Cloud Services in Paris

Aerospace and Defence / Aircraft Manufacturing

A Paris-based aerospace company (EUR 12B annual revenue, 35,000 employees, manufacturing commercial and military aircraft components, operating in 15 countries) needed a cloud strategy that addressed both sovereign requirements for defence work and commercial cloud needs for commercial aviation operations. (1) Classification complexity: the company's work spanned unrestricted commercial aviation (60% of revenue), export-controlled technology (25% — ITAR and EAR regulated), and classified French defence work (15% — requiring SecNumCloud and ANSSI compliance). Each classification level had different cloud requirements — but the company wanted a unified cloud strategy rather than three separate infrastructure silos. (2) Design and engineering: the company's 8,000 engineers used CAD, simulation, and PLM tools that required significant compute capacity — desktop workstations were reaching capacity limits, and remote engineering (adopted during COVID) was constrained by on-premises VDI performance. Cloud-based engineering would enable elastic compute and global collaboration — but design data included ITAR-controlled technology that could not be processed on standard commercial cloud. (3) Manufacturing analytics: 12 manufacturing sites across France, Germany, Spain, and Morocco generated production data — quality measurements, equipment performance, process parameters, and yield data. Analytics on this data could improve quality and reduce costs — but required cloud compute capacity that on-premises infrastructure could not provide. Manufacturing data for military programmes was classified — requiring sovereign infrastructure. (4) ITAR compliance: 25% of the company's technology was ITAR-controlled — meaning it could only be processed by US persons on US-controlled infrastructure or through an ITAR-compliant arrangement. This created a paradox: French sovereign cloud satisfied French requirements but not ITAR. Standard US cloud (AWS GovCloud) satisfied ITAR but not French sovereignty. The company needed both. (5) Supply chain collaboration: the company collaborated with 4,500 suppliers across 15 countries — sharing design data, quality requirements, and production schedules. Supplier collaboration required cloud-based platforms, but data sharing controls had to enforce export classification — preventing ITAR-controlled data from reaching non-authorised suppliers or countries.

We designed and implemented a multi-tier cloud platform over 16 weeks. (1) Three-tier architecture: sovereign tier (SecNumCloud-qualified OVHcloud infrastructure for classified French defence work — ANSSI-certified security, French-controlled data sovereignty, no extraterritorial access risk), controlled tier (dedicated AWS infrastructure with ITAR compliance arrangements for export-controlled technology — isolated accounts, restricted access, and audit controls satisfying both US export control and French regulatory requirements), and commercial tier (standard Azure France Central for unrestricted commercial aviation work — cost-optimised with enterprise features). Data classification engine: automated classification of data entering the cloud platform — machine learning models trained on document metadata and content to recommend classification levels, with human review for uncertain classifications. Data flow controls: technical enforcement preventing data from moving between tiers without appropriate authorisation — a document classified as ITAR could not be copied to the sovereign tier, and classified French data could not be moved to the controlled or commercial tier. (2) Cloud engineering platform: virtual desktop infrastructure (high-performance cloud VDI for CAD and simulation work — GPU-accelerated instances providing engineering workstation performance from any location), compute burst (elastic compute for simulation and analysis — scaling from 500 cores for daily work to 5,000+ cores for large structural analyses and aerodynamic simulations), PLM integration (cloud-hosted PLM platform connected to the three-tier infrastructure — enforcing classification controls at the data management level), and global collaboration (engineers in France, Germany, Spain, and Morocco collaborating through the cloud platform — with access controls enforcing export classification at the user level). (3) Manufacturing analytics platform: unified analytics across all 12 sites — production data from each site collected and processed in the appropriate cloud tier (commercial for civil aviation, sovereign for defence). Predictive quality: ML models analysing process parameters and quality measurements to predict defects before they occur — reducing scrap and rework. Equipment effectiveness: OEE analytics across all sites — identifying performance gaps and maintenance needs. Cross-site benchmarking: standardised metrics enabling comparison of manufacturing performance across sites — best practices identified and shared. (4) Export control automation: ITAR classification assistant (ML-based technology classification — recommending USML categories and ECCN numbers based on technical descriptions and specifications), export licence management (automated tracking of export licences, authorisations, and conditions — ensuring that cloud access for international users complied with export control requirements), deemed export controls (access management enforcing deemed export rules — non-US persons accessing ITAR data required specific authorisation), and audit trail (comprehensive logging of all export-controlled data access — supporting compliance audits and regulatory examinations). (5) Supplier collaboration portal: cloud-hosted supplier platform — design data sharing (3D models, specifications, and quality requirements shared with suppliers through the appropriate tier — with automatic classification enforcement), quality management (supplier quality data submitted through the portal — inspection results, non-conformance reports, and corrective actions), and document management (controlled document distribution replacing email attachments — ensuring suppliers always accessed current revisions with appropriate export control markings).

Cloud adoption: 85% of compute workloads migrated to cloud within 18 months — across all three tiers. Classification accuracy: automated classification achieved 94% accuracy — reducing manual classification effort by 70% while improving consistency. Engineering productivity: cloud VDI providing consistent high-performance access from any location — remote engineering adoption increased from 25% to 75%. Simulation time: structural analysis from 48 hours to 8 hours with cloud burst compute. Engineering iteration cycles reduced by 40% — enabling more design options explored per programme. Manufacturing quality: predictive quality models reduced scrap rate by 18% across commercial aviation production. Cross-site benchmarking identified EUR 22M in productivity improvement opportunities. Export compliance: zero export control violations in 18 months of cloud operations — automated controls preventing unauthorised data access. Export licence processing time reduced by 55% through automated classification and tracking. ANSSI compliance: SecNumCloud tier passed ANSSI review — classified defence work processed with full sovereign control. French government contracts maintained without interruption during cloud transition. Supplier collaboration: 2,800 suppliers onboarded to the cloud portal within 12 months. Document distribution time from 5 days (mail, courier) to same-day (digital portal). Design change response time from 3 weeks to 4 days — faster supplier collaboration improving programme schedules. Annual value: EUR 45M (engineering productivity — faster simulation, more design iterations, and improved remote collaboration across 8,000 engineers), EUR 22M (manufacturing quality — reduced scrap, improved OEE, and cross-site optimisation), EUR 15M (infrastructure savings — consolidated three-tier cloud replacing on-premises data centres and VDI infrastructure), EUR 12M (supply chain efficiency — faster document distribution, improved quality management, and reduced programme delays), EUR 8M (export compliance — automated controls reducing compliance overhead and eliminating violation risk) = EUR 102M. Development cost: EUR 580,000. Payback: under 3 days.