Cloud computing applications for large-scale satellite ground systems

Cloud computing enables harmonization for a variety of ground system stakeholders by providing a consistent set of interfaces to the shared data. These interfaces are accessed from a common cloud, thus reducing the duplication of data that often occurs in conventional ground systems. The benefits to ground system cost and architectural quality attributes include reduced cost, increased availability, scalability, and flexibility. Among the primary concerns of adopting cloud computing technologies are security as well as lack of ownership of infrastructure and platform services. These concerns can be alleviated by adopting the appropriate implementation approaches. In this paper, we will discuss the applicability of cloud computing to large-scale satellite ground systems. While these approaches will work for any large-scale ground system, the examples and much of the discussion in this paper will focus on the large-scale satellite ground system domain. In addition, we will discuss typical architectures that illustrate how several cloud computing implementation approaches apply to these systems and what aspects of satellite ground system architectures lend themselves to cloud computing technologies.