Internet Site of the 1998 Nagano Olympic Winter Games Is Recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records
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WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK (July 24, 1998) – . The Guinness Book of World Records, the world’s most respected authority on record-setting achievements, has officially recognized the IBM-powered Internet site of the 1998 Nagano Olympic Winter Games for setting two world records in Internet traffic.
The two records, issued on July 14, 1998, were for the following achievements by the official Web site of the Games, http://www.nagano.olympic.org.
The Most Popular Internet Event Ever Recorded — Over the 16 days of the Winter Games, February 7-22, the official Web site of the Games recorded 634,716,480 hits, by far the highest number of hits ever measured for a single sporting event until that time.
The Most Hits On An Internet Site In One Minute — At 11:55 GMT, February 20, 1998, the Winter Games Web site handled 110,414 hits in a single minute, a staggering level of traffic never before seen at that time. (This record has already been superseded by the IBM-powered Web site for the 1998 Championships at Wimbledon, when 145,478 hits were clocked in a single minute.)
Originally launched in late 1996 and still operational today, the record-breaking Web site was designed, built, and operated by IBM, working in support of the Nagano Olympic Organizing Committee (NAOC). Hosted on the IBM Global Network, the site ran on IBM RS/6000 SPs using Lotus Notes client and Lotus Domino server software making the official Web site of the Nagano Olympic Winter Games one of the largest collections of computing power ever assembled.
Altogether a total of more than four terabytes of data — four trillion bytes (or characters of information) — were processed by the site during the 16 days of the Games. This vast amount of information, an amount greater than all of the text contained in the U.S. Library of Congress, was used not only by countless fans around the world via the Internet, but also by over 84,000 accredited, on-site members of the Olympic family, including media, sports federations, National Olympic Committees, and athletes.
“We are honored to have been recognized by Guinness for this milestone achievement,” said Eli Primrose-Smith, IBM’s vice president of worldwide Olympic and sports sponsorships. “The official Nagano Olympic Games Web site was one of IBM’s proudest achievements and an exciting example of how Internet technology can bring people together from around the world.”
Source: IBM