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The multinational firms have partnered with local industry to develop a new tactical cloud computing platform.
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Thales Australia and Microsoft have teamed up with Australian SMEs Myriad Technologies, archTIS and Fortifyedge to launch Nexium Defence Cloud Edge (NDC Edge) — a secure tactical cloud computing capability at the edge of the battlespace.
Developed locally for the Australian Defence Force, NDC Edge aims to deliver a sovereign capability, which leverages Microsoft Azure Stack technology, designed to be compatible with Five Eyes nations, while also supporting humanitarian aid and civilian applications.
The platform facilitates the analysis and distribution of data in real time, in a bid to streamline the decision-making process to “gain and maintain operational tempo”.
NDC Edge transfers capability from strategic headquarters to warfighters in the battlespace.
Myriad Technologies, archTIS and Fortifyedge have been tasked with integrating their respective civil and commercial technologies to support the functioning and security of the platform.
The technologies enable forces to operate autonomously in the theatre of operations, offering a range of possible configurations, from very high-capacity and easily scalable infrastructure to ‘all-in-one’ containerised systems.
This is expected to enable deployed forces to securely share critical information across domains, multinational coalitions and other agencies to allow a shared common operating picture.
NDC Edge is also designed to “rapidly re-role” in theatre, introduce new capabilities and integrate with legacy platforms.
Nexium Defence Cloud Edge includes all components of military command posts and meets performance requirements relating to size, weight and power (SWaP).
“Myriad Technologies and S2IX are proud to play a major part in delivering a new world-class C4ISR capability in partnership with Thales,” Perry Smith, strategic partner manager at Myriad Technologies, said.
“Our product delivers the data fabric capabilities for the Thales Nexium Combat Cloud platform. S2IX was born and bred in the battlespace.
“Developed over 10+ years while supporting military activities here in Australia and driving innovation in the way defence operates on a global scale.”
Daniel Lai, CEO and managing director of archTIS, added, “ArchTIS is committed to providing innovative, ready to deploy solutions that are accredited to safeguard sensitive and classified information access and sharing.
“We are excited to partner with Thales as part of the Nexium Cloud EDGE solution to bring secure ‘collaboration anywhere — from the war room to the tactical edge’.
“As an Australian company we are proud to deliver innovative, sovereign technology solutions to support the Australian defence industry. We look forward working with Thales to provide solutions to tackle the defence industry’s unique information security challenges with highly secure information access and sharing to support Defence agency and supply chain collaboration worldwide.”
Peter Padd, CEO of Fortifyedge, said the new solution would help solve the most complicated problems faced by warfighters and first responders.
“Using state-of-the-art approaches like edge computing and tiny machine learning even when disconnected. So, they can make trusted decisions at the speed of relevance,” Padd said.
Mark Leigh, general manager, public sector, Microsoft Australia, said NDC Edge would build on Microsoft Azure Edge technology, delivering “transformational effect to the service member”.
“We are delighted to partner with Thales Australia on this initiative to deliver trusted and secure, cloud native solutions from headquarters to the tactical edge,” he added.
Chris Jenkins, chief executive of Thales Australia, said NDC Edge would deliver capability advantages across all domains from the headquarters to the tactical level.
“The targeted capabilities are more agile in their deployment, more interoperable in their use and deliver a more decisive impact on the battlefield,” he said.
[Related: Thales Australia, General Dynamics OTS expand sovereign munitions capability]
Charbel Kadib
News Editor – Defence and Security, Momentum Media
Prior to joining the defence and aerospace team in 2020, Charbel was news editor of The Adviser and Mortgage Business, where he covered developments in the banking and financial services sector for three years. Charbel has a keen interest in geopolitics and international relations, graduating from the University of Notre Dame with a double major in politics and journalism. Charbel has also completed internships with The Australian Department of Communications and the Arts and public relations agency Fifty Acres.
