EADS - Secure Formal Messaging for NATO

The Challenge

When NATO issued an Invitation To Tender to supply an integrated electronic messaging system (known as the NATO Messaging System, or NMS), EADS Defence and Security Systems, acting by and through its Defence and Communications Systems business unit (hereinafter referred to as “EADS”), was one of several major defence suppliers that competed for the award of the contract. Led by its UK operating arm, formerly known as Cogent Defence and Security Networks, EADS drew on its extensive experience to provide a system built on rules-based routing software and designed specifically for the military environment. The system provides complete trust, accountability and non-repudiation with guaranteed delivery to the point of action.

EADS planned the system to be a COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) solution, that could also be made available to the wider NATO community and beyond, where secure and reliable formal messaging aligned to military standards is required. Understanding the importance of achieving conformance to both NATO and other international defence standards, EADS sought partners whose track record, capability and product set would satisfy the strict technical and commercial demands of this project.  Equally important, was to choose partners whose professionalism and co-operative approach would allow the development of a longer-term relationship.

The Nexor Solution

Nexor was brought in by EADS alongside IBM and Safelayer to form a team able to meet the specific requirements of the NMS. In the first instance, Nexor provided its Nexor Mailer (X.400), Nexor Directory (X.500) and a suite of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) including the Policy Enforcement Software Development Kit for the development of Protected Content Type (PCT) capability. The EADS technical team in Paris integrated these components with IBM’s Lotus Notes Information Collaboration software, Safelayer’s PKI solution and EADS’s own military messaging functionality.

Nexor provided early advice and guidance on technical architecture, product capability and appropriate integration of its products, in addition to ongoing consultancy support to the EADS team.

The resulting COTS solution, known as Secure Formal Messaging (SFM), offers the following features:

• Individual and roles-based messaging
• Message labelling
• Clearance checking
• Guaranteed delivery and timely action
• Content integrity
• Content confidentiality
• Validation workflow (draft and release).

In parallel with the NMS project, EADS and Nexor formed a working partnership to jointly market the SFM solution. A Collaboration Agreement was signed in December 2004.

The Result

Nexor’s proven technology, track record and commitment to implementing international and defence messaging standards enabled EADS to incorporate Nexor’s products into the SFM solution with high confidence and low risk.

With SFM, nations will be able to take advantage of the full benefits of Network Centric Warfare (NCW) by migrating from ACP 127 telex communications to STANAG 4406 military messaging. Moreover, when used in conjunction with other messaging systems that conform to STANAG 4406, SFM will enable interoperability between NATO, allied and non-allied nations in both in the strategic and tactical arena, which is key to future defence policy and planning.

SFM has been successfully demonstrated to a number of NATO nations and other interested parties, and was shown at CWID in Lillehammer, Norway, in June 2005.

For further details of SFM, please refer to the attached SFM Datasheet.

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