many punters focus the Las Vegas-based entrepreneurs whose grand
projects continue to rise towards the South China sky. But as the
jetfoils cruise into Macau's ferry terminal, eyes turn to the left and
the eclectic architecture of Macau Fisherman's Wharf--the MSAR's
first-ever themed entertainment attraction.
Macau Fisherman's Wharf (MFW) was co-developed by Macau businessmen
Stanley Ho and David Chow, with total investment anticipated to reach
HK$1.9 billion (US$245 million), according to MFW's website. The
project, announced in 2005, opened in December of last year although
construction of some areas is still ongoing-a hotel/casino complex at
the far end is slated for opening in 3Q 2006, according to Kevin Kuan,
IT manager, Macau Fisherman's Wharf.
The facility occupies an area of over 120,000 square meters and
comprises entertainment, retail, food, hotel, marina, convention and
exhibition facilities, said the site. And since it was built not from
the ground up, but on land reclaimed from the sea, coordinating and
constructing the IT infrastructure was a Herculean task.
Tough nineties
Hong Kong-based Jardine OneSolution (JOS) was tasked with much of MFW's
network infrastructure. "We've had an office in Macau for 13 years,"
said Thomas Wan, managing director of China for JOS. He said that his
firm acquired ABA Automation at that time, a Hong Kong firm with a Macau
office-thus taking a stake in the then-Portuguese colony. "At that time,
Macau IT business was concentrated on government and education," said
Wan. "One of the few private enterprises [we served] was Tai Fung Bank."
Wan added that the fledgling JOS Macau office survived the tough times
of the mid/late-90s to see the market blossom in 2001-2002 with
increased tourist arrivals and the liberalization of the gaming
industry. Still, "this was a unique challenge," said Wan, "because this
project is the first of its kind in Macau."
Staffing issues
Wan explained that many of JOS's MFW resources are still Hong
Kong-based, the JOS Macau office employs over 50 staff, with some living
in Macau while others commute from Hong Kong on a regular basis. "It's
hard to find qualified staff in Macau," said Peter Cheng, sales director
and general manager, JOS Macau, "because everyone's competing for staff
with all the new casinos going up." The reclamation and infrastructure
projects now underway are expected to create 40,000 new jobs by 2007,
but of course not all will be in IT (see sidebar: IT skills for the MSAR).
"We used a dual approach with the MFW project," said Wan. "First we
scheduled a couple of rounds of tech sessions with the project managers
to show how they could leverage IT in the project-they were receptive.
Then we moved into our main role as overall planner, integrator and
implementer. We had to demonstrate that we were able to cope with their
schedule, and the many changes in the course of this project."
Wan said that his firm's success with the MFW implementation has led to
further work with the new players in town: Wynn's gargantuan hotel on
the Macau peninsula and the Galaxy and Venetian projects on the Cotai Strip.
Project management
Cheng and Wan both agreed that projects of a certain scope tend to
resemble one another in terms of challenges. "We've done metropolitan
networks, factories in China and university implementations," said Wan,
"and frankly there's not much difference between those and the MFW
project. We [had to] work in conjunction with construction workers and
liaise with others, including architects and building workers."
He added that his firm's expertise-especially in hospitality and hotel
systems-was helpful in creating MFW's IT infrastructure. "Our experience
with PBXs, networks and hotel information systems was very helpful,"
said Wan. "But during the course of the build-out, requirements kept
evolving: once we rolled out the core infrastructure, we brought in
senior consultants to advise. We feel our market experience and local
expertise were invaluable."
End-user hardware
Kuan from MFW said his IT needs were well supported by JOS. "We needed
a mission-critical datacenter with disaster-recovery capabilities," he
said. "We now have daily backup for all system data, and if the
datacenter were to go down for any reason, the critical data could be
loaded to a backup server to continue operations."
"Our POS systems have an offline [autonomous] mode-even if the
datacenters were totally destroyed, the POS stations would still run,"
said Kuan. "And once the server datacenter was restored, data between
servers and stations would automatically be synchronized.
Kuan added that JOS helped configure service levels to suit MFW's needs.
Heating and cooling needs for MFW's server farm were as critical as the
UPSs, according to Kwan.
"Because of the hospitality applications [in hotels and casino], the
client needs 24x7x365 availability," said Cheng. "This 'non-stop'
concept is a basic idea that we built into the design." The Macau-based
JOS manager said that a mix of fiber-optic and copper cable was used in
the deployment, with a generous 20-year warranty. Needless to add,
scalability for future needs was also designed into the system.
Another area for scalability is a POS (point-of-sale) wireless system.
According to Kuan, employees within Afrikana (an African-themed area)
will use handheld devices for POS orders. "The modular design supports
future uses of POS," added Kuan.
Future funtime
A brief tour of MFW reveals more depth than might be guessed from the
jetfoil cruise-by. Broad streets lead to themed buildings with shops and
restaurants, in addition to the big attractions like the 40-meter high
man-made volcano and Aladdin's Fort with its four kiddy rides. Macau's
first theme park has diversity and scale, and while still nascent, has
the IT infrastructure in place to ensure entertainment for the MSAR's
ever-growing contingent of pleasure-seekers.