In the competitive universe of Formula 1, where every second can make the difference between success and failure, operational efficiency becomes a crucial element. IT engineers in this sport face significant technical challenges, especially during races, when any network failure can affect the performance of their API systems. This has an impact on key services like F1 TV, which provides live coverage and real-time telemetry to fans. Identifying and preventing the causes of technical problems used to be a tedious process that could take up to three weeks. The prolonged response time was due to the need for thorough investigation among different teams, coinciding with intense event schedules and change freezes.
Lee Wright, F1’s IT Operations Manager, has highlighted that one of the main obstacles was the inefficiency of their web API system, which was slow and prone to inconsistencies. This required engineers to spend up to 15 days to resolve these issues. To address these difficulties, Formula 1 partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to create an AI-based solution. Using Amazon Bedrock, this collaboration led to the development of a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) assistant designed to streamline problem resolution.
The new RCA assistant allows users to ask questions in natural language while the system performs troubleshooting processes in the background. Its ability to connect to different databases and tools facilitates real-time system status verification, empowering engineers with varying levels of experience to handle problems more effectively. Thanks to this innovative tool, the time needed to identify and resolve issues has been reduced to just three days, including testing and deployments. This represents a notable decrease, up to 86%, in total resolution time, freeing up teams to focus on more urgent tasks, such as developing new products to enhance viewer experience.
The system development went through a five-week prototype phase that demonstrated the effectiveness of this automated process. In this phase, data records were centralized in an Amazon S3 bucket and data transformation pipelines were created using AWS Glue and Apache Spark, allowing for easy integration of information from various sources.
Another fundamental aspect of the system implementation was ensuring data security, guaranteeing strict control over the information used and applying policies that limit access to systems according to the principle of least privilege. The assistant’s user interface was created using the Streamlit framework, enabling users to interact intuitively and effectively with the system. Now, engineers can quickly access real-time system and connectivity logs, responding promptly to critical issues.
In summary, the collaboration between Formula 1 and AWS has resulted in a root cause analysis assistant that not only improves the team’s operational efficiency but also transforms the way recurring problems during races are addressed, marking a significant advancement in operations management in the automotive sport.
via: MiMub in Spanish
