The BBC, the Olympics and the digital future

What were the key issues facing the chief technology officer for the BBC during the huge digital output delivered during the Olympics? John Linwood who holds that particular role, speaking in an interview in Computer Weekly magazine, does admit to ‘a moment at the end of the closing ceremony where we breathed a sigh of relief’. At one point 12 million video requests were made on one day making it ‘the largest online mobile streaming ever’. Planning infrastructure was vital with equipment rental and use of third party networks meaning that the huge capacity could be there for the event without excess investment. Linwood goes on the discuss the future direction for digital operations at the BBC including using cloud-based services and virtualisation. For more on what it took to successfully deliver the BBC Olympic output and future plans, read the whole article at http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240161490/John-Linwood-BBC-CTO-on-the-Olympics-output-and-digitisation