BAE lines up more commercial partners for cloud push

BAE Systems' U.S. arm has this week announced a pair of commercial IT outfits as new partners as the defense company further pushes its federated secure cloud product into the market.

With Flexera and Splunk in the partnership network, BAE Systems Inc. eyes additional asset and license management tools plus more security and machine learning algorithms for the cloud offering to any federal agency: defense, civilian or intelligence.

Both companies signed on to collaborate with BAE in the government cloud realm on the heels of Dell EMC's coming on board to help roll out a pre-built tool for all aspects ranging from everyday business applications to usage when the tactical realm.

When we spoke with BAE Systems Inc.'s intelligence solutions lead Peder Jungck in May, he emphasized his company's work with Dell EMC to do almost all of the engineering work and get certifications up front before they put the cloud tool out to the market.

The general idea is to create a one-stop-shop, "easy button"-like environment for the government to acquire cloud technologies and services. BAE envisions its cloud as able to operate on any Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or on-premise system but also be customized for agencies transitioning to a secure hybrid environment.

Splunk's contribution will also include automation of analysis of cloud security logs and instant alerts to security administrators of any risk. Flexera is bringing to BAE offerings in technology asset data, automation and analytics to support software licensing in a cloud environment.