Military operations have become increasingly data-driven due to the multiplication of sensors and effectors in all five dimensions: land, air, naval, space and cyber. To understand better, decide faster and act more effectively than the adversary in national deployments or in coalition, being able to leverage these amounts of data has become a crucial requirement.
When it comes to correlating and merging distributed data, cloud technologies are a must-have. They make it possible to create a pool of multi-source data that can be harnessed using remote, shared and scalable storage and computation capacities. Thales is drawing on its expertise to adapt civil cloud technologies to the military environment.
Nexium Defence Cloud enables Armed Forces to adapt their Communications and Information Systems (CIS) infrastructure quickly and easily to the operational situation (deployment of services, communities of interest, etc.) thanks to mission-oriented and automated management tools. It enhances efficiency, accelerates manoeuvres and enables joint forces commanders to prepare missions in days, deploy in hours and adapt in minutes with limited expertise.
From the home country to the theatre of operations, the benefits
provided by Nexium Defence Cloud in terms of data-driven operations
and manoeuvrability enable command post system to maintain
information superiority and dominate their adversary.
Cloud technologies are based on virtualisation, a key technology based on the abstraction of physical resources and the capacity to deploy virtual machines on a mutualised infrastructure. It enables end-users to consume these same resources easily and remotely through network connectivity. Cloud technologies natively create a unified and cross-domain datalake, breaking down data silos between different sources such as intelligence, surveillance and recognition (ISR), topology, logistics, medical, environment, security, etc.
Defence cloud technologies provide the same benefits of simplicity, flexibility and scalability in military environments:. However, they must be adapted to the chaotic uncertainty of the battlefield: harsh environment, extreme temperatures, shocks and vibrations, difficult cooling, energy consumption, manoeuvrability requirements, heterogeneous connectivity (satellite communications, line of sight, tactical radios…)
Armed Forces need a distributed cloud node architecture for local storage, and computing capacities to avoid a single point of failure. As a result, Thales has developed a range of form factors to address the requirements of each level of command from HQ to the theatre of operation, thus providing a unified CIS infrastructure:
- Thales Nexium Defence Cloud AnchorNodes are rackable defence cloud nodes designed for storage bays either at HQ level in the home country or in mobile platforms such as shelters at corps and division levels, warships and aircraft (MRTT, SIGINT, fighters, etc.)
- Thales Nexium Defence Cloud MobileNodes are rugged edge servers integrated into a military-tailored casings designed for hostile environments. These cloud nodes are standardised and can be configured in different classification levels up to Secret+. They can be easily stacked with others to scale resources. Multiple levels of redundancy are ensured, internally with spare servers, and globally with replication between distributed nodes.
- Thales Defence Cloud RoverNode is a compact-size form factor for command post deployments at battalion-level and below. They are designed to fit in mobile platforms such as command vehicles. Certified for the harsh conditions at the edge, it can operate in rain, sand, mud and under extreme shocks and vibrations.
CIS operators are under constant pressure to provide critical services in line with operational needs to make the best use of data and maximise manoeuvrability. They need to take into account many different factors in order to deploy CIS infrastructures accordingly: topology, data flows, technology heterogeneity, silo-designed management tools, etc. With Nexium Orchestrator, Thales provides a unified management tool that enables orchestration and supervision of networks functions, IT resources, services and security. Nexium Orchestrator ensures quick, easy and optimised configurations and rearticulations to adapt constantly to the tempo of the mission.
The Thales defence cloud solution complies with NATO interoperability standards, which enables nations to easily and rapidly combine their cloud infrastructure capacities and reach mass effect. Selected by NATO to provide the NATO Response Force with a turnkey IT solution, Nexium Defence Cloud provides seamless and secure information analysis and sharing with constrained connectivity on the battlefield. Thales's solution delivers decisive operational superiority through cross-domain data analytics and enhanced manoeuvrability from headquarters to the theatre of operations thanks to IT infrastructures tailored to land, naval, and air platforms.
Thales has more than 30 years of experience in building, operating and maintaining resilient network and infrastructure systems in major theatres of operations for sovereign countries and coalitions. Recognised for its technological excellence, Thales is also a world-class system integrator that masters the complexity of military environments and guarantees tactical and operational systems in the most extreme conditions.
NEXIUM Defence Cloud
Military forces are facing digital challenges but standard cloud solutions cannot meet their highly-demanding requirements. NEXIUM Defence Cloud is designed to handle different levels of confidentiality, operate in constrained bandwidth from HQ to theatre and analyse high volumes of data coming from the battlefield. Download the leaflet
NEXIUM Orchestrator
Based on a flexible, cloud-ready and modern open architecture, Thales’s Orchestrator is the turnkey solution for the management of ICT systems. Thus, operators can apply network configuration changes based on use cases, in a secure and traced way. Download the leaflet