Never say goodbye!

Posted on February 19, 2012 by admin

Blogger: Mary (Ma Li, the IT student)

Location: Sanya, China

Hi this is Mary in Sanya. Today we have experienced a relaxed but unforgettable day, since it’s the last working day for us IT students here. It’s not easy to say goodbye, especially after the whole week fantastic time that we’ve been with each other together.

This morning we got free time to go shopping. We are all excited to explore the city, and to get some souvenirs for our friends. In the afternoon, we went on board the Royalty Boat – the spectator boat, with Volvo Trucks to watch the sailing boats depart. The next stop is Auckland, it’s another tough and long way to sail. Hope everything will be fine with all the teams! 

Looking back the past week, I had so many words and feelings in my heart. It’s really lucky and a great opportunity for us to win the competition and join the mission team with Volvo IT crew members. Never will I forget the days we spent with Abrao, Amanda, Anders, Frank, Goran and Victor. Never will I forget the knowledge that you taught us. Never will I forget the busy and pleasant working time that we had. Never will I forget this excellent experience with Volvo Ocean Race in Sanya. 

The other two students also have something to say, here it goes! 

From Bill: “See you Volvo IT crew; it was really a good time with a lot of happiness. Take care and hope we have chance to meet each other again in the future!”

From Winnie: “It’s an unforgettable experience in Sanya with all of you, Anders, Amanda, Mary, Bill, Goran, Abrao, Frank and Victor. Thank you for your help and friendship. I have learnt a lot from you both in technology and communication. I believe that we will meet with each other somewhere. I’ll miss you. Good luck!” 

It’s always hard to say goodbye to best friends, and beautiful memories. We live in different countries, we speak different languages, we have different cultures, but we share the same precious working time in the Volvo Ocean Race, Sanya. Thanks Volvo IT for giving us such a special experience, and thanks everyone in the mission team!

Never say goodbye! See you, in the near future! Best wishes, for all of us!

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In-port Race today!

Posted on February 18, 2012 by admin

Blogger: Wei Ni Jun (Winnie, IT student)

Location: Sanya, China

Hi, this is Winnie again.

It’s windy and cloudy today in Sanya. After we arrived at the office in the morning, I went to the main stage with Goran to connect the UPS. It’s a little bit cold outside with strong wind, but everyone was working with high passion. I saw Tiger and the captain of boat Sanya were interviewed on the stage. He was the only Chinese sailor in the race, and we were so proud of him. Wish him good luck!

The in-port race was held this afternoon here in Sanya, and lots of tourists and journalists came to the race village. The race was broadcasted live. Every team tried their best to make their sailing boat go faster, while the audiences on the shore were cheering for them. Finally, Team Telefonica, PUMA,and Abu Dhabi won the first, second and third place respectively. Congratulations to them!

I was so pleased that everything was going well today, due to the great effort of Volvo IT crew.

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Lucky Day!

Posted on February 17, 2012 by admin

Blogger: Liu Yuan Wei (Bill), IT student

Location: Sanya, China

Hi, this is Bill again.

Different with yesterday, it was cloudy with strong wind now. We found that the mini-link did not work in the morning. After checking with the network in laptop, we went upstairs to the flat roof and check the microwave antenna. When we close to it, its bracket was falling down suddenly because of the strong wind. Frank hold it immediately and told me that we were lucky, thanks goodness we just arrived in time, otherwise the antenna which was very expensive would be broken.

With hours working, we still couldn’t repair the mini-link. The pair of microwave antennas must be aliened properly. Since we had push the Volvo Pavilion one to the maximum high, we had to make the other one lower from the 10th floor to the 9th floor. It was really a hard work to do because we had to rearrange all things including power cable, Ethernet cable, the bracket and microwave antenna.

But I was still very glad, because the mini-link worked perfect finally, after continuous efforts!

The Pro-AM race went well today. And it will be a busy day for the Port Race tomorrow, hope everything will be going well!

 

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Preparation for the In-port Race

Posted on February 16, 2012 by admin

Blogger: Ma Li (Mary, IT student)

Location: Sanya, China

Hi, this is Mary in Sanya. We have experienced another wonderful and busy day. With the knowledge we’ve got in the previous days, it became much easier for us students to assist the Volvo IT crew.

In the morning, Frank gave us a speech about the network of Volvo Ocean Race and the Volvo Group. It’s essential for us to have a better understanding of how it works. Then Bill stayed in the media center with Frank to help the journalists, the rest of us went with Abrao and Göran to fix the microwave antenna. It’s not an easy job, because we were working at the roof in the 8th floor! Though a little tough, we have fixed the equipment pretty well, hope it can work perfectly!

Then Per-Martin, the press manager, interviewed us, we had a good chat, as showed in the picture:-). In the afternoon, we spent a few minutes in the IT support room to review the knowledge we’ve got in the morning. It’s much better for us to understand with both English and Chinese explanations from the Volvo IT crew!

However, it’s always hard to say goodbye. Anders was leaving for Sweden. He sent us three brochures about Volvo culture and the way to learn, with the hope that we can share the Volvo values in life. I sent a Chinese knot to him, which means health and happiness. Thank you for his kind help these days, and hopefully we could meet someday at somewhere in the world! 

The In-port Race is on its way, and everyone here in the race village is preparing for it. Hope everything goes fine in the following days!

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Here comes another new, interesting and challenging day!

Posted on February 15, 2012 by admin

Blogger: Winnie (Wei Ni Jun, IT student)

Location: Sanya, China

Hi, this is Winnie, from Nanjing University of Technology, China.

We joined the Volvo IT crew today to provide IT solutions for the Volvo Ocean Race. I stayed in the media center with Goran in the early morning. And then, we went to the stage where we met with Frank and Bill to support the cables connection work, for the basic media hardware testing. Though the sunshine was very strong, we still enjoyed it very much. 

After lunch, we went to Nanshan, a famous tour place in Sanya with the culture of Buddhism, together with Amanda and Anders. The scenery was so beautiful and attractive. We visited the  temple with 33-meter gold statue, and 108-meter Guanyin (buddha) statue. The tour guide told us that typhoon was not as strong as before, when the Guanyin was built there. Whether it’s true or not, I hope it could bring good luck to people. 

We finished the whole day with a barbeque dinner tonight. Wish another nice day tomorrow. Come on!       

   

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Busy and exciting day!

Posted on February 14, 2012 by admin

Blogger: Liu Yuan Wei (Bill, IT student)

Location: Sanya, China

We experienced a resultful and exciting day! In the morning, we got the brief introduction from Anders about the Volvo Group and Volvo IT, including history, product and customers and etc. And Victor also introduced some detailed information for Volvo Ocean Race and some technical things which I was very interested in. And then Jordi presented the technology and media for us and we enjoyed it very much!

Lunch would be a happy time for me, we could talk and laugh, really had a good rest during this time.

After the short rest, we were divided for different assignment. Mary worked in the control center, while Winnie and I went to adjust the Microwave antenna . It’s really a hard work under the strong sunshine. And we also got the media interview today from Sweden, which was really interesting!

Now, the most exciting time was coming: we went on the sailing boat!! I saw the very advanced media center control machine (as showed in picture), and I was so interested in it. When I stepped into the cabin, I was really impressed. Well, the sailors were crowded in such a small space, and it’s so hot! Imaging that the sailors would stay here for more than twenty days a trip! 

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Facebook challenge from Sanya

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Per Berlin

Blogger: Per Berlin
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden

Per Berlin

Per Berlin

It is an exciting week for the Volvo IT crew at the race in Sanya. Victor and the rest of the crew are joined this week by three IT students from China. The students are helping us with the IT delivery throughout the week. You can read more in the blog entry from one of the students, Mary, about her first day at the race. Mary and the other students will also be helping us to monitor and moderate our latest Facebook challenge this week.

For this challenge, we have decided to focus on the environment. Sailing is a very CO2 neutral sport. The Volvo Ocean Race boats are traveling around the world – using the power of the wind. That’s a really green way to travel. And, so, when I think about the IT environment supporting the race, I also have a vision that the delivery should be a CO2 neutral as possible. 

Today, we are doing a number of things to reduce the impact of the IT delivery on the environment. We’ve virtualized the server environment, so that we can reduce the number of physical devices needed to run the IT operations for the race. And, we are trying out usage of some cloud services, like Google, to help us further reduce the physical hardware needed. We’ve adopted a zero waste strategy as we travel around the world with our equipment.  Waste management is also an essential part of all contracts we have with our suppliers, including the recycling of equipment.

But, there are always new things we can explore or test to create the greenest possible IT environment.  For practical reasons, we need an ultra-portable and light hardware solution, which can be transported around the world and carried easily by our own crew.  For this, we currently have two sets of two standard severs that are traveling with us. When we think about the green perspective, in the future, I could envision questioning whether we need physical hardware at all.

Finding alternative sources of power is also something that I’m interested in exploring. For instance, we our cooling our largest data center in Sweden with sea water. So, for the race, I am sure there are also many interesting ways that we could provide alternative power sources to our equipment.  Today, we are using battery as a back-up power source. We are also traveling with a range of network equipment, which includes  around 30 routers and switches and 25 access points for wireless networks.

The IT environment is currently supporting around 70 workspaces for the race staff, which includes things like clients, disks, printers, etc. We are also supporting workspaces for 150-200 the media at each of the ten cities where the race stops.

So, with this in mind, the IT crew and I are interested in your thoughts and ideas – how would you design an ideal IT environment for green purposes – for the future? And, what ideas do you have that we could  implement in a quick and cost-effective way to help us become even more green in our delivery to the race today?

We’re interested in a range wide of ideas, covering things like hardware optimization, power consumption, waste management, as well as any suggestions you have for generally reducing the impact of IT deliveries on the environment.

You can add your ideas directly in our Facebook app, here:
http://apps.facebook.com/volvo-ocean-race/

I’m looking forward to your suggestions!
Cheers,
Per

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Amazing Start

Posted on February 13, 2012 by admin

Blogger: Ma Li (Mary, IT student)

Location: Sanya

Hi, this is Mary from Tianjin University. It’s my first day here with Volvo IT in Sanya. As a selected student from the Volvo IT competition, it’s really a difficult and long way to come here. However, the scenery and this experience is beautiful and unforgettable.

During the first day, we three students had an excellent guided tour with Anders and Amanda (from Volvo IT’s offices in Sweden and China). We are warmly welcomed by the Volvo IT crew, who are really kind and friendly. They showed us the IT support room and media center, with fully details about technology that is used, What impressed me most was the Mini-link, which is used in the broadcast at a speed of 1GB/s. No doubt that ocean race lovers can enjoy the race to the most!

What’s more, we also had a detailed tour of the race village, getting lots of information about Volvo Group and Volvo Ocean Race. The Volvo Pavilion provides all kinds of products, including cars, trucks, buses and airplanes. It’s a great chance for us to know more about Volvo during this tour. To my excited, we have also seen all the sailing boats in the race village. The Volvo Open 70 is much bigger than I thought, and the race is much more dangerous than I imagined. It’s absolutely an extreme and inspiring sport!

The amazing day has passed quickly. The high efficiency and kindness of Volvo IT crew have made me a deep impression. With highly respect to the customers and spirit to do the best, I want to fulfill this task with all Volvo IT crew. Let’s make sure!

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Celebrating the rich culture…

Posted on February 10, 2012 by admin

Blogger: Abrão Laranjeira
Location: Sanya, China Stopover 

Abrao
Abrao

Sanya or “三亞”, is located in the Hainan Province. People here are proud of their rich cultural history, dating back to the Qin dynasty (221 BC – 206 BC). “Guan Yin” the South Sea statue shouldn´t be missed. It is the fourth highest statue in the world with 108 meters tall located in South mountain Temple (Nanshan si).

 The Race Village is close to the “Deer Turning Head” Park, in Chinese “Luhuitou Park 鹿回头公园”. This park is very famous among tourists. It is hosting a large stone statue telling the story of a hunter pursuing a deer and when the deer could not escape, it turned to look at the hunter and became a very beautiful woman and the hunter could not kill the deer – he married her instead. Local people say that they are “sons” of Luhuitou (or descendants).

Abrao delivering to a Volvo Ocean Race customer in China

Abrao delivering to a Volvo Ocean Race customer in China

All the boats have arrived, Telefonica, Groupama, Camper, Puma, Abu Dhabi and Sanya. After the warm welcome to Team Sanya, things have been working quite smoothly and we can finish the IT infrastructure that must be fully tested very soon. Boats, trackers, TVs, Helicopters, etc. will rely on the infrastructure and we have to be sure everything will be running during the official presentation events to the sponsors and official competitions.

Greeting the Camper team after their arrival in Sanya

Greeting the Camper team after their arrival in Sanya

We are always having different requests and this is keeping the IT crew very excited. The last request was to send all race images to all TVs in the hotel. Yes, the hotel where we are staying is located just beside the race village and now everybody can follow the race from their rooms. We´ve built the infrastructure to feed their TV system with the race images. So let´s switch to Volvo Ocean Race channel!
Volvo Ocean Race TV channel in the hotel room

Volvo Ocean Race TV channel in the hotel room

Signing off for now!
///Abrão

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Exploring the past and present

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Victor Wibom

Blogger: Victor Wibom
Location: Sanya, China

Victor Wibom

Victor Wibom


After working for more than two weeks in a row, some time off is rather relieving. Having a day off on Wednesday made a good opportunity to explore the Chinese culture and country which is in many ways different from the West.

On our trip we paid a visit to the Nanshan Culture Tourism Zone, which is a large park with buildings, statues and landscapes that describes how buddhism made its’ way into China. It was built in 1998 to celebrate the 2000th anniversary of Buddhisms’ presence in China. It is also the largest Buddhist preaching site established in China since the founding of People’s Republic of China.

The 108 meter high Buddha statue in Nanshan Culture Tourism Zone

The 108 meter high Buddha statue in Nanshan Culture Tourism Zone

Back on the road again, we drove north on the Hainan island to visit the Li minority village. The Li population is one of the 55 recognised minorities in China making part for about 45% of the total population. Here, lots of different handcraft and everyday living in ancient China was presented such as weaving and wedding ceremonials. Hopefully, the staged marriage I was involved in was only just staged. In fact, the village is still populated by the Li minority – although they definitely have adapted some new technology.

Ancient Chinese pots in the Li Minority village

Ancient Chinese pots in the Li Minority village

Back to reality, we are now preparing for next week when all the action will commence in China. The principle is the same in all stopovers starting with a practice day three days before the leg start where we get a last chance for finishing touches. Two days before the leg start there is a pro-am race where customers and stakeholders of the race can experience the rapid inshore sailing, followed by the in-port race the day before the leg start. Naturally, there is no room for failure during these days why everyone prepares for this weeks in advance.

再見,
Victor

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