Airbus Defence and Space is a division of Airbus focused on advanced aerospace, space and mission-critical information systems. Its work includes defense aircraft and satellite systems, as well as connected intelligence solutions that support business-critical and mission-critical operations for customers.
At-a-Glance
In this keynote discussion from SUSECON 26, Mirko Reuter, Senior Vice President, Head of Innovation and Technology at Airbus Defence and Space, joins SUSE CEO D.P. van Leeuwen to discuss how Airbus uses open source and SUSE solutions to support secure, scalable and sovereign technology foundations for mission-critical customer environments. The conversation highlights the role of trusted partnerships, auditable open source code, simplified operations and future-ready architecture in helping Airbus meet evolving security, certification and sovereignty requirements.
SUSECON 26 Keynote Session: Airbus Defence and Space
“A long-enduring, trustworthy partnership with a sovereign partner like SUSE is building a foundation stone for us into the future.”
Mirko Reuter
Senior Vice President, Head of Innovation and Technology
Airbus Defence and Space
SUSECON 26 Keynote Discussion: Airbus Defence and Space
Announcer:
Everyone, please welcome SUSE Chief Executive Officer, D.P. van Leeuwen.
D.P. van Leeuwen:
So let’s talk about the real customer example here. Airbus wanted a better option and a better choice. Joining me on stage now is Mirko Reuter, Senior Vice President, Head of Innovation and Technology at Airbus Defence and Space. Mirko, thanks for coming.
Mirko Reuter:
Thanks for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to be here.
D.P. van Leeuwen:
Give us a brief overview of Airbus, if you don’t mind.
Mirko Reuter:
Of course. Airbus Defence and Space is a division of Airbus, and we have three business units as subparts.
Airpower is building the flying platforms like the Eurofighter, the A400M and the DEM, but also building future systems like the Future Combat Air System.
Then we have Space Systems. They do telecommunications, navigation, satellite systems and Earth observation. For example, the data that you see on Google Earth is probably from Airbus. We are also flying to the moon as part of the Artemis mission. We do the service module, so it’s quite cool.
And then we have Connected Intelligence, which is my part, where we do information systems for business-critical and mission-critical operations of our customers.
D.P. van Leeuwen:
That’s amazing. So it’s much more than just a plane, right? And there’s always more underneath everything that you see. Why is open source important to you?
Mirko Reuter:
Open source is a key for us to enable the future.
Open source brings innovation because you have a large community contributing to the development of the software, while you have trusted partners like SUSE working with you to bring it into action.
Open source is, of course, enhancing security with fully auditable, trustworthy open code that is helping us on the safety, security and certification side.
And, of course, open source is a source of sovereignty because it helps us build a supply system that we are basing our solutions on and that we can fully rely on.
D.P. van Leeuwen:
So sovereignty comes back all the time as well. I see the enthusiasm in the crowd already. What kind of pressures do you have that made it necessary to make architectural changes?
Mirko Reuter:
In our industry, of course, we have been running for quite a while, and we have a lot of legacy systems that we need to operate and maintain for quite a long time with our customers.
We have many diverse and fragmented solutions and operations today. So moving forward, also with your solutions, we are going to a fully operated, fully customizable, scalable solution that basically brings the effort on maintaining and operating it to a minimum.
D.P. van Leeuwen:
Obviously, as I just said with SUSE, it’s not about intellectual property. It’s about the support — how we support our customers. What is your experience?
Mirko Reuter:
The experience is very good. SUSE, as a partner with your solutions, is helping us simplify our IT infrastructure, our operations and especially the maintenance around it.
What we need is a fully scalable solution that can grow with us and the customer needs into the future. Therefore, it’s a very good partnership.
D.P. van Leeuwen:
You can probably not tell us a whole lot of details because this is a lot of very secure stuff that you’re building. Is there anything you can tell us about the solution you’re building?
Mirko Reuter:
What we’re building on — and of course, most of the projects that we’re working on in our sector are confidential and fully controlled — is what all of our customers need: a trustworthy modular core that you are building on, that is scalable and adaptable to future needs and future operations.
Building on this basically eases the maintenance, development and also the training efforts needed for your solutions with the customer.
D.P. van Leeuwen:
Is it future-proof? And what does future-proof even mean to you?
Mirko Reuter:
Future-proof is a very important part because, as I said, for our customers, we need to operate and maintain solutions for years — and probably even decades in some use cases.
Therefore, for us, it’s key that the solution is scalable, sovereign and basically avoids a lock-in situation where you’re not able to scale into the future, where you’re not able to fulfill the customer requirements of future adaptations, especially around certification standards and security standards that keep evolving.
Therefore, constant adaptation is necessary.
D.P. van Leeuwen:
That makes sense. Last question, because we have a lot more going on here. You mentioned sovereignty, and sovereignty is such a hot topic. We had the whole event yesterday around it. Tell me why sovereignty is important also in terms of choosing SUSE.
Mirko Reuter:
In our world, we’re constantly in what we call a VUCA environment — volatile and changing constantly.
For us, therefore, a long-enduring, trustworthy partnership with a sovereign partner like SUSE is building a foundation stone for us into the future.
As we operate most of our critical customers in Europe, it’s necessary that we build, with the right partners, the ecosystem that can sustain and maintain even in critical times.
D.P. van Leeuwen:
That’s amazing. Thank you so much for coming on stage with us today.
Mirko Reuter:
It’s been a pleasure.
D.P. van Leeuwen:
Thank you very much. Thank you very much.