NATO selects Thales to supply its first defence cloud for the armed forces
NATO has selected Thales to provide the first certified defence cloud solution that can be deployed in the theatre of operations in less than 24 hours.
Image courtesy Thales
Thales was selected after a worldwide competitive tendering process on the basis of its defence systems integration know-how. With this contract, the Group enters a new market sector and demonstrating its capacity to integrate the best civil and commercial technologies available and to adapt them to the needs of the armed forces.
As military operations become increasingly data-driven, access to critical data and applications is a crucial requirement for the armed forces. The defence cloud developed by Thales enables the forces to analyse and share data in real time from the command centre to the theatre of operations, pursue their digital transformation in complete security, and accelerate the decision cycle to gain and maintain an operational advantage.
Until now, it could take several months and dozens of specialised engineers working at sites close to the combat zone to deploy the assets required. With Nexium Defence Cloud and its Service Design Studio and orchestration system, a small team of experts can deploy IT services and applications to locations thousands of kilometres away in just a few hours. This solution is based on a holistic approach encompassing applications management, IT, networks and security, with an overall system architecture designed to accommodate various different levels of confidentiality.
Nexium Defence Cloud incorporates the best civil and commercial technologies available to provide a complete, modular, sovereign solution that enables forces to operate fully autonomously in the theatre of operations. It offers a wide array of possible configurations, from very high-capacity and easily scalable infrastructure for command headquarters to all-in-one containerised systems that transform a forward base into a new cloud node in just a few hours.
This easy interconnection within ad hoc organisations and command structures increases mission effectiveness with an unparalleled level of security.
Nexium Defence Cloud is the most compact, highly integrated and modular solution available today. It includes all the components of military command posts (cabinets, servers, data storage media, supervision system, etc.) and meets performance requirements in terms of size, weight and power (SWaP) to simplify deployment and minimise the logistics footprint.
Through this contract,Thales once again demonstrates its system certification and standardisation know-how. Its defence cloud solution was designed to comply with the requirements of NATO's Federated Mission Networking (FMN) standard, which establishes the framework for cooperation between command-and-control networks for coalition forces. Nexium Defence Cloud has all the strengths needed to become the benchmark solution for the high-value-added deployable command posts that will be required for the coalition operations of tomorrow.
Marc Darmon, Executive Vice-President, Secure Communications and Information Systems, Thales, said: "Thales is proud to be contributing to the digital transformation of the armed forces by providing this first deployable, certified, tactical defence cloud solution. We are grateful to NATO for renewing their trust in our expertise in secure, interoperable information and communication systems."