Infra assists Sydney 2000 Games in setting and Olympic first for security
NewsOctober 4, 2000
EMC Infra, international developer of enterprise customer support software, announces that its Infra-Help call management system was used to log and track the progress of thousands of security incidents occurring in the lead up to and duration of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
Infra-Help provided the means by which representatives of critical services responsible for public safety, from police, fire and ambulance, to intelligence and bomb management, managed a central database of incidents occurring in scores of sites around the Olympic city, and were able to maintain visibility of activities across the entire security operation.
Sydney is the first city hosting the Olympics to have created such a database of security-related incidents. This will enable the Sydney team to pass on an audited account of the security effort to future Olympic cities, and aid in planning similar large-scale events occurring in Australia.
Even before the end of the Games, members of the Salt Lake City and Athens Olympic Organizing Committees were visiting the various security command centers in Sydney in preparation for their own Games.
Numerous agencies brought together for the Games had their own internal database and dispatch system, but none of these were suitable for creating a central database.
EMC Infra, an international software developer with head offices in Los Angeles, Sydney and London, met the requirements with its Infra-Help call management system.
According to Mark Watson, Manager of the Olympic Precinct and Regional Operations Command Center (OPRO), without a system like Infra-Help, much of the liaison between the different agencies would have been done manually, by phone or radio, which would have increased the propensity for information 'to slip through the cracks'. The ability to provide a high level of situational awareness across the entire security operation would have been far more difficult.
Watson became aware of Infra-Help due to its already being utilized by the NSW Police Services IT Help Desk. He says there was initially some doubt that a help desk system could make the leap to support such an extensive security operation. A number of existing information management products were looked at in the search for a system that met the stringent user and support requirements set by the NSW Police Service.
However, according to Watson, senior commanders at both the operational and strategic levels of the operation were very pleased with the performance and functionality provided by Infra-Help.
Steven Baker of EMC Infra, who consulted to the OPRO, believes that the high level support given to Infra from within the OPRO, and the general preparedness of the security operation was one of the reasons behind the system's success.
Watson and his team knew exactly what they wanted from the system, he says. 'Because Infra-Help is already built around a strong workflow logic, we didn't need to reinvent the wheel in order to adapt it to the requirements of Olympic Security.'
Watson agrees that Infra 'slotted straight into how we operated', rather than security planners needing to modify procedures to suit the system. Infra additionally provided consulting services to Watson and his team to create advanced configurations, which ensured that notification was automatically disseminated to all relevant parties whenever an incident was logged.
The types of incidents logged into Infra-Help during the Olympics ranged from bomb threats to petty theft and lost children at venues. Supporting 150 concurrent users, commanders and support staff involved in security for the Games were able to log incidents into Infra-Help and review their progress at any time.
The system ran to all Olympic venues and principle command nodes including Olympic Security's Strategic Command at Games Headquarters. This coverage provided, according to Watson, 'real time' visibility of incidents to security personnel from the Police Commissioner to officers on patrol at venues.
One of the strengths of the system, according to Watson, is its ease of use, particularly as some security personnel using it possessed limited computer literacy. Training exercises conducted early into the deployment of the system inspired confidence in its ability to provide visibility of incidents quickly and easily.
Says Watson, anyone can get any information at any time. 'Infra provides a very good, quick and simple search capability throughout the database.'
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