When plans were unveiled to rebuild Singapore's national stadium and upgrade it, high standards had to be met. Demolition of the old stadium began in late September 2010 and the foundations of the new Singapore Sports Hub were laid in February 2011.
Construction duties were handled by Dragages. Built on the site of the old stadium the 35 hectare Singapore Sports Hub offers users more services and facilities.
The sports complex comprises a new 55,000-seat National Stadium with the largest free-spanning dome in the world, including a retractable roof; a 6,000-seat OCBC Aquatic Centre; 3,000-seat modular indoor OCBC Arena, built to host multiple sports; as well as the Water Sports Centre situated along the Kallang Basin. In addition, the Sports Hub also houses lifestyle and learning options such as a retail mall, library and museum which exhibits Singapore’s sporting heritage.
With a project of this size, multiple different parties were engaged to deal with the audio and visual demands of the Singapore Sports Hub. T-Systems, an information and communication technology provider that has the pedigree and experience to take on a project of this stature having worked on multiple stadiums in the past, was tasked with providing the infrastructure for the venue.
Dr. Christoph Fink, vice president of delivery at T-Systems in Singapore, explains the brief he received for the Singapore Sports Hub: “The Singapore Sports Hub requested for a proposal to build a unique, fully digital experience for the facility and for the customer experience as well. For such a facility you need to use modern technologies across the entire event lifecycle that customers would experience.â€
With the old stadium being demolished, T-Systems had a blank canvas to work with. Dr. Fink says: “There were no legacy applications that we had to account for. Basically we started from ground zero when the old National Stadium was demolished. The new Singapore Sports Hub was built with an entirely new infrastructure.â€
The deliverables for T-Systems are broken down into three components by Dr. Fink. Regarding them he says: “The first component would be the active network. Essentially it is the infrastructure that connects all the facilities here at the Singapore Sports Hub – the National Stadium, the Aquatic Center, the Water Sports Center and the OCBC Arena – together.†The active network involved laying down the cables and infrastructure, including wireless access points, across the entire complex.
Dr. Fink continues: “The second component was the two data centers which are present on the facility here at the Singapore Sports Hub. The data centers contain the servers and facilities that are integral to run the business applications and media content delivery needed for the venue.†The data centers T-Systems deployed comprise of Cisco Blade servers and chassis along with Hitachi storage.
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