure.

Benefits • Intel Cluster Ready HPC saves time and money • EqualLogic storage performs in harsh environments • Dell IT Advisory Services ensures two-hour response anywhere in the world • IT collaboration maximises performance in extreme heat • Caterham F1 Team gains cutting- “We realised that Dell understood our edge IT for UK headquarters industry – everything from the technology Application areas • Deployment Services needed to design an F1 car, to our • Disaster Recovery • End User Computing requirement for trackside mobility and • HPC storage that could withstand extreme • Infrastructure Consulting • Mobility temperatures and vibrations.” • Networking • Server Solutions Bill Peters, Head of IT, Caterham F1 Team • Storage Solutions • Support Services • Unified Communications • Virtualization Teamwork is key to success in F1™. Winning drivers always pay tribute to the people behind the scenes, knowing for certain that racing talent doesn’t guarantee victory. The Caterham F1 Team sees teamwork as a core value. From the office staff controlling daily operations, to the pit crews and drivers – they’re all working towards success on the track.

The company has always chosen to work with suppliers that share its beliefs, Technology at work and for this reason it decided to partner with Dell. Caterham F1 Team has Services been working with Dell for a number Dell Infrastructure Consulting of years to develop its IT in line with the expansion of the team and the Dell Support Services increasing demands on technology in – Dell IT Advisory Services “We needed the F1 racing. The relationship continues to – Dell ProSupport™ evolve, with Dell providing the solutions maximum amount and services to support Caterham Hardware of processing power F1 Team at its ground-breaking new Intel® Cluster Ready HPC headquarters in Oxfordshire and Dell™ PowerVault™ MD3200 worldwide throughout the F1 season. in the minimum and MD1200 storage arrays

amount of space Relationship gets off to a great start Dell EqualLogic PS6000S – and we needed Collaboration between Caterham storage array F1 Team and Dell was great from Dell PowerEdge™ R210 and it quickly. The Intel day one. They worked together on R710 servers with Intel® Xeon® getting the team’s IT ready for the processors X5570 Cluster Ready start of the 2010 F1 season. This was Dell PowerEdge M610 blade HPC that Dell no ordinary task though – Dell had servers with Intel Xeon to design and deploy an enterprise- processors X5570 recommended is class environment, including a high- performance computing (HPC) cluster, Dell PowerEdge M1000e modular blade enclosures ideal for us because in less than 22 weeks. Bill Peters, Head it offers the right of IT at Caterham F1 Team explains Dell Latitude™ E6500 and why he thought Dell was the right IT E4300 laptops with Intel® performance at the solution provider for the job. “We spoke Core™ 2 Duo processors to a number of suppliers, but only Dell Dell Precision™ M6600 and right price.” proved it could deliver in every category. M4600 mobile workstations Against other IT solution providers, with Intel Core i7-920XM Bill Peters, Head of IT, Dell was more responsive. The Dell Quad Core Extreme Edition Caterham F1 Team Consulting team came in and listened processors to our requirements, quickly turning Dell PowerConnect™ them into a statement of work,” he says. 6xxx/7xxx/8xxx series switches

An enterprise-class environment Dell Force10 switches for iSCSI designed in partnership Dell PowerVault™ TL2000 Peter’s decision paid off, not least backup appliance because he was now working with a Dell Latitude ™ ST Tablets partner that had experience in the world of F1. “Dell did a fantastic job of bringing Dell Alienware™ Area-51 everything together. It understood desktops how an F1 company works and the

2 Today, Caterham F1 Team is driving car Maximising performance in extreme Software development with the HPC solution, trackside temperatures Microsoft® Lync™ Server 2010 which can perform 163,398 calculations Caterham F1 Team and Dell have per second. It also uses Dell Alienware™ continued working together to ® ™ VMware vSphere 4 Area-51 desktops to support the work overcome the challenges of trackside and continues to collaborate with Dell temperatures. The technology often sits and Intel to gain greater processing in locations without dedicated cooling, importance of our timeframes,” he speed without increasing the relying on the immediate environment says. “We realised that Dell understood infrastructure’s physical footprint. to dissipate heat. But when you’re our industry – everything from the Peters says: “We needed the maximum racing in places such as Abu Dhabi or technology needed to design an F1 amount of processing power in the Malaysia, this isn’t easy. For this reason, car, to our requirement for trackside minimum amount of space – and we Dell engineers collaborated with IT mobility and storage that could needed it quickly. The Intel Cluster personnel at Caterham F1 Team to withstand extreme temperatures and Ready HPC that Dell recommended adjust the servers and storage to operate vibrations.” Dell consultants held a series is ideal for us because it offers the at higher temperatures than usual. of workshops covering the design and right performance at the right price. Thanks to their design, Dell solutions can implementation of servers, storage, This cluster is critical to the success operate in extreme conditions because networks and infrastructure applications. of the team. It works 24/7 simulating the built-in warning systems allow This process mapped the team’s short aerodynamics and helps us design the for greater operational temperatures. and long-term business goals to its cars. It gives us our competitive edge.” They raised the performance threshold IT strategy. Dell then worked with the – refining the number of alerts – so in-house IT team to design the optimal Creating a resilient trackside IT warnings would commence much HPC environment for Caterham F1 Team. environment to travel the world later. It means the technical teams can All the great work developing the cars continue working without a stream of Building a powerful HPC environment can be quickly undone if the technology alerts disrupting them. They’re notified for computational fluid dynamics supporting the team on the day of the only when there’s a critical issue. (CFD) race isn’t up to scratch. Today, Caterham Caterham F1 Team needed the F1 Team is giving its technical staff the On-track performance supported HPC solution to run advanced CFD IT support they need in F1, where 20 by a powerful network and mobile processing – a way of accurately gigabytes of data can be generated technology simulating wind tunnels in a virtual on a race weekend. Dell designed an A key element of the trackside space. With their knowledge of the environment featuring Dell PowerEdge environment is the network. Peters F1 industry, Dell’s consultants worked R210 and R710 servers, virtualized with explains: “At the track, a strong network alongside the in-house IT team to VMware® vSphere™ 4 server software. It is essential. We pull huge amounts of design the solution. The initial designs also added Dell EqualLogic PS6000S data from the cars because they’re were completed on a cloud-based HPC storage arrays with solid-state drives, racing every lap, so high performance environment provided by Cambridge plus Dell PowerConnect and Dell and stability are paramount. The team University. When ready, the project was Force10 switches for iSCSI. To protect uses Dell Latitude E6500 and E4300 migrated to Caterham F1 Team’s own data, Dell added a Dell PowerVault™ laptops with Intel® Core™ 2 Duo HPC platform. TL2000 backup appliance and processors and Dell Precision M6600 back-up software. and M4600 mobile workstations with The team selected an Intel® Cluster Intel Core processors to process more Ready HPC – a production-ready Peters says: “I had a high-level idea of than 2 gigabytes of data streaming from system that comes in a configuration what we needed, but Dell designed cars on the track.” with pre-tested Dell hardware, and and deployed everything to meet our independent software vendor challenges. When an F1 engine starts, the Anthony Smith, Senior IT Support applications for wind tunnel simulation. ground shakes, so we have solid-state Engineer at Caterham F1 Team, says: The system consists of 186 Dell™ drives in our EqualLogic storage, plus “The Dell laptops that we have are very PowerEdge™ M610 blade servers Dell demonstrated that the PowerEdge powerful. They allow us to see all the with Intel® Xeon® processors. These servers and storage had been tested in data and manipulate it in real time – are housed in energy-efficient Dell extreme heat – more than 40 degrees that’s absolutely critical for what PowerEdge M1000e modular blade Celsius, as we experience in Abu Dhabi.” we’re doing.” enclosures and connected to Dell PowerVault™ MD3200 and MD1200 Keith Saunt, Chief Operating Officer These laptops are perfect for Caterham storage arrays. Dell PowerConnect™ at Caterham F1 Team, says: “To make F1 Team because they’re extremely 6xxx/7xxx/8xxx series switches also things the way we need them, we have powerful, but they’re also tough – manage the HPC environment’s to have a partner in the true sense of the built with magnesium-alloy chassis data traffic. word. That’s what we get from Dell.” and display backs that meet rigorous

3 standards for durability. Peters says: Dell Service Delivery Manager, part of beyond the track too. Dell is working “We tested the trackside environment, Dell IT Advisory Services, ensures that closely with the team to create the IT PowerEdge servers, EqualLogic storage, support is locally available so the team infrastructure for its new head office the network and our Latitude and can focus on racing. Peters says: “Our in Oxfordshire. The site marks a big Precision laptops in a live environment Dell Service Delivery Manager helps us step forward in the development of only a couple of days before our resolve issues quickly, and gives us fast Caterham F1 Team, which expects to first race.” escalation when there’s a serious issue. grow to more than 1,000 employees by It’s another reason we’re confident that 2013. The IT infrastructure will enable Drivers gain instant picture of we can deliver maximum uptime for continued scaling of the virtualized performance with tablet devices the team.” environment and use technologies The trackside technical team and drivers such as Dell Force10 switches and are working together more closely than Smith says: “We have Dell ProSupport Microsoft® Lync™ Server 2010 for ever to maximise the performance of for all of our equipment – this has been unified communications. A key part of the cars. They now have Dell Latitude™ exceptional for us because it means we the infrastructure will be the design of ST Tablets so drivers can obtain a can get support in any country 24 hours the data centre. Caterham F1 Team is detailed picture of their performance a day, seven days a week.” applying the same rigor to its new site while still strapped into their race cars. in terms of energy efficiency as it does With touch-screen functionality and Efficient IT reduces freight costs and to its cars. And Dell is helping to design application compatibility, the drivers increases development resources a free-cooling data centre to save have a reliable device that enables The team is investing more in car resources and lower carbon emissions. them to navigate easily through a development thanks to the efficiency range of dashboards to access the of its trackside infrastructure and the data they need fast. responsiveness of Dell. The Caterham F1 Team trackside infrastructure fits into Delivering support in less than just half a rack, whereas infrastructures two hours worldwide of other teams fill an entire rack. This Caterham F1 Team travels the world significantly lowers shipping costs throughout the year for races and pre- when travelling around the world. season testing. But wherever the team Costs are further reduced by the two- is it knows that Dell support is no more hour support offered by Dell worldwide, than two hours away. Peters says: “On which means the team carries a smaller race day, we’re entirely reliant on our stock of servers. It has reduced the trackside IT environment and support. weight of the infrastructure by between Quite simply, if our IT fails, we can’t race. 20 and 30 kilograms. And, with each We need excellent communications kilogram costing around US$350 within the team, plus a lot of storage (£220) to ship, that’s a saving of up capacity and powerful systems to to US$10,500 per race. handle our data.” Helping to design cutting-edge Because the infrastructure operates headquarters for future success in extreme environments, there is a The collaboration between Dell and risk that parts may fail. However, a Caterham F1 Team continues to evolve

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