For those who haven’t had the experience, it is difficult to describe the adrenaline rush created by the roar of 20 engines simultaneously revving to 18,000 RPM at the beginning of a Formula One race. Experienced by hundreds of thousands of on-site fans and watched by an average of 600 million television viewers per event, the high-pitched whine and acceleration of Formula One cars reverberates across the spectator stands and into the airwaves.

However, simply getting to the starting line–let alone putting together a winning championship season or even racing to the winner’s circle in a Formula One race—requires a high-performance team with seamless integration across all functions. It also calls for laser-like focus, unwavering fortitude, and constant innovation, not to mention a top-notch IT team.

A completely new race

Graeme Hackland has seen the highs and lows of Formula One over his 12-plus years in Formula One—from several seasons near the bottom of the standings to winning both the driver’s and constructor’s championships in 2005 and 2006. When he joined Benetton Racing in 1997, IT was not a critical part of the team’s success. “We had large systems for CAD and big UNIX-based workstations,” Hackland recalls. “The IT organization was focused on maintenance and keeping the lights on.” Innovation and integration with the business were not major drivers. “We perhaps had a few laptops that traveled the world with the race team. And race data could fit onto a floppy drive. There was really little reliance by the business on IT.”

This changed in 2002 with the acquisition of Benetton Racing by the Renault F1 Team. Everything from design, to manufacturing, to simulation, to the dynos for testing the gearbox and engines, to telemetry, to car performance is now reliant on IT. “IT was under the finance department in 1997,” Hackland remembers. “Today, I am a member of the senior management team.”

Indeed, Hackland argues that IT and the business are not separate entities but rather are intertwined. “IT cannot be treated in isolation from the business,” he says. And Symantec Business Critical Services serves as one lever in helping Hackland to connect IT and the business. “Our Business Critical Services account manager understands our business and has pinpointed technology solutions on a number of occasions that address real pain points.”

In addition, Hackland has leveraged Symantec Consulting Services, including a Symantec Foundation Risk Management Assessment in 2008. “We were able to gain insight into the business and its risk tolerance across different fronts,” he says. “The assessment allowed us to engage our senior management team in a way in which we hadn’t ever done before. It helped us to focus our budget and resources on the highest business priorities.” Seeking to reengage with senior business leaders, Hackland had Symantec Consulting Services perform another assessment in 2009.

After serving six years as IT manager, with a CTO-like charter focused on IT infrastructure and day-to-day IT operations, Hackland was named CIO of the Renault F1 Team in July. “Our previous CIO really helped groom me for the position and make the transition to the role of CIO,” he says. As CIO, Hackland is much more focused on the business, and he promoted two members of his previous team to assume responsibility for the IT infrastructure and IT operations, respectively

Core IT components—availability and data

Availability is one of the key business requirements for Hackland and his team. Systems and data must be available virtually 100 percent of the time—trackside and factory side. Specifically, in addition to two dedicated technical centers in Enstone, United Kingdom, and Viry-Châtillon, France, the Renault F1 Team manages a mobile IT infrastructure that it must pack up 17 times between March and November and move to a different garage somewhere else in the world. “It is almost like a traveling circus,” Hackland quips. “We have very hostile environments—extreme cold and heat, humidity, wind, and dust.” To meet high availability requirements in the data center, Hackland and his team rely on Veritas Cluster Server, which is used across all operating systems— Linux, Microsoft Windows, and UNIX.

Data management is another critical area. “Formula One is a highly regulated industry, and we must retain data for three years,” Hackland says. Many of the team’s IT systems and requirements are very similar to those of manufacturers and financial institutions, according to Hackland. “But there is often a greater need for business intelligence and the need to look at data from multiple sources,” he explains. “Protecting this information and getting access to it in a timely manner is critical for us.” Hackland standardized backup and recovery on Symantec 12 years ago, and he has never looked back.

New IT designs

Last year, to provide the Renault F1 Team with ready access to virtually all types of information, Hackland and his team developed a customized strategy system that provides engineers with a single view of data across multiple sources and allows them to input their data in real time. The solution impacts nearly every operational aspect, including race-day decisions such as when a pit stop should be taken and where the cars are projected to finish in a race. “All of this data previously resided on separate systems, and we lacked a single view and ability to input from a centralized console,” Hackland says. “We delivered a tool to the team that enables them to make the car faster.”

Another important initiative for Hackland and his team this past year was the formation of a computational group. As physical testing of the car in-season is no longer allowed due to Formula One regulations, simulation is increasingly prevalent. Instead of physical models, the Renault F1 Team uses virtual models for most testing. “None of us had ever built anything like it before,” Hackland notes. “Indeed, we had to build a brand new data center to host the supercomputer.”

The “greening” of F1

Formula One is dedicated to the greening of its sport, and Renault is committed to the greening of its vehicles. At the same time, the Renault F1 Team is focused on reducing its carbon footprint. “Many people, when they think of Formula One and green, immediately associate the fuel burnt during each race,” Hackland points out. “But as a matter of fact, that works out to just two or three percent of our total carbon footprint.”

Beyond various green initiatives in the manufacturing environment over the past couple years, the Renault Team built a new data center located in an underground bunker. “Our new data center is 25 percent more efficient than our previous environment and is an important step forward in making Green IT a focal point for our team,” Hackland reports.

Green IT encompasses more than the next-generation data center for the Renault F1 Team, and the next-generation data center for the Renault F1 Team, and Symantec is playing an important role. Multiple-node clustering for all of its data center servers using N+1 clustering technology in Veritas Cluster Server allowed Hackland and his team to slash the number of servers they are using by at least a third.

The Renault F1 Team is also realizing tangible power savings by shrinking email storage requirements. Single-instance archiving and data compression using Symantec Enterprise Vault reduced the Microsoft Exchange data store by approximately 50 percent. A hybrid messaging security solution using Symantec Brightmail Gateway and MessageLabs Hosted Email Security eliminates 90 percent of incoming email by cataloging it as spam.

Beyond these initiatives, Hackland is also looking at using Symantec NetBackup PureDisk in conjunction with technologies from Network Appliance, the preferred storage vendor for the Renault F1 Team. “Deduplication of our storage environment will be important in the coming year,” he says.

The right pit crew

Last year, when the Renault F1 car was underperforming, the technical director refocused the entire company on improving its performance. Other initiatives were put aside. The rapid turn in direction produced immediate results: the team accumulated 39 points over the past five races, including two first place finishes and one second place finish. “I hadn’t seen anything like it before,” Hackland notes.

This change in focus included the IT team. “We were well into an IT service management project,” Hackland remembers. “We put it on hold and went to each of the departments and asked them what we could do to help them add performance to the car. Every department and team working together, including IT, really turned around the season.”

Because of situations like this, Hackland and his team look to technology providers to help them innovate and develop IT solutions that ultimately improve the performance of the car—and Symantec has increasingly played that role over the past 12 years. “It’s really about providers understanding both our business and technology requirements and working with us to develop solutions that address those needs,” Hackland concludes. “There are so many successes that we’ve had over the past 12 years—and we’re expecting to have many more in years to come.”

And if he and his team have anything to do with it, with the assistance of Symantec and other technology providers, the first car you see hurling down the straightaway towards the finish line during the next Formula One race will bear the insignia of the Renault F1 Team.