SES Becomes Microsoft
Azure Orbital Founding Connectivity Partner
22 September 2020
SES has joined as the
medium Earth orbit (MEO) connectivity partner
for Microsoft Azure Orbital, Microsoft’s new
managed service enabling network operators to
communicate and control their satellite
capacity, process data, and scale their
operations directly within Azure. The
integration is part of a multi-year agreement
between the two companies that accelerates and
expands SES’s use of Azure to significantly
advance the digital transformation of the
company’s services and operations as part of its
cloud-first strategy.
As pioneers in Microsoft’s
new cloud ecosystem in space, the two companies
will make joint investments in Azure Orbital
ground stations that SES will deploy and manage
for the MEO and Earth Observation segments. The
first MEO and Earth Observation gateways will be
located in Phoenix, Arizona, United States and
Quincy, Western Australia respectively
In anticipation of O3b
mPOWER, SES’s next-generation MEO communications
system, SES and Microsoft will seamlessly
co-locate several telemetry, tracking and
command (TT&C) systems and data ground stations
with Microsoft’s Azure edge sites.
The integration of both SES
and Azure networks will provide O3b mPOWER
customers with “one-hop” access to their Azure
cloud services. The option to route over
Microsoft’s global network and inject
value-added, cloud-based managed services such
as enhanced security, SD-WAN, and other network
functions into the service chain will mean that
SES customers can enjoy improved network
performance, speed-to-market, flexibility and
scalability they need to capitalise on new
revenue opportunities.
O3b mPOWER is SES’s
next-generation MEO communications system. It is
currently under construction and on track for
launch in 2021. The high-throughput and
low-latency satellites as well as automated and
intelligence-powered ground infrastructure will
deliver managed services of hundreds of Mbps up
to multiple Gbps per second to customers.
Today’s agreement builds on
the work started last year between the two
companies, which added SES as an Azure
ExpressRoute partner and SES as the first
satellite operator to implement Open Network
Automation Platform (ONAP) using NFV technology
on Azure.
“In the last 12-18 months,
our focus has been to accelerate our customers’
cloud adoption plans. We are pleased to have
found an ideal partner in Microsoft with its new
Azure Orbital system. This agreement leverages
both companies’ know-how – SES's experience in
satellite infrastructure and Microsoft’s cloud
expertise – and are building blocks in
developing new and innovative solutions for the
future,” said JP Hemingway, CEO of SES Networks.
“In addition to building and managing EOS
gateways for Microsoft, we are also thrilled
that we will be co-locating, deploying and
operating our next-generation O3b mPOWER
gateways alongside Microsoft’s data centres.
This one-hop connectivity to the cloud from
remote sites will enable our MEO customers to
enhance their cloud application performance,
optimise business operations with much
flexibility and agility needed to expand new
markets.”
“Our launch of Azure
Orbital will enable our partners’ customers to
on-ramp their data into Azure where it can
immediately be processed with market-leading
data analytics, geospatial tools and machine
learning services, adding another layer of
automation and intelligence in their networks,”
said Jeff Cohen, Partner Program Manager, Azure
Networking at Microsoft Corp. “In addition,
SES’s O3b mPOWER communications system is proof
of SES’s cloud-first strategy, focusing on
industry standards and orchestration, and aligns
with our connectivity vision for the future, and
we are delighted to be kicking off this
project.”