case study cities across five continents in order to build and test the solution . The ability to know where the riders are at any point in time during the race , the composition of the peloton , obtaining real time information about the speeds of the riders , and the distance between them , was the first step to providing a new viewing experience for professional cycling race commentators , fans and viewers .
To make this possible , GPS tracking devices were fitted to the saddles of each of the 198 riders ’ bikes . These sensors transmitted data on rider speed , GPS coordinates as well as other information , all in real time , producing between four and six million data records during each of the 21 stages of the Tour . The data produced by the devices was relayed to aircraft following the race , and from there to Dimension Data ’ s Big Data Truck – a fully mobile data centre – located in the technical zone near the finish line of each stage . The Big Data Truck was connected to the Dimension Data cloud platform , where the data was analysed through an enterprise grade data analytics solution , and then served up on a live tracking website and as television graphics on screens around the world to a cumulative TV audience of 3.5 billion people .
Hybrid cloud The hybrid cloud environment used for the Tour de France combines both modular on site equipment with multiple off-premise cloud services , delivering redundancy and near limitless scalability during the race . The design is based on three cornerstones : High availability and security – ensuring no single point of failure and protecting the data from intrusion or leakage A diversity of locations – along with the Big Data Truck , Dimension Data hosts redundant services in its data centres in London and Amsterdam A diversity of vendors and smart architecture – designed to be robust enough to handle any eventuality during the race , including inclement weather and rider crashes
GPS tracking devices were fitted to the saddles of each of the Tour ’ s 198 riders ’ bikes . to make sure this data wasn ’ t just available on TV , but also online and via social media channels .
In 2015 , prior to the start of the Tour , ASO signed a five-year Official Technology Partner agreement with Dimension Data in order to transform the viewing experience of fans , race commentators and the general media . At the centre of this transformation was the real time tracking and data analytics platform that Dimension Data designed , built and implemented in just four months , with teams collaborating across 11
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