I know this is a bit off topic, but I was trying to find more information on who build the network for this media coverage.
The figures are astronomical as almost 1 billion people were expected to watch the match, and the network team failed miserably, causing a HUGE outage that made most people watching miss the most interesting parts.
I know (from the PACKET days) that ITV has it's media network built using dual-star topology on MPLS, with DMVPN for security, 2851 and branch routers. The TV digital media is transported in MXF format. Since everything is doubled, the good UPS system will complete the picture.
But what happened to UEFA and how could deployment of such criticality and scale could be such a failure? There should be huge penalties, but everyone blames "the storm".
Short info I have gathered
Broadcast center name: IBC
UEFA media technology arm: UMET
The core UMET team consists of 130 professionals from 18 different countries, structured in Content, TV Production, ICT and broadcast Partner Services. It provides multiple synergies dealing with complex projects in converged media for UEFA
What really happened
Storm caused short power outage, but the system failed to switch to backup.
Never ever EVER in history of building mission critical networks I have seen such fundamental error. Power outage is #1 reason for network failure, therefore architecting and TESTING such system is of a great importance.
How their network looks like? Where were testing procedures in place before going live? Were they incompetent engineers or incompetent managers that hired incompetent engineers?
Also, you can contact UEFA Media Technologies S.A.
Igor Masnjak
Marketing & Research Manager
Tel.: +41-22707-2530
E-Mail: igor.masnjak@uefa.ch
Additional info:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldFootballNews/idUKL2622337020080626
http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=228510
