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From SAR data to Clean Seas: How Cloudflight supports environmental protection
How Cloudflight supports protecting the European maritime environment
Oil is a fossil fuel that has been used to heat our homes, generate electricity, and still powers large sectors of our economy. Yet, when oil spills into the ocean, it can have dramatic effects on the environment. Luckily, there was no major oil spill in European waters in recent years. However, what is less known is that crude oil is still used to power many ships, and occasionally, captains illegally flush their fuel tanks at high seas to avoid cleaning costs. Maintaining oil spill detection from space enables a rapid response to those environmental threats.
Challenge
Granting 24/7 functionality of services while improving core functionalities – all of these in parallel to ongoing cloud migration
For our client, our team is conducting a comprehensive cloud native implementation while also maintaining the legacy system, some of which is over 10 years old. This transition required comprehending and altering the legacy codebase, dealing with outdated technologies, facing a lack of unit and integration tests - both test types are standard at Cloudflight, as well as preparing the migration of the on-premise hosted virtual machines.
Idea
Accessibility of real-time data through state-of-the-art cloud technologies
In this project, we modernize the client’s outdated Earth Observation Data Centre (EODC) system while ensuring system availability and stability during all phases of the development process and throughout all project stages.
Our goal was to overcome significant legacy challenges by implementing state-of-the-art cloud technologies to streamline operations and guarantee accessibility to a large variety of earth observation data in near real-time. We analyzed the legacy code base, identified application interdependencies and provided a clear picture of the system’s architecture to the customer incl. identified bottle necks of processing pipelines and opportunities to optimize the current system’s applications.
Solution
Granting system efficiency to enable maritime safety
Together with the client, Cloudflight refined system requirements, aligning them with the client’s business needs while emphasizing technical maintainability. A 24/7 on-call team accompanies this process and ensures that the quality and security of all existing applications are monitored and maintained at all times.
The outcome of the partnership between Cloudflight and the client is not just a user interface redesign, it is the construction of a complete new application building upon lessons learned with the legacy system while satisfying new requirements. Microsoft Azure was selected as the cloud platform, with European data residency as a priority, leveraging Cloudflight's established expertise as a Microsoft partner. Cloud-native technologies, such as a Managed Kubernetes cluster and Azure-managed services, are crucial in boosting system scalability and reliability, which allows for secured monitoring of shores and seas. Additional features such as Azure functions for generating reports and Azure monitoring for insights, will further enhance the system's efficiency.
The updated EODC will be more than just a system – it will be a lifeline for our client and its customers. The new datacenter provides near real-time data on maritime incidents, aiding in prompt mission planning, promoting environmental responsibility, and allows for protecting the maritime environment at its best.