European Space Agency partners with Interoute to ensure secure and effective distribution for its critical satellite data

Interoute will provide a secure private IPVPN connecting 13 European Space Agency sites with bandwidth from 1.5Mbps to 500Mbps
 
Rome, 13 May 2010 – The European Space Agency (ESA), Europe’s gateway to space, and Interoute, owner operator of Europe’s largest next-generation network, have signed an agreement with ESA to provide a new IP Wide Area Network (WAN) connecting the Earth Observation (EO) Payload Data Systems sites across Europe and Canada. [1]

The ESA Earth Observation satellites monitor the natural world gaining valuable insight into the impact of climate change, melting ice, wild fires, and deforestation among other natural phenomena. The advanced Wide Area Network from Interoute will help ESA distribute, store and protect this valuable data. ESA needed to rationalise and enhance its existing connection capabilities, to connect the various EO Data Centres and the main IT platforms for data access and distribution. To meet ESA’s requirements, Interoute has offered a secure private IPVPN connecting the 13 ESA sites to a single performing platform: Interoute MPLS backbone.

Interoute’s next generation network will provide ESA with a secure and scalable environment ensuring the consolidation of its disparate data networks, large cost savings and an improved operational efficiency through one central reporting point for all WAN-based issues. Interoute’s solution includes Internet connectivity (1.2 Gbps access shared by all sites) with a fully redundant design, secured access through firewalls and denial-of-service (DDoS) protection.

M. Eugenia Forcada-Arregui, head of EOP Ground Segment Strategy Management Office at ESA, commented: “The existing EO Data Circulation and Dissemination Networks are intended to support the ESA Payload Data Ground Segment during the mission operations. An efficient and secure distribution network with very large bandwidth is essential to effectively gather, archive and distribute the large amount of data from the European satellite missions related with Earth Observation, to coordinate around 15 ground facilities throughout Europe and cooperate with most European ground-segment operators.”

J. Antonio Rodríguez-Vázquez, head of ESRIN ICT Services & Evolution Section, added: “We needed a European partner with outstanding network capacity and availability, which could assist us with an expert and dedicated team, delivering a fast response to address our IT challenges. We found such a partner in Interoute.”

Gareth Williams, CEO at Interoute, declared: “Interoute is proud to be involved in this significant international project for such a prestigious customer as the European Space Agency. Earth Observation data has a critical importance for science and society, and we are privileged to contribute to this mission by putting our next generation network, expertise and people at ESA’s service to create a fast, secure and reliable connection for data management and distribution in Europe and beyond.”