Technical Case Study
Sauber F1 Team
By Magnus Frey, Head of IT,
Sauber Motorsport AG
Innovation at 300 Kilometers per Hour
Fanatical crowds, fever-pitch emotions, to-the-edge drivers, thunderous
engines, screaming tyres that hit speeds of more than 300 kilometers per
hour, devastating defeats and exhilarating wins, champagne and celebrity—
it’s all part of Formula One racing.
But it’s also composite engineering and carbon-fibre/aluminum honeycomb
monocoques (the driver’s workplace and safety cell); high-tech, three-kilogram
seats that cushion against 4 g of lateral acceleration; a 140-meter-long wind
tunnel tube; and world-class computational fluid dynamics (CFD) programs
for aerodynamics research. Formula One racing is clearly a sport of passion,
but it’s also a sport of technology at the highest level.
IT and the design and production processes we support are at the core of
Sauber Motorsport AG activities. In fact, we’ve turned our capabilities in IT
into a competitive advantage that helps our privately owned Sauber F1 Team
successfully race against much larger, more generously funded teams with
such well-known names as Ferrari, Mercedes, and McLaren. The FlexPod ®
data center platform from NetApp® and Cisco® and NetApp MetroCluster™
storage solutions are fundamental to our IT infrastructure. NetApp solutions
deliver the speed and agility we need for critical decision-making in a sport
in which 0.001 seconds can be the difference between winning and losing.
The Formula for Success
Sauber Motorsport AG, founded by Peter Sauber, operates the Sauber
F1 Team. We employ some 300 people who collaborate on the design and
production of our race cars. Our headquarters in Hinwil, Switzerland, houses
the main office, a factory building, and the wind tunnel building where we
test race car prototypes for aerodynamic performance. Most of the tests
run on 60% scale models because of Formula One regulations that limit
full‑scale testing.
Our sport is heavily regulated in both technical and sporting elements.
Regulations direct everything from engine and tyre specifications to where
we can position the exhaust, the height of the nose cone, and even how
much time we can spend testing in the tunnel. Such regulations make it
even more critical for us to focus on what we can control—aerodynamics
and race strategies, for example—to differentiate our team and to make
the adjustments that will give us that all-critical lap-time advantage.
Competition is fierce and it happens at 300
kilometers per hour. Often, milliseconds can
be the difference between winning and losing.
01:20:000
1st place
01:20:005
2nd place
Finding that adjustment—which can be a miniscule change in a part
design—takes attention to detail and fast but sophisticated analysis of the
huge amounts of data generated during the development of the car and
on the track. In both arenas, NetApp storage plays a mission-critical role.
FlexPod on the Road
A mobile data center
Our partnership with NetApp began in 2007 when we implemented the first
MetroCluster solution at our data center in Hinwil. It was only natural that
we would consider NetApp again when we needed a movable system—
essentially a complete, but mobile data center—for the racetrack.
We selected the FlexPod data center solution, jointly created by NetApp
and Cisco, for its small size and weight, which enable us to conveniently
transport it on planes or in trucks; its functionality—we can run all our
analysis tools right at the track; and its reliability. The FlexPod must
operate dependably—and it does, whether it’s a cold day at the track
in Germany, sweltering in Singapore at 38° Celsius, oppressively humid,
or truck‑rattling windy.
Reliable
Formula One teams travel to racing venues on the Monday before the race
weekend. Race cars arrive partly in pieces and are assembled by Thursday,
after which they are scrutineered by FIA officials and team crews practice
pit stops. Track action begins on Friday with two practice sessions, followed
by another practice session and qualifying events on Saturday. With just
two days to analyze data in preparation for Sunday’s race, we can’t tolerate
system downtime.
The FlexPod platform travels with our team to every race—that is, to
20 racing events in 19 countries every year. Races occur in different
countries on average every two weeks between March and November.
Driven or flown, the FlexPod platform must survive the vibrations and shock
of transport to operate across the season’s wide range of environmental
conditions. Once the system arrives on site, we bring it up quickly—we
can have our crew working within two and a half hours after arrival.
2
FlexPod’s mobility, size, and level of integration are amazing. But it’s the
­reliability that’s critical—we have never had a failure. If we did, it would be
disastrous—we could not even safely start the car, let alone optimize it for
speed. And, without a reliable infrastructure to support critical decision-­
making both on and off the track, it would be like going back more than
20 years, when drivers had to go it alone—they really would not be competitive against technology-assisted teams. We are always in go-live mode;
there is no coming back to do it over. If we miss the opportunity, it’s gone.
At the track, we use data on the FlexPod system to fine-tune vehicle setup,
qualifying tactics, and race-day strategy. The FlexPod platform collects
new data from the car any time it is running. Real-time data, including
petrol usage, temperatures, engine information, and other sensor feedback,
transmits via radio to the FlexPod platform. We use this telemetry data along
with track conditions data to run new simulations on the FlexPod system
before and during the race, comparing how the virtual model performs with
the actual vehicle setup and track data versus with the “ideal” parameters
and factory car design.
From the track-based results we make on-the-fly adjustments to the driver’s
strategy and fine-tune the car for performance—for example, the team might
make a front-wing change, modify cooling, or adjust pit stops to maximize
how long we can run a set of tyres without risking overheating and blistering.
We currently collect data from more than 100 sensors on each vehicle.
While sensors are key to design and decision-making, their benefit is
always measured against the additional weight they add to the car.
100 sensors on the Sauber F1 Team cars
send data to the FlexPod in real-time.
On track engineers analyze the data to
improve performance.
FlexPod components
Our FlexPod platform integrates a dual-head NetApp FAS2040 cluster
with NetApp SyncMirror ® software for replicating data across the cluster,
eight Cisco® Unified Computing System™ blade servers, and a Cisco Nexus®
switch (see Figure 1). Although we did look at alternative blade solutions,
our experience with Cisco networking and NetApp storage and the benefits
of prevalidation made the FlexPod platform uniquely advantageous.
3
During practice sessions, qualifying runs, and at the end of each race, we
replicate race data via NetApp SnapMirror ® technology to a MetroCluster
in Hinwil. Data transmits to Hinwil via an MPLS link at a maximum rate of
4Mb/sec. The communications link is provided by a dedicated communication
partner at every track with transmission rates dependent on the network
speeds available in each country. The average track-to-headquarters delay
would be 15 minutes. Right up until race time (and then afterward for the
next venue), engineers in Hinwil collaborate with the track team to fine-tune
car setup and race strategy. Races run an average of 306 kilometers and by
regulation cannot exceed 2 hours. Even as the race winds down, crews are
already packing equipment for transport to the next venue.
NetApp MetroCluster at Headquarters
We run all of our corporate systems on a NetApp MetroCluster solution that
provides storage to two Hinwil data centers—one primarily for business
systems and a second for engineering. In total we run 40 major business
and technical applications and annually generate about 20TB of new data,
with an increasing trend every year.
Mobile Data Center at the Race Track
VMware vSphere and vMotion
Data Analysis and Database Applications
Cisco Unified
Computing System
(UCS) C250
Cisco Nexus 5020
Switch
Realtime Upload
of Data to
the Factory
NetApp FAS2040A
Running
Data ONTAP 8.0
NetApp SnapManager
NetApp Snapshot
FlexPod
Telemetry Data
from the Cars
Timing
Data
Video
Data
GPS Data
from Other Cars
Figure 1. Mobile FlexPod data center solution at the track.
4
Keeping Track—by the
Numbers
• Per-lap data (speed, movements,
g forces, pressures, temperatures,
engine data, etc.): 4MB per lap
from race car to pit systems via
real-time radio transmission;
20MB to 30MB downloaded
from the car when it arrives
back in the pit after each run
• Telemetry data collected per
three-day race weekend: 25GB
• Data transmitted to Hinwil during
one hour of free practice: 600MB
Flexible
On the technical side, engineers continually strive to make our cars faster,
better, and easier to drive. From year to year, we basically develop and build
a completely new car, depending upon track results and new regulations. In
April of each year, engineers start work on concept designs for the next year,
using our CAD systems to develop 6,000 to 7,000 individual components
(including car parts and the tools to manufacture them). At the same time,
they’re making changes to this year’s car in response to driver feedback
and what has happened on the track. As we adjust for track differences
and periodically upgrade design elements based on the latest race data,
we’re effectively putting a newly modified race car on the track almost
every other week.
MetroCluster gives us fast access to the large amounts of data engineers
need for decision-making. In the development process, designers analyze
a broad set of data to most effectively balance regulated design elements
such as stiffness and weight, with the overall design. We buy the complete
powertrain from Ferrari, for example, but we develop, design, and build the
rest of the car. The goal is always to increase aerodynamic efficiency—that
is, to maximize the amount of downforce for the smallest amount of drag.
Available
In today’s motorsports, aerodynamics offers the most promise for improving
performance. For us, that means keeping our wind tunnel and CFD systems
running continually to enhance our design and correlate model data with
actual race data. When we improve aerodynamic efficiency, we’re effectively
reducing lap time in the next race. Ultimately it’s all about lap time and where
we can shave off a couple of tenths of a second more. Competition during
the 2012 racing season, for example, was particularly tight. During any given
race, qualifying times of the first 15 cars were likely to be within a span of
just one second. A fraction of a second can be the difference between
qualifying or not in the top 10.
Since strict Formula One regulations prohibit testing on the track during race
season, we can’t use the race track to test efficiency, so we rely heavily on
our CFD tools and the wind tunnel. MetroCluster keeps our aerodynamicists,
model designers and model builders, CFD engineers, and other staff
working, helping to provide availability of wind tunnel technology, including
data acquisition and model motion systems. These systems are in use 24/6
by our own team and for third-party projects. Continuous data availability
is important across the company—downtime delays design, testing, or
production processes—but it’s essential for the wind tunnel. Every hour
it’s down is an hour we aren’t improving the car.
MetroCluster components
Data is replicated synchronously across two MetroCluster nodes, one a
NetApp FAS3240 system in the factory building and the second a NetApp
FAS3240 array approximately 75 meters away in the wind tunnel building
(see Figure 2). With 460TB of capacity across both nodes, MetroCluster
gives us always-on data service, built-in data protection, and the ability
to scale performance and capacity without disrupting operations.
By centralizing all of our data services, we’ve been able to significantly
reduce the complexity and costs of IT management.
5
The MetroCluster node (configured with FC drives) in the wind tunnel
building supports all of our UNIX ®- and Linux®-based technical systems.
The NetApp systems also store summary results of calculations run on
a high-performance compute cluster comprised of hundreds of nodes
configured with minimal internal capacity. Wind tunnel systems generate
significant data from measuring downforce, pressure distribution, air
resistance (or drag), and other processes related to the design and
testing of both individual components (such as a new wing) and the
fully assembled car.
In the office building, the NetApp MetroCluster node (configured with
SATA drives) provides storage for our production and office systems. The
environment is currently 90% virtualized. This node supports both physical
servers and five VMware® ESX servers hosting upward of 55 virtual server
instances. We expect to implement an additional cluster to support some
100 virtualized desktops, which will enable us to retire up to 80 physical
desktops and make it financially feasible for individual engineers to work
in multiple-desktop environments.
MetroCluster meets our requirements for 99%+ uptime. All data is
synchronously written in both data centers, so if we experience a loss of
power or another failure event in one of the buildings, we immediately fail
over to the second data center with no data loss. It takes just two or three
seconds to restore data services at the second site, so in most cases our
users are not even aware of the failover.
Computational Fluid
Dynamics (CFD)
Calculation
Data Center 1
Hinwil
Data Center 2
Hinwil
VMware
vSphere
and VMotion
CFD pre- and
postprocessing
VMware
vSphere
and VMotion
NetApp SnapManager
NetApp MetroCluster
NetApp FAS3240
NetApp FAS3240
NetApp Snapshot
Cisco Unified
Computing System
(UCS) C250
Cisco Nexus 5020
Switch
Capturing
Vehicle Data
at the Race Track
NetApp FAS2040A
Running
Data ONTAP 8.0
FlexPod
Figure 2. Storage infrastructure and data communication at Sauber Motorsport AG
headquarters in Hinwil, Switzerland.
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The Need for Speed—Faster, More Innovative, and Efficient on NetApp
Increasing technical regulations on testing, equipment, and profiling,
as well as various sporting regulations (to improve safety, ensure a level
playing field, and reduce costs), require innovation in other areas like IT.
To meet our IT challenges, we’ve for some time relied on NetApp—beginning
with the 2012 season, NetApp became an official Technical Partner of the
Sauber F1 Team—and UP-GREAT AG, our provider for information tech­
nology and infrastructure. Together they’ve helped us replace numerous
individual solutions with a more high-performance, resilient, and costeffective architecture.
Magnus Frey
Head of IT
Sauber Motorsport AG
Born and raised in Basel, Switzerland,
Magnus Frey studied economics and
computer science at Universities
Basel and St. Gallen. His career
includes six years at various
­consulting companies working on
projects related to IT strategy, IT
­infrastructure management, and
IT service management, and five
years in the IT infrastructure management department of a Swiss bank in
Zurich and New York. Magnus came
to Sauber Motorsport AG in January
2012. Outside of work, he is an F1 fan
and actively enjoys biking and golf.
He says he would like to learn how
to fly a plane “if I’m bold enough!”
Simpler, smarter data management
Intelligent data management increases efficiency and gives us an edge over
other teams. Because time is restricted in the wind tunnel, for example, we
strive to find more innovative procedures to measure even more on the
model, analyze it faster, and more quickly start the next run. NetApp data
management helps streamline processes—it’s easy to increase/decrease
volume size, and it takes just minutes to provision virtual servers or desktops,
so we are able to respond faster to requests and with fewer IT staff. Routine
administration of the MetroCluster nodes typically takes less than 10% of
one person’s time. It’s also advantageous to use the same platform and tools
for all of our operating environments—Windows®, Linux, and UNIX—at both
data centers and on the track. Consolidating data onto a single architecture
gives us a seamless data stack and eliminates data copying so it’s easier
and faster to access data—which ultimately means faster design and faster
decision-making.
We’re also able to complete all major IT technology refreshes during the
two‑week break when by international agreement all Formula One racing
teams cannot work. With MetroCluster, we can do updates during that break
and with zero downtime. We fail over one node while we upgrade it, then fail
back and upgrade the second. UP-GREAT completed this year’s upgrade
in two hours. Marcel Keller, storage and backup specialist at UP-GREAT,
agrees that this could not have been done without MetroCluster. He jokes
that if it wasn’t for this annual maintenance upgrade, his support team would
have nothing to do. We did the necessary maintenance of the FlexPod
platform going to the track in an hour, a process that used to take four
weeks when we had four racks of equipment we had to fly back to Hinwil
for upgrades.
We’re a data-driven company, and IT is truly an enabler of innovation. But we
maintain limited IT staff—just five people at headquarters and one or two at
the track. We know that IT efficiencies really do help our team compete and
maximize the team’s direct investments in the car.
High performance + reduced costs
On-demand storage scale and performance help enable us to accommodate
whatever changes race and design teams may make to data collection,
as well as support more and faster compute platforms. We’ve also seen
tremendous performance gains by using NetApp Flash Cache intelligent
caching in the Hinwil MetroCluster solution. One of the benefits is that we’re
able to use cost-saving SATA drives without sacrificing speed. In the virtual
server environment where we use deduplication in conjunction with Flash
Cache, we’re saving capacity at the same time we’re improving performance
by as much as three times. For example, because we deduplicate 40 virtual
machines, only the first is read from disk; the next 39 load directly from the
high-speed cache. Database users also report extremely fast response
times, particularly during major updates of data tables.
7
At the racetrack, deduplication gives us a savings of 8GB to 10GB per
desktop, an important benefit when space is at a premium and extra weight
increases travel costs. And deduplication helps enable us to scale efficiently.
Saving capacity is always beneficial, but it’s particularly important for the
track platform. Moving to a virtual server/desktop environment in the highly
efficient FlexPod frame, we were able to shrink our footprint from four to two
cabinets and weight by 50% to reduce transportation costs. We also cut
power requirements in half—that’s particularly important at venues where
unreliable local power sources make our team reliant solely on the power
available from our trucks. Overall, by cutting the footprint of the track system
in half we saved in transportation cost more than the entire cost of the
FlexPod platform.
Summary
Partnering with NetApp and UP-GREAT to deploy an agile IT infrastructure,
and focusing on both IT innovation and efficiency, have helped us meet the
advancing technology demands of this pinnacle of motorsport. We’re
managing more data, refining our tools, and ultimately improving the car
more quickly and better than ever before. NetApp storage infrastructure
gives us the benefits of rapid adaptability, standardization, manageability,
and room to grow—to support more sensors, collect more data, or support
new functionality such as taking databases to the track or adding video
feeds from the track. FlexPod provides the same benefits in a small-footprint
platform for the road. I don’t know of any other technology stack that could
deliver a better solution for our purposes. FlexPod gives us the best space
efficiency plus the versatility we need for critical on-track operations,
including real-time data collection, analysis, and decision-making.
Of course the biggest test of our capabilities as a team comes on the track.
So far in the 2012 season we’ve won four podium finishes. In Italy, Sergio
Perez, one of our two drivers, scored a second-place finish. Our other driver,
Kamui Kobayashi, took third in Japan, and overall the team is already ahead
of last season’s total points. Monisha Kaltenborn, our Team Principal and
CEO, believes that “we’re getting better all the time.” I’d have to agree.
8
About Sauber F1 Team
The Sauber F1 Team competes in Formula One racing, a March-to-November
seasonal circuit of 20 three-day practice/qualifying/race events at race tracks
in 19 countries around the world. Sauber Motorsport AG, headquartered in
Hinwil, Switzerland, employs some 300 designers, engineers, and support
staff. Another 100 full-time employees of suppliers and service providers in
the region depend for their livelihood on the company founded in 1970 by
Peter Sauber. In 2012, the Sauber F1 Team marked its 20th season in the
Fédération Internationale de L’Automobile (FIA) Formula One World
Championship. www.sauberf1team.com
About NetApp
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that
deliver outstanding cost efficiency and accelerate business breakthroughs.
Discover our passion for helping companies around the world go further,
faster at www.netapp.com.
Go further, faster
®
Key Products and Technologies
Data Center
NetApp:
• FAS3240 (440TB x 2)
• Flash Cache
• MetroCluster
• Data ONTAP 8.03
• FlexVol ®
• Deduplication
• Snapshot™
• SnapManager ® for SQL
Server ®, SAP ®, and SharePoint ®
• SnapRestore®
• FC/NFS/CIFS
VMware:
• VMware ESX Server 5.0
• VMware vCenter ™ Server 5
• VMware vMotion® 5
• VMware vSphere® 5
Microsoft ® Windows
environment:
• Microsoft Exchange 2007
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Microsoft SharePoint
• SAP R/3 ECC 6.0
UNIX/Linux environment:
• Dassault Systemes CATIA
• CFD (proprietary)
Racetrack (Mobile)
FlexPod:
• Cisco® Nexus® switch
• Cisco UCS™ Server
• NetApp FAS2040 system
• VMware View™ 4.5
• VMware vSphere 5
Another NetApp
solution delivered by:
www.netapp.com
© 2012 NetApp, Inc. All rights reserved. No portions of this document may be reproduced without prior written consent of NetApp,
Inc. Specifications are subject to change without notice. NetApp, the NetApp logo, Go further, faster, FlexPod, FlexVol, MetroCluster,
SnapManager, SnapMirror, SnapRestore, Snapshot, and SyncMirror are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetApp, Inc. in the United
States and/or other countries. Cisco and Nexus are registered trademarks and Unified Computing System is a trademark of Cisco Systems,
Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. VMware, vMotion, and vSphere are
registered trademarks and vCenter and View are trademarks of VMware, Inc. Windows, Microsoft, SQL Server, and SharePoint are registered
trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. SAP is a registered trademark of SAP AG. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered
trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. NA-164-1112-A4