Thales, Microsoft announce defense cloud platform for armed forces
NewsJune 18, 2018
LA DEFENSE, France. Multinational defense and cybersecurity contractor Thales has announced a partnership with Microsoft under which the companies will build a cloud platform designed to help armed forces and other defense clients store and secure classified and sensitive data within their information technology infrastructure.
According to information from Thales, the computing solution will be based on the Microsoft Azure Stack platform, a services-oriented hybrid cloud environment that will be fully cyber secured; Thales, for its part, will adapt the environment to military resilience constraints. The platform will be used jointly by military forces both in the command center and in the theater of operations.
Microsoft Azure Stack -- which is delivered as an integrated system -- will be used as the baseline system, into which Thales will integrate its connectivity and end-to-end cybersecurity and encryption solutions, handling the most sensitive data whether keeping it hosted at a defense headquarters or deployed in the field. The resultant system, say Thales officials, will pair the cloud computing power and functionalities of Azure Stack with Thales’s resilient and robust cybersecurity functionalities, a combination that will safeguard the security of all data deemed sensitive and classified by armed forces while reinforcing interoperability and operational excellence.
Thales also asserts that it can build on the initial combined platform to enable users to analyze large amounts of data in real time for intelligence gathering, use military IoT [Internet of Things] applications involving various types of sensors on the field, and exchange data with mobile applications for soldiers to use in augmented-reality situations.
