Camelot installs new IBM system

National Lottery operator Camelot has installed a new IT infrastructure to support its online activities and allow the sale of lottery tickets over the internet and mobile phones.

The company has installed mainly IBM-based technology to support its Interactive Programme, which runs on different systems from those supporting the National Lottery.

Visitors to the web site can now play 'instant win' games, and within 18 months they will be able to buy tickets for draw-based games online. Camelot will also make the service available via digital television and on mobile phones.

'We have installed a new IT infrastructure at Camelot which is completely different compared to the systems that run the National Lottery, because it's of a new generation,' Camelot's architecture and security manager Rick Harrington told Computing.

Visitors to the site will be issued with an electronic wallet that is charged up from their debit cards making it convenient to pay for small transactions.

'If you win you can have your winnings put on to your wallet,' Harrington said. 'You can also take money from the wallet and transfer it to your current account.'

The multi-channel facilities that Camelot is putting in place were set down in the terms of its second lottery licence awarded by the government.

Camelot started thinking about the interactive project in 2000. It decided that a completely new IT infrastructure was required to support the new channels, and decided upon the specifics in 2001. The first phase went live in February.

The organisation has a team of 50 staff working on the project. Much of the work has been done in-house, using specialist suppliers where appropriate, such as Sagitta, which installed an IBM Shark storage area network.

'Sagitta took care of all the planning, design, implementation, training and services,' Harrington said.

Camelot declined to reveal the cost of the infrastructure but described it as 'significant'.

Camelot's Technology

• The IT infrastructure supporting Camelot's Interactive Programme is heavily reliant on technology from IBM.
• The basic software architecture is based on J2EE. It uses the IBM WebSphere application server, running AIX, IBM's proprietary Unix operating system.
• Camelot selected IBM p690 servers, DB2 database, and Shark storage area network.