TAG Heuer Porsche System E Staff turns safety into pace

VentureBeat not too long ago spoke with Friedemann Kurz, Head of IT for Porsche Motorsport, whose decades-long experiences place him as a frontrunner in mixing know-how with high-stakes racing.

Kurz oversees the TAG Heuer Porsche System E Staff’s IT operations, masking the whole lot from race-time knowledge administration to cybersecurity and logistics. His function is essential in conserving Porsche’s motorsport know-how resilient and agile, making certain a seamless movement of knowledge that helps strategic race choices and upholds Porsche’s status for innovation.

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

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

Under are excerpts from our current interview with Kurz:

VentureBeat: May you begin by explaining your function at Porsche Motorsport and the way cybersecurity aligns along with your operations?

Kurz: As Head of IT for Porsche Motorsport, I oversee the whole lot from digital infrastructure and knowledge administration to cybersecurity and efficiency optimization. Information is a essential aggressive asset for us, driving choices on race technique and automotive diagnostics. Cybersecurity is crucial in defending this knowledge movement, enabling our workforce to make real-time, knowledgeable choices with out interruption or compromise. Our focus is on making certain knowledge integrity, even beneath intense race-day stress.

VB: System E is understood for its demanding, fast-paced schedule. May you elaborate on the distinctive IT challenges that include managing safe, real-time knowledge movement on this surroundings?

Kurz: System E’s international 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 now have 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 steady, encrypted connection in various environments, permitting us to adapt rapidly to every location’s distinctive situations.

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

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

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

Kurz: Weight and area are essential components for us. System E’s format limits what we are able to carry to every location, which led us to eradicate 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 system, which you’ll be able to examine with the router you utilize at dwelling. You plug that in on the racetrack, irrespective of the place you’re at on this planet, and we are able to 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 conserving our bodily footprint minimal. This strategy exhibits that agility and safety can coexist, even in a high-demand, high-stakes surroundings.

VB: Shifting throughout worldwide borders, how do native laws affect 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 movement and uninterrupted communication, particularly in mission-critical race conditions. Cato Networks helps handle this by adjusting to native community constraints routinely with their PoPs (Factors of Presence), sustaining a safe baseline with out compromising compliance.

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

Kurz: Normally, what’s occurring with the Cato resolution is that each unusual conduct that’s thought of an actual menace is dealt with the identical approach. There’s a story created. There are all of the IP addresses and computer systems that have been affected. All the things is logged in a approach that’s straightforward to grasp. Based mostly on that, we are able to react and act rapidly as a result of we have already got the data in a single console. In case it seems to be like a significant menace, we are able to additionally embody the consultants from Cato. Having the ability to determine and reply immediately is essential, as we function in a high-stakes surroundings the place each millisecond issues. Actual-time detection and response are elementary 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, corresponding to monitoring community well being and prioritizing knowledge flows. On race day, as an example, AI may dynamically reallocate bandwidth to essential telemetry knowledge if there’s a surge in demand. We’re additionally taking a look at machine studying fashions that might refine our vitality administration methods, serving to us regulate automotive settings based mostly on real-time monitor and environmental situations. The aim is to make use of AI for in-the-moment changes that instantly affect 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 strategy to adopting new know-how. Choices 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 know-how should combine seamlessly with our current programs and ship measurable enhancements in efficiency or safety. For IT leaders, balancing confirmed reliability with innovation is essential, particularly in a fast-evolving discipline. With Cato as one among our trusted companions, we comply with the ideas of motorsport basically. We search for concepts on how issues may very well be extra environment friendly, extra sturdy, sooner and faster. If we discover one thing in our day by day operation or within the configuration of the product, we all the time instantly handle it with Cato. It’s very particular as a result of they’re versatile and agile on requests from the TAG Heuer Porsche System E Staff.

VB: Many groups rely closely on cloud and edge computing, however safety is commonly a priority. How does the workforce 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 linked. All the things is end-to-end and encrypted within the tunnel. There’s the information switch between the PoP on the racetrack and the PoP closest to our headquarters in Weissach. All of that’s executed by Cato and it’s tremendously sooner 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 may different industries take from TAG Heuer Porsche System E Staff’s cybersecurity strategy?

Kurz: Agility and safety must go hand-in-hand, notably when scaling operations or getting into new markets. We’ve discovered 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, making certain safety doesn’t compromise agility.