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PROJECT OF THE MONTH
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October's Featured Project: MLB.com Hits Grand Slam with Sun Strategic Technology Alliance
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Goal:
To bring baseball to the millions of Major League Baseball fans around the world, wherever and whenever they want it.   The Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) wanted to launch a world-class broadband media channel that would allow visitors to have a memorable, fruitful encounter every time they came to MLB.com

Key Players: 

• Major League Baseball Advanced Media
• Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Project Start:
To help fulfill its commitment to bring the game closer to its fans, MLBAM signed a strategic technology alliance with Sun Microsystems in 2000. Sun was given the entire project to build out two new data centers, one in New York and a second in Chicago, and was also chosen for the design, implementation and deployment of MLB.com's original IT infrastructure and Web services.

Key Challenge:

• To create a high-performance, scalable and available data center infrastructure
• To develop an on-demand digital asset management system

Sun Microsystems Solutions:

• Provided site visitors with enhanced video content, such as pitch-by-pitch view of games, pre- and post-game shows, analysis, and enhanced search and on-demand capabilities for fans.
• Sun built the whole data center, including all the servers, storage, software and networking devices.
• Brought in SunTone (certified AT&T) to provide hosting services for the Internet connectivity.
• MLB.com's massive storage requirments for recording and archiving every game were met with a wide selection of Sun StorEdge 9900 series storage systems, as well as a number of Sun StorEdge tape libraries. 
• The New York data center featured more than 100 Sun Fire servers running MLB.com's data-intensive broadband applications
• For its broadband Web services and software application development Sun Java Enterprise System was used.

Results:

• Successfully completed the New York facility and the Chicago data center was still in the works.
• Created the Internet's most successful broadband Web portal devoted to professional sports, with more than one billion minutes of streaming media and over 2,430 full-length games offered to over one billion visitors in 2004. 
• Featured up to 15 live games daily and more than 6,000 audio-streamed games during the 2005 season
• MLB.com averaged six million visitors daily with a record-breaking 15 million visitors in a single day. It also averaged 10 million page views per day with a record-breaking 90 million views delivered in a single day.
• Major League Baseball Advanced Media was so happy with Sun Microsystems that since this project they have awarded Sun the contracts to other projects, including the building of a third data center.

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Steve Conroy, Senior Manager, Program Operations, Network Storage, Sun Microsystems, will be presenting at ProjectWorld & the World Congress for Business Analysts. For more information about this conference, please read on to ProjectNews Featured Events
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CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS!!
We thank everyone who participated and were very excited about the amount of entries we received. Please stay tuned for more competitions in future editions of PROJECT NEWS.
Answers to Last Month's Project Scrambles - check to see how many you got right.
1. corjpte nmeenamatg gonnaaoitrzi = project management organization
2. kris sasyalin = risk analysis
3. ieneasbl = baseline
4. uslceehd = schedule
5. vlaeu zairiteanol peocssr = value realization process
6. unsditco shac wfol = discount cash flow
7. topcjer amte = project team
8. jpcetor rootifolp = project portfolio
9. ebdgut = budget
10. yibsuatli igtsetn = usability testing

PROJECT NEWS QUOTES OF THE MONTH
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Just a few inspirational quotes that we felt were worth noting
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"The achievement of your goal is assured the moment you commit yourself to it."  
             - Mack R. Douglas
"Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can."   
             - Richard Bach
"It is time for us to all stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever - the one who recognizes the challenge and does something about it" 
            - Vince Lombardi
 
PROJECT NEWS RECOMMENDED READ OF THE MONTH
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Description of IT Leadership Alchemy, by Lou Russell and Jeff Feldman
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Drawing on the insights of a world-class panel of IT and business leaders, this book identifies the core relationship management skills that underlie every facet of successful IT leadership. Through practical templates, checklists, assessment tools, and real-life scenarios, this book shows IT managers exactly how to strengthen, deepen, and leverage those skills.
For more information visit: www.phptr.com/title/013009403X

This Newsletter has been brought to you by ...
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ProjectWorld  &  The World Congress for Business Analysts USA
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Join us November 15-18, 2005 in Orlando, FL for the co-location of ProjectWorld and the World Congress for Business Analysts USA - the ONLY event in America to unite the project management professional with the business analyst, cross-industry.

More than .... 134 Sessions, 32 Pre-Conference Events and 80% Practitioner-Led Presentations & Case Studies... To help you complete more projects on time, on budget & in alignment with your corporate strategy.

For more information on ProjectWorld, please visit www.projectworld.com
For more information on the World Congress for Business Analysts USA, please visit www.bawusa.com