Thales and Cassidian successfully commission INTRACED

The General Staff of the French Armed Forces (EMA) and the French defence procurement agency DGA (Direction Générale de l'Armement) have officially announced the operational service entry of INTRACED, the first Defence Classified Intranet. This decision follows an in-depth evaluation phase for this solution, intended for the French Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence.

INTRACED is the first step in the move towards the use of secure Intranets within the Defence Ministry and guarantees secure access to a large number of applications such as email, collaborative work and directories.

The INTRACED information system enables all the networks at the Ministry of Defence to be pooled, including the French Armed Forces' command systems (such as SICF, SIC21, SICA, INTRACED Air, MUSE, etc.).

INTRACED offers the same services as a standard Intranet, while meeting security requirements up to Defence Classified level, with no impairment of performance and remaining easy to operate and user-friendly. In particular, it provides secure access to a portal and to a large number of applications such as messaging, collaborative tools and the directory.

INTRACED was designed and developed in cooperation between Thales, the system's prime contractor, and Cassidian, joint contractor with a 40% share. It has been undergoing gradual deployment since late 2009. Now in use with all army corps in France, INTRACED enables confidential information to be shared by more than 20,000 users.

Its deployment also helps with the preparation and performance of joint operational missions, both domestically and in operational theatres abroad.

With the success of INTRACED, Thales and Cassidian have confirmed their position as leaders in the design of secure architectures for communication and command systems on the basis of their long experience with high security information systems.

"By unifying the Armed Forces' networks for the first time, we were able to meet a very real technological challenge, with the development of very high-level security solutions for standard applications," explains Pascale Sourisse, Thales SVP in charge of C4I Defence and Security activities.

"Secure networking of Defence command systems was a primary objective for Cassidian," explains Hervé Guillou, CEO of Cassidian Systems. "It meets a key requirement of the Armed Forces and was only possible through the use of innovative, high-performance solutions."

Source: Thales

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