Ferrari's Mobile IT Needs

This is not your average mobile IT solution (hat tip insideHPC):

eWeek: Something that is unique to Ferrari and about 10 other competing international companies (including Mercedes, Toyota, BMW, Renault and others) is that a number of times per year -- 18, to be exact in 2009 -- the company takes literally to the road for the Formula One Grand Prix road racing season. The season starts March 29 at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

This requires some challenging work on the part of the company's IT staff, about which most race fans have no idea.

At those 18 locations -- in places as diverse as Malaysia, Brazil, France, Japan and Australia -- the Ferrari data center team will set up a temporary data center on site that will work in real time during the race. The temporary center will hook directly into the F1 site.

The Ferrari IT team consists of about 150 crew members and seven large trucks' worth of servers, power supplies and everything else that goes with them. It is no simple chore to move this high-tech entourage from one continent to another.

Somehow this just doesn't make much sense. Why would the servers actually have to be on location at the race tracks? One would think that remote operation would be enough.