When the American NFL hosts a football match in Munich’s Allianz Arena, as was the case recently at the Carolina Panthers’ game against the New York Giants, then of course sport and a perfect show are the main focus. But behind it there is all sorts of sophisticated technology. The iX editorial team had the opportunity to take a look at the challenges faced by such an IT infrastructure in the stadium.
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In addition to the players and additional staff, according to NFL officials, a total of three aircraft containers of hardware made the journey to Munich. The background is that, through the on-premises infrastructure, in addition to the WAN connection to New York, you want to be able to work independently even if all connections fail. According to NFL managers, satellite backups were available for the WAN connection in addition to the fiber optic connection. Setting up the additional infrastructure took a week in Munich alone.
Data center in roll containers
Mobile data center technology in 19-inch cabinets with castors.
(Image: Benjamin Pfister)
The aim of those responsible for IT is to keep the game operations and related aspects, such as access control and the stadium TV, running in order to supply the over 70,000 spectators, even if all WAN connections fail. They also brought a small mobile data center in roll containers. This provides central services such as DHCP, DNS, NTP and a Cisco Call Manager for on-premise IP telephony. In principle, however, stadiums such as the recently re-equipped Allianz Arena operate a shared infrastructure in which they also build on the existing infrastructure on site, but bring their own servers, including the services and applications that run on them, as well as end devices.
The campus network was built on 50 of the well-known multi-gigabit-capable Catalyst 9300 switches. Among other things, these transport the UHD TV images in order to later send them to the USA. The cameras also had to be reconsidered in terms of network technology, as the camera positions for the NFL are completely different than for football, which is traditionally played in the Allianz Arena. Therefore, this infrastructure could not be used.
Private LTE network
MultiGigabit-capable Cisco Catalyst 9300 switches, batteries and UPSs on the sidelines.
(Image: Benjamin Pfister)
There were around 1,500 WiFi 6 access points available in the Allianz Arena and its surroundings. An upgrade to WiFi 7 has already been taken into account in the design. Anyone who assumes classic access points with omnidirectional antennas is wrong. We identified directional patch antennas in the interior and exterior of the stadium in order to limit the lateral broadcast area and, as a result, not to serve too many parallel users on one access point.
Those responsible spoke of 14,000 WLAN devices active in parallel. According to statements in the interview, the guest WiFi alone sometimes generates loads of up to 20 Gbit/s in the stadium. In the USA, however, even more users are active on the WLAN. In order not to have to rely on a shared WLAN infrastructure for mission-critical services, the NFL even operates a private LTE network for its own purposes. There is also a dedicated WLAN for the coaches’ tablets.
On the sidelines there were blue trolleys with tablets for the referees to be able to analyze unclear game situations using VR/AR. This should also enable real-time consultation with NFL personnel in the USA, for which IP telephones are also located in the trolleys. These are located in the so-called GameDay Central Command Center in New York, which means that the WAN connections play an important role despite all the self-sufficiency. Cisco routers from the Catalyst 8000 series are used as the hardware platform.
Defense must also be in IT
As in other areas of IT, security is one of the biggest challenges. In an interview, NFL officials explained that around 39,000 security-relevant events occurred during the Super Bowl and around 354,000 connections were blocked. Because of its partnership with Cisco, the NFL is also relying on the company’s technology – namely Secure Firewalls (formerly Firepower Threat Defense), Umbrella as a DNS security service and the XDR service.
Data protection also represents a relevant challenge when traveling with the NFL. In countries subject to the GDPR, visitor tracking is not permitted and must therefore be deactivated. And last but not least, the frequency allocation for the private LTE network is another hurdle, as this has to be coordinated with the responsible regulatory authorities. In Germany, however, this is no more complicated than in other countries, according to the NFL.
(sigh)
