TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team turns security into speed

VentureBeat just lately spoke with Friedemann Kurz, Head of IT for Porsche Motorsport, whose decades-long experiences place him as a frontrunner in mixing expertise with high-stakes racing.

Kurz oversees the TAG Heuer Porsche Components E Crew’s IT operations, masking every little thing from race-time knowledge administration to cybersecurity and logistics. His position is essential in retaining Porsche’s motorsport expertise resilient and agile, guaranteeing a seamless stream of knowledge that helps strategic race choices and upholds Porsche’s repute for innovation.

Components E’s distinctive format, with 16 races held throughout 10 cities worldwide, calls for a versatile IT framework. Kurz’s crew should rapidly deploy a safe, high-performance community at every location, dealing with the pressures of stay knowledge switch that informs race technique and diagnostics in real-time. At speeds reaching 320 km/h, these networks are crucial for sustaining a aggressive edge for the TAG Heuer Porsche Components E Crew and supply a mannequin for adaptable, safe IT infrastructure that would profit any enterprise with a necessity for speedy world scalability.

To fulfill safety and networking calls for, the TAG Heuer Porsche Components E Crew has partnered with CATO Networks since 2023 to effectively join and safe pit crews, knowledge facilities, cellular customers, cloud assets and operational websites.

Under are excerpts from our latest interview with Kurz:

VentureBeat: Might you begin by explaining your position at Porsche Motorsport and the way cybersecurity aligns together with your operations?

Kurz: As Head of IT for Porsche Motorsport, I oversee every little thing from digital infrastructure and knowledge administration to cybersecurity and efficiency optimization. Knowledge is a crucial aggressive asset for us, driving choices on race technique and automobile diagnostics. Cybersecurity is crucial in defending this knowledge stream, enabling our crew to make real-time, knowledgeable choices with out interruption or compromise. Our focus is on guaranteeing knowledge integrity, even underneath intense race-day strain.

VB: Components E is thought for its demanding, fast-paced schedule. Might you elaborate on the distinctive IT challenges that include managing safe, real-time knowledge stream on this setting?

Kurz: Components E’s world circuit implies that we transfer between 10 cities for 16 races in a single season, every with completely different regulatory, bandwidth, and logistical constraints. We function with strict bandwidth limitations—solely 50 Mbps is shared throughout all purposes. This requires us to prioritize bandwidth-heavy purposes like telemetry and communications. We’ve only one IT workers member on-site, so the infrastructure setup must be safe, environment friendly and simply deployable. Cato Networks permits speedy configuration and ensures a secure, encrypted connection in numerous environments, permitting us to adapt rapidly to every location’s distinctive situations.

VB: How does real-time knowledge administration combine into TAG Heuer Porsche Components E Crew’s race technique, and what position does safety play?

Kurz: Actual-time knowledge, similar to tire temperatures and vitality utilization, is crucial for making strategic changes through the race. This knowledge helps us react in real-time, which is significant in a sport the place milliseconds could make all of the distinction. Cato Networks offers safety for us, which is embedded in each facet of our IT setup. We are able to’t afford knowledge delays or integrity points; they may disrupt our total race technique. Our focus is on offering seamless, safe knowledge stream so our crew can consider strategic choices with out worrying about vulnerabilities.

VB: You talked about the significance of a light-weight infrastructure. How does this affect your expertise decisions?

Kurz: Weight and house are crucial elements for us. Components E’s format limits what we will convey to every location, which led us to remove cumbersome server racks. After we began investigating for an answer, Cato was the one platform that’s streamlined. Our Cato Socket is an SD-WAN gadget, which you’ll be able to evaluate with the router you employ at dwelling. You plug that in on the racetrack, irrespective of the place you’re at on the earth, and we will handle it from our headquarters in Weissach. This light-weight setup helps us save on transportation prices and reduces emissions. Cato Networks give us flexibility and guarantee efficiency whereas retaining our bodily footprint minimal. This method exhibits that agility and safety can coexist, even in a high-demand, high-stakes setting.

VB: Transferring throughout worldwide borders, how do native laws impression your community and cybersecurity posture?

Kurz: Every nation has its personal knowledge privateness legal guidelines and community restrictions, which provides complexity. It’s important for us to remain vigilant about native laws to make sure seamless knowledge stream and uninterrupted communication, particularly in mission-critical race conditions. Cato Networks helps handle this by adjusting to native community constraints mechanically with their PoPs (Factors of Presence), sustaining a safe baseline with out compromising compliance.

VB: Actual-time operations are essential in Components E. How does TAG Heuer Porsche Components E Crew deal with anomalies and potential safety threats throughout races?

Kurz: On the whole, what’s happening with the Cato resolution is that each unusual conduct that’s thought of an actual menace is dealt with the identical means. There’s a story created. There are all of the IP addresses and computer systems that have been affected. All the pieces is logged in a means that’s straightforward to grasp. Primarily based on that, we will react and act rapidly as a result of we have already got the knowledge in a single console. In case it seems to be like a significant menace, we will additionally embody the specialists from Cato. Having the ability to establish and reply immediately is crucial, as we function in a high-stakes setting the place each millisecond issues. Actual-time detection and response are basic to each our safety and general race efficiency.

VB: Past predictive analytics, are there particular areas the place you see AI and machine studying enhancing your aggressive edge or optimizing race-day operations?

Kurz: Completely. AI and machine studying aren’t only for knowledge evaluation; we’re exploring their potential in automating repetitive processes, similar to monitoring community well being and prioritizing knowledge flows. On race day, for example, AI might dynamically reallocate bandwidth to crucial telemetry knowledge if there’s a surge in demand. We’re additionally machine studying fashions that would refine our vitality administration methods, serving to us alter automobile settings based mostly on real-time observe and environmental situations. The aim is to make use of AI for in-the-moment changes that instantly impression race outcomes.

VB: How do you handle the fixed technological evolution in motorsport and determine when to undertake new instruments or methodologies?

Kurz: We take an iterative, metrics-driven method to adopting new expertise. Selections are based mostly on race efficiency and post-race evaluation. Each season, we evaluate our tech stack and consider potential upgrades. Nevertheless, we’re very selective; any new expertise should combine seamlessly with our present methods and ship measurable enhancements in efficiency or safety. For IT leaders, balancing confirmed reliability with innovation is crucial, particularly in a fast-evolving discipline. With Cato as one among our trusted companions, we comply with the ideas of motorsport normally. We search for concepts on how issues may very well be extra environment friendly, extra strong, quicker and faster. If we discover one thing in our each day operation or within the configuration of the product, we at all times instantly deal with it with Cato. It’s very particular as a result of they’re versatile and agile on requests from the TAG Heuer Porsche Components E Crew.

VB: Many groups rely closely on cloud and edge computing, however safety is commonly a priority. How does the crew steadiness edge computing wants with community safety?

Kurz: Within the places the place we’re racing, there’s a Cato PoP. As quickly as we join the Cato Socket to the general public web, the native PoP is related. All the pieces is end-to-end and encrypted within the tunnel. There may be the information switch between the PoP on the racetrack and the PoP closest to our headquarters in Weissach. All of that’s performed by Cato and it’s tremendously quicker than going via the general public web. I might say for race operations, that’s the largest profit we’re reaching.

VB: Many organizations face related challenges as they develop globally. What broader classes might different industries take from TAG Heuer Porsche Components E Crew’s cybersecurity method?

Kurz: Agility and safety have to go hand-in-hand, significantly when scaling operations or getting into new markets. We’ve realized that light-weight, versatile infrastructure—particularly cloud-native options—can streamline operations with out sacrificing safety. Enterprises in any sector can profit from specializing in applied sciences that present scalability and effectivity, guaranteeing safety doesn’t compromise agility.