One of the most unique use-cases of EMC systems appeared on theCUBE during EMC World 2015 via Antony Smith, the Converged Infrastructure specialist for the Lotus F1 Team. It turns out that cars aren’t the only things being fine-tuned for success on the track; their data analysis systems are a key part of the team’s strategy.

“We’re looking for hundredths of a second on the car,” Smith said. “We’re competing with some very, very clever people, so everybody’s doing similar things …. If we can get a competitive advantage through our data, that’s the way we win races.”

The importance of accessing streaming data

What kind of data does Smith and his team review? With 150 sensors on the car, they stream over 60 gigabytes of data per race covering everything from fuel consumption to tire wear. Something as seemingly trivial as fuel stores can mean the difference between winning and losing.

“One kilo of fuel, so two pounds of fuel, in the car is going to be worth about a 300^th of second per lap, which doesn’t sound [like] much,” he said. “But over 70 laps, that’s two seconds. And then, we’ve had races where the race has been won by 0.7 of a second. We had a race last year where one kilo of fuel would have been the difference between second place and fifth place. So, that’s just one kilo and that’s just one part of the car. There’s so much going on, there’s tire wear, there’s the brake wear. We can change the fuel consumption of the car as we’re going around the track.”

What equipment do they use to support all that real-time data analysis? Smith said they use EMC to supply all of their backend systems, which includes a few Vblocks at the factory, a couple of data centers in an active/active pair to ensure redundancy, and data analysis software. They also take a smaller Vblock to the track with them.

System portability critical

The portability of the mostly-virtual system makes all the difference — if it required cooling systems or too many pieces of hardware, it would cost too much to fly the system to 20 races a year. But they’ve been pleased with its performance. “We only take one person to do the IT trackside. That’s it. So the kit has got to be bulletproof. It’s just got to work,” Smith said.

Back at their home base, the team can also use the data to play back an entire race on a car in the garage on a special rig and use it to refine performance for the next race. Having a dependable infrastructure allows them to focus on one thing: winning races.

“With the VCE stuff, we’ve got a completely converged system,” Smith explained. “It’s one contact; it’s one system that all works together. We do the matrix upgrades, and we know everything is going to work. It just makes things that much easier for us.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of EMC World 2015.