Athletes all over the world are getting their sneakers ready to pound the pavement, their swim suits ready for the high dive and their rafts ready for the white water rafting race as the countdown to the 2012 Olympic Summer Games is officially on and is now in the double digits.

But, with less than three months to go to London’s 2012 Opening Ceremony on July 18, data center managers all over London are a bit in a panic over whether they have their disaster recovery, business continuity and contingency plans in place as data center power and communications will be at an all time high. According to industry experts, network overload, data center power management, and secure remote access to mission-critical apps are just some of the issues with which London businesses will grapple.

Consequently, the U.K. government is officially warning IT managers to hone business continuity plans to guarantee that homeworking is supported and that internal systems and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are included in the planning process so that the demands on the system can be understood and managed.  Another suggestion is for companies to make sure that their employees are all set to work from home, since the games will prevent many from making it to their jobs. However, according to a YouGov study, 41 percent of organizations do not yet have a remote working strategy in place and 28 percent of businesses aren’t even planning such a strategy.

Surprisingly, the YouGov survey found that only 23 percent of businesses in London and surrounding areas are fully prepared for the disruption that the Olympics could potentially bring.

“Lack of awareness of both the problem and available solutions are the culprits,” said data center expert Clive Longbottom, a service director at analyst firm Quocirca Ltd in Reading.

But one company certainly understands just how disastrous the Olympics could be for data centers everywhere and that’s why it houses its data center away from the city and instead prefers South Whales, U.K. Next Generation Data’s tier 3 wholesale data centers located in South Wales, U.K., offer a multitude of data center services including data center security, compliance and green features.

"There is an alternative to London-based data centers because for 85 percent of applications it's no longer a prerequisite to have your data center in London or the South East," Simon Taylor, chairman of Next Generation Data, told TMCnet. "More affordable fiber networks and sophisticated remote diagnostics have led to a growing trend of more companies moving out of the city."

"Power is very scarce in London and around the M25,” he added. “There's a huge amount of physical development going on around the major Olympics project, with only so much power in the pot."

But in the meantime, those data centers located in and around London will have to keep a special eye on their infrastructure as latency and collapses might become more common as activity increases during the Olympics. This can greatly affect organizations that run virtual desktops and those who demand fast access to business-critical applications outside the corporate network.

“Remote access and lights out management are the most important aspects,” Longbottom said. Moreover, being able to securely access and operate a data center from miles away will reduce the impact of any lock-downs where data centre staff cannot get in or out of the data center, he added.