In its announcement, Thales Group described the Nexium Defence Cloud as the first solution designed to adapt to the needs of armed forces. The collaboration states the aim is to use Azure Stack as the underpinning of Nexium Defence Cloud. Through a flexible cloud platform, the solution offers armed forces and other defence groups storage, management, and analytics tools within a secure environment: “The elegance of combining the Thales and Microsoft solutions, will provide armed forces with a flexible cloud application platform, that goes far beyond the basic functionalities of data storage and management, which secured defence clouds do not currently possess. In future applications developments, Azure Stack, augmented by using Guavus Reflex analytics platform, could give users the ability to analyse big amount of data in real-time for intelligence gathering, to use military IoT applications involving various types of sensors on the field or even to exchange data with mobile applications for augmented soldiers.” Among the major abilities of the platform is real-time intelligence support and applications that work in various military environments. Armed forces are increasing spending on digital solutions and undergoing technological transformations. Command and control communications systems using cloud are becoming important.
Azure Stack
Azure Stack is a hybrid cloud solution launched by Microsoft last July. The cloud platform offers specifically designed for on-premises data centers. Microsoft points out that Stack customers access cloud services using on-premises data centers and hosted environments. Thales has integrated Azure Stack with its own encryption and security systems to bring further protection of data. Jean-Philippe Courtois, EVP and President of Global Sales, Marketing & Operations at Microsoft, discussed the partnership in the announcement: “We are thrilled to announce our unique partnership with Thales to accelerate digital transformation in the defense sector. Our solution, Microsoft Azure Stack will help armed forces in the analysis of huge volumes of sensitive data in order to make break through developments. Together with Thales, we will be able to provide a flexible cloud platform with an unequalled level of security that will help overcome challenges within the defense industry.”
