European Space Agency sets course for Orange Business Services private cloud

'Esacloud will allow our scientists to do rocket science rather than IT, and our business to jump ahead in time more than five years,' says ESA CIO Filippo Angelucci

The European Space Agency (ESA), the organisation that last month landed the Philae Lander on a comet as part of the Rosetta space mission, has selected Orange Business Services to deploy and manage its private cloud.

Both the flexibility and security offered by the private cloud solution, known as Esacloud, will play a role in the digital transformation of the agency, as Filippo Angelucci, ESA head of IT department and CIO, explained:

"Esacloud will allow our scientists to do rocket science rather than IT, and our business to jump ahead in time more than five years," he said.

"We put a high value on having a close partnership with suppliers in IT and since being selected in 2000, Orange Business Services has helped ESA innovate and be a pioneer in many areas, such as the first European converged MPLS IP VPN," Angelucci continued.

"Esacloud marks a new milestone in our joint path," he added.

ESA has 2,200 employees in scientific, engineering, operations, industrial and administrative roles working across eight different sites spanning Europe, with IT playing a huge role in day-to-day operation of ESA activities.

Deployment of Orange Business Services therefore ensures ESA work can continue in a flexible and efficient manner via two mirrored data centres, which support applications and services.

The private cloud also offers the high levels of security required for the cutting edge work carried out by ESA, with Esacloud customised to the specific requirements of the organisation.

"We have tailored our private cloud solution to meet ESA's business transformation goals," said Dr Helmut Reisinger, senior vice president Europe, Russia & CIS Orange Business Services.

"It combines our global network in a seamless fashion with best-in-class, secure, scalable, flexible and top-business-grade cloud infrastructure and an end-to-end SLA framework to deliver unrivaled levels of service and performance," he continued.

"By supporting ESA's digital transformation, we are contributing to a different vision of what IT is doing for this high-performing organisation and business," Dr Reisinger added.

Earlier this year, Salim Ansari, head of technical IT services at ESA, told Computing how the organisation has dramatically improved its reporting on procurement through the use of business intelligence tools from MicroStrategy.