Thales puts IT on the grid

Defence systems contractor Thales UK is consolidating its IT systems and introducing a grid-based computing system to improve the efficiency of design teams working on defence and security systems.

Until now the company has been working with various IT systems that it has inherited through acquisitions.

Without a coherent IT system to bind different divisions of the company, the business has almost been working as though it were 30 separate companies, says Ron Ekins, a Thales UK business architect consultant.

‘In that environment it has been very difficult to move the projects we are working on between different parts of the company in a coherent way,’ he said.

'The new product lifecycle management tool, TeamCentre, will allow us to communicate freely not just in the company but via secure links to the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD’s) local area network.’

Thales is working on a number of defence technology projects with the MoD, including the Watchkeeper spy plane and its new generation aircraft carriers.

Moving to a single system has also allowed Thales to consolidate its IT support personnel, drastically reducing costs.

With more than 30 systems the company needed a lot of IT support teams, says Ekins.

‘Along with IT support there were also lots of different hardware and software maintenance contracts. With that being trimmed into one platform the savings are astronomical,’ he said.

As part of the consolidation process, Thales has introduced a grid-based database system to ensure its 10,000 staff have reliable access to all its information.

The Oracle grid allows Thales to have databases that are running over multiple servers, accessing the same physical disks, says Ekins.

‘If a node goes down, we can guarantee availability of information to the business,’ he said.

‘Along with our Linux operating system, it means we can reduce the number of servers we need to support Thales UK.’

Quocirca analyst Clive Longbottom says using grid technology will make Thales UK more flexible in the way it uses its systems.

‘A grid provides a certain level of separation from hardware; any item on the grid that goes down will mean a performance hit,’ said Longbottom.

‘But it will not damage overall functionality on the system, because that is virtual.’

What do you think? Email us at feedback@computing.co.uk

Further Reading:

• Water firm unites IT systems
• IT operations management software on the rise
• What lies in store for Intel users?