With SES, our role is to create that wide area network connection that has the right reach and the right performance to allow cloud-based applications to function and function well, no matter where they are.
-Karl Horne
Episode Summary
In this episode of “Digital Transformers,” host Kevin L. Jackson engages in a fascinating conversation with Karl Horne, VP of Cloud Portfolio and Strategy at SES Satellites. Karl sheds light on the pivotal role of satellite technology in digital transformation, emphasizing SES’s impact on diverse industries.
The discussion explores SES’s innovative solutions, from providing connectivity to remote locations like islands and cruise ships to supporting disaster recovery efforts with their O3b mPOWER service. Karl underscores the crucial link between a robust satellite network and the success of cloud computing and digital transformation initiatives.
Discover how SES’s next-gen satellite system is revolutionizing connectivity, enabling seamless integration of technologies like IoT, 5G, and AI. Tune in to gain insights into the dynamic intersection of space technology, cloud computing, and digital evolution.
For more in-depth information, visit SES’s website at ses.com/o3bmPOWER
Episode Transcript
Intro/Outro (00:01):
Welcome to Digital Transformers, the show that connects you with what you need to build, manage, and operate your digital supply chain. Join your host in a timely discussion on new and future business models with industry leading executives. The show will reveal global customer expectations, real world deployment challenges, and the value of advanced business technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain, and robotic process engineering. And now, we bring you Digital Transformers.
Kevin L. Jackson (00:33):
Hello, everyone. This is Kevin L. Jackson and welcome to Digital Transformers on Supply Chain Now. On today’s interview, I have the rare opportunity to talk about two of my favorite things, space and cloud computing, where we’re going to find out why these things go together through an exciting conversation with Mr. Karl Horne, Vice President Cloud Portfolio and Strategy at SES Satellites. Welcome to Digital Transformers, Karl.
Karl Horne (01:10):
Oh, thank you, Kevin. It’s a pleasure to be here and it’s a pleasure to speak with you and by extension, your listeners and your viewers.
Kevin L. Jackson (01:15):
Oh, no, thank you very much. SES Satellites, it may not be a household word to us here in the United States, but it has over 70 satellites in two different orbits. It was founded in 1985 and is Europe’s first private satellite operator. Their goal is to combine satellite connectivity and ground infrastructure to deliver fast, reliable connectivity nearly anywhere in the world. I actually saw a video about some service you’re providing to the Galapagos Island. The woman there that ran the hotel was saying she wouldn’t have a business without SES. So, Karl is right here in the Washington DC area, not far from me. In fact, they have a facility about 20 minutes from my home here in Manassas, Virginia. So, Karl, how did you wind up working with SES?
Karl Horne (02:21):
Well, I have a long history of working in the telecoms industry, not long enough that I would go back to 1985 when SES was founded, but I do have some years under my belt. Many of those years in the telecom space was working for the vendor community, so that’s companies that sell equipment and solutions to service providers that then actually deliver the connectivity value to consumers and businesses. And really just as part of my professional evolution, I wanted to spend time in that service provider environment a little bit closer to the end users of the technology as it were. And so when the opportunity came along to work for SES, I jumped in with both feet. It’s space after all.
Kevin L. Jackson (03:04):
Yes. And out of Luxembourg, right, but your bio here shows that you have spent some time with Ciena, in the Asian-Pacific region. I used to live in the Philippines when I was in the Navy. That company, Ciena is a telecommunications leader. I guess it helped you with your work here at SES.
Karl Horne (03:32):
Yeah, I think so. I mean, we’re all in a very real sense where the sum of our past experiences, right? So working with Ciena, which is a telecommunications equipment vendor company, I mean, it helped me in a couple of different ways, but I think probably the most significant is that it gave me a chance to work with network operators really all around the world, not just in North America or Asia Pacific, and really gain a better understanding of their business models and how they choose to leverage technology to implement their go forward network architectures in support of those business models. And obviously if you know Ciena, their focus is on fiber networking solutions, terrestrial networking, but now with SES, I’m able to bring perspective to our customers as to how next generation satellite technologies can work alongside or can augment terrestrial networks to form more of a hybrid network, but really maximizes reach and availability of the services. So, I think these go-forward network architectures are pretty important to get right as next generation applications take hold with cloud computing, IoT, 5G and all of the digital applications that ride on top of that. So, a lot of what I did with Ciena is examine those dynamics in a fiber networking context. And now, I’m pretty much doing the same in a satellite communications context.
Kevin L. Jackson (04:58):
Well, the world is rolling out, all the telecommunications companies in the world are rolling out 5G, and this hybrid telecommunications environment that connects everything to the internet is really critical to any future, the future of any business. But you have been associated with cloud computing for quite a while and cloud computing is kind of foundational, wouldn’t you say? How did you get into cloud computing? Because it’s just now that many of these communications providers are developing and deploying cloud native solutions.
Karl Horne (05:47):
So it came to me in a dream.
Kevin L. Jackson (05:49):
I love that.
Karl Horne (05:53):
Well, actually, I sort of already touched on how did I get into cloud computing. And you’re absolutely right, you’re going to get technologies like 5G that are establishing themselves, et cetera. And in many cases, it’s about how do I get ubiquitous connectivity to the internet. But sort of another element to consider is it’s also ubiquitous connectivity into the cloud. So cloud adoption isn’t a new trend. It continues to grow for sure. First, we have end users that are using more cloud applications and cloud services. And I think we all see this in our professional and our personal lives. But also, from the perspective of a network operator, and SES is one of those, for the past decade or so, we’ve been building networks differently. We’ve been using the cloud as an architectural template to build functionality that previously might’ve been dedicated boxes and devices. But now to simplify, they’re essentially software images that are hosted in data centers. They’re basically a cloud application or cloud implementation.
Karl Horne (06:54):
So in both cases, whether it’s for end user services or for cloudified network architectures, the network needs to adapt to account for new scale, new traffic patterns. And I sort of say there’s two things, right? One is connecting users into the cloud and also interconnecting the cloud points on scale. And so to learn how to do that better, I had to spend several years understanding what cloud architectures look like, how the ecosystem of cloud providers work, and ultimately the best way to construct a network that underpins the cloud. And if I can paraphrase Bob Marley, “No network, no cloud.”
Kevin L. Jackson (07:34):
That’s for sure. But SES has been providing, like you said, satellite communication services for quite a while. And 85 is like three centuries ago in satellite years. But today you partner with seven out of the top 10 global telecom companies and you support 58 government organizations. And this is what gets me. You provide connectivity, internet connectivity to four of the world’s six major cruise lines and broadcasters; you broadcast today to over a billion TV viewers worldwide. I mean your footprint in the middle of the ocean, that’s great. That’s a very impressive reach. So how is SES expanding this entrenched position in the satellite market to address the cloud computing opportunity?
Karl Horne (08:42):
Well, I mean, obviously our customers that we serve today and have served for a while, those customers, those end user communities, they’re obviously adopting cloud and adopting digital projects that depend on the cloud. So one sort of vector of growth for us obviously is we are underpinning more and more cloud applications even within our same market segments that we had served for some time now. So previously when a satellite connection might’ve just been a broadband connection or maybe a path to the internet, now that that connection is in many cases now a wide area connection from edge cloud applications into regional or core cloud applications. So, our connections are being used in increasingly more of a cloud context as part of expanding our entrenched position beyond building on the existing customer bases and supporting digital transformations there. We’re seeing more ecosystem plays. I mean, we’re participating in more ecosystem plays.
Karl Horne (09:52):
So, we’ve formed some strategic partnerships with major cloud service providers and we’ve publicly announced Microsoft’s AWS, but there are some other ones that you would recognize where we’ve got some partnerships on how to more elegantly connect into their environments and domains and bring customer-cloud traffic directly into those domains for the best user experience. And in other cases, it’s working with some more vertically integrated solutions integrators, so people that can assemble network infrastructure plus cloud infrastructure plus digital infrastructure and applications for more of a turnkey solution for powering digital transformation projects. And so, we’ve announced a couple of partnerships with some of those actors as well. So I would say, really, the answer is in summary twofold. The first one is our customers are doing cloud motions. SES itself as a company is doing cloud motions and our customers are as well. So we’re adapting our portfolio and our service offerings to account for that dynamic. And the second one is we’re integrating ourselves more into the ecosystem of actors that ultimately provide these digital solutions, these cloud-hosted solutions. All of that I think is opening up great opportunity for SES.
Kevin L. Jackson (11:14):
Oh, wow. It is really surprising that your business has really focused on areas where you wouldn’t think there’s a lot of service like island nations and cruise liners in the middle of the ocean. These seem to me to be very unique use cases that you are able to support with your cloud, satellite-based cloud solutions. So how do you work with your customers in Micronesia or on the Galapagos Islands, or if I’m in one of the princess cruise liners? How does that work?
Karl Horne (12:07):
So first, it’s probably helpful to draw a distinction between a couple of services that SES offers, I mean, because of who we are, what we do, and we can pretty much see the whole planet with our networking infrastructure. And there is a significant amount of what we do, which is effectively closing digital divides. This is bringing connectivity where connectivity just didn’t really exist, maybe more on a consumer basis, helping telcos and MNOs extend their networks into underserved areas, helping light up areas like the Galapagos and give them broadband connections to really change somebody’s experience when they’re even in utmost remote of areas, digital inclusion and social inclusion projects. That’s a big part of what SES does. And my personal comment on that is, this is one of those things that feels really good for me working for SES is the ability to help close that digital divide.
Karl Horne (13:04):
In the context of today though, there’s another set or another class of connectivity services we deliver, which are really much more towards industrial operations. So these are industrial operations that are doing pretty intensive digital projects, but they may be in difficult to reach places, oil and gas rigs that might be on the high seas, commercial shipping fleets that might be navigating across the globe, airplanes. And basically, anything that flies or floats, there’s really kind of no other way to talk to other than the satellite connection. So there’s another class of services that we deliver which are much more industrial or enterprise-focused. So let me highlight a little bit of the use cases there with our cloud solutions because that’s really where they apply most. So, I’ll give some examples of projects that we’ve been involved in. I’ll start with maybe a commercial shipping example.
Karl Horne (14:08):
So, moving forward through the course of the next decade, the International Maritime Organization is going to start mandating some energy efficiency targets for vessels over a certain tonnage, meet those efficiency targets are basically good find. So fleets are thinking, how do I use technology? How do I use IoT and maybe cloud-hosted analytics to gain better understanding on the operations of a ship and how I can optimize my processes, to optimize my fuel consumption? And this includes things like linking into global data sets, like weather patterns that they can help also plan optimal routing, which certainly can impact a more efficient fuel consumption. So that’s an example of a use case where cloudification is being applied in a commercial environment, one that we serve in order to gain some business goals and effectively help meet those emergency — emerging energy efficiency targets. I mentioned oil and gas rigs as another example.
Kevin L. Jackson (15:17):
Oh, they’re in the middle of the ocean too.
Karl Horne (15:18):
Very highly instrumented rigs and platforms. You’re talking about tens of thousands, a hundred thousand plus sensors and devices, and they can collect an awful lot of raw data, oceanic data, seismic data, environmental data, which by itself is just not that useful. So typically, what energy companies want to do is they want to take that data volume and upload it into big data handling engines, which are hosted in the cloud, then create metadata sets and geospatial metadata sets that then can be fed back into the sites, and that can really aid in terms of much more targeted exploration and much more targeted extraction. Ultimately what that drives are better yields for the resources that are being extracted and much, much greener operations, which is top of mind for just about everybody.
Kevin L. Jackson (16:15):
Wow. It’s amazing.
Karl Horne (16:16):
If you’ll permit me, there’s maybe one more example I’ll share with you. This one is less about a commercial sector and maybe more in public sector. And this is something that we’ve done with some of our ecosystem partners is some disaster response applications because with satellite, we can apply connectivity in what’s known as an on-the-pause model. So there literally would be a truck, a mobile truck configured that has satellite uplinks, but also the truck would carry on board edge compute resources and private 5G capability. And that can lead then to the responders that might go to a disaster site, having comms connections right there locally for any devices they may be carry, but also any wearables they may have for IoT sensors or video cameras. And with that connectivity bubble, then that really promotes man-to-man onsite communications for more efficient responses, but also site to headquarters for better command and control of the response activity. And further, when you use the communications or, sorry, when you use the cloud as a communications platform, something like Microsoft Teams, then this also promotes the right resiliency and availability of site-to-cloud communications. All of that coming together really is a very powerful tool to throw at a disaster response scenario. With SES, our role obviously is to create that wide area network connection that has the right reach, the right performance to allow all of these cloud-based applications to function and function well no matter where they are.
Kevin L. Jackson (17:58):
Wow. I want to pull some more on that string with respect to disaster recovery efforts. I understand your O3b mPOWER service is key to that. In fact, I had the opportunity to watch your launch on Sunday just a few days ago. So how does this capability really address disaster recovery efforts? Because if a lot of your customers are actually islands, the threat caused by global warming is really top of mind for them. And I actually run an operation for the National Digital Foundry and we have a work group built around improving climate change-related disaster response by using things like blockchain and digital assets, which of course layer on top of cloud computing. This makes it a very particular interest to me. Could you share any additional specific examples about how O3b mPOWER is useful in disaster response scenarios?
Karl Horne (19:20):
Sure. I mean, I’ll preface it all with — O3b mPOWER is our next generation of medium Earth orbit satellites, and it really delivers, I think, a huge step function in the capacity and the performance and capability of the bandwidth that can be delivered over satellite. It can now deliver capacities that essentially approximate fiber in the sky. So it really is a very capable wide area network connection, which is one of the things that helps some of these use cases really do a cloud and digital adoption because you have the quality of connection that can do that now. So, I’ve already touched a little bit on a first responder scenario for satellite connections, extending private 5G connections. And actually, that was for an island nation; it was for the response agencies in Taiwan, which is very much subject to typhoon, climate issues, as well as seismic events. So there’s a number of different scenarios where a first responder agency really needs the best tools at their disposal.
Karl Horne (20:30):
Another example that we’re working on now involves wildfire responses. In this case, it’s not so much connected, people may be part of the response, but maybe connected drones. So connected via a 5G bubble that pulls in the sensory information and video information that might be coming from the drones that are flying around a wildfire event, taking that information and back hauling it over a high performance satellite link like what mPOWER would offer, and then feed that environmental data into a high performance computing grid that can do rapid simulations of the course or the trajectory of a fire and guide, not only the response teams, but also guide evacuation responses, and think fairly recently how that sort of a solution might’ve impacted the recent wildfire response that happened in Hawaii. There would’ve been more lives saved, there would’ve been more property saved. So we’re working with some ecosystem partners on setting that up and hopefully that becomes a productized capability that can be made available to responding agencies.
Kevin L. Jackson (21:41):
Wow, there are some — yeah, yeah.
Karl Horne (21:44):
One more example, if I could. I guess, here in the United States, we worked with one of the major cloud service providers that their job wasn’t really to be first responders to the event itself, to the climate event, but how to restore capability locally and in this case, enterprise services and cloud capability locally. So again, using medium Earth orbit connectivity, like what mPOWER would deliver, this cloud service provider was able to stand up edge compute and modular edge compute capabilities within the affected area, link those back to their core cloud over the high-performance satellite link, and really get some of their enterprise grade cloud services back and running so that businesses could start operating again in the affected area. So that was a little bit different, but still another example of space-enabled digital deployments that can improve disaster response. And, of course, those digital deployments can certainly include functions like blockchain and feature other digital assets like what you were mentioning you focused on.
Kevin L. Jackson (22:53):
This really changes how you think about a telecommunications infrastructure because, especially in disaster recovery, a lot of times everyone’s talking about we lost this cell tower, or how do we bring a cell on wheels. But here you are with O3b mPOWER with the ultimate cell tower sitting up in mid-Earth orbit. This is awesome. And this really helps in digital transformations. I mean globally those opportunities that you said for different companies to really change, especially the ocean liners, those are really impressive. Are the companies thinking more about the high bandwidth space connectivity as opposed to the earth-based terrestrial towers?
Karl Horne (24:03):
Yes, they are. But the caveat there I don’t think is as opposed to.
Kevin L. Jackson (24:08):
Okay, so blend.
Karl Horne (24:09):
I think what we tend to see is digital transformation projects can now be executed where it really wasn’t possible before because of limitations of the network. And digital transformations really are powered by the cloud, and if there’s no network, no cloud. That means if you didn’t have a good network, you really didn’t stand a chance to really execute on digital transformation projects kind of in some of these remote or on the move sites. When I think about what mPOWER does in terms of helping our customers execute on their transformations, it’s always helpful for me to say that there’s a layered hierarchy of capability here. The digital transformations, the way I think about them is that they’re a way to leverage a basket of technology is ultimately that when you assemble them, they drive business outcomes as ways people can save money or make money. And that basket of technologies these days includes things like virtualization, includes 5G, IoT. It includes new visualization techniques that we see, augmented and virtual reality.
Karl Horne (25:21):
Digital twinning is a pretty hot topic these days we encounter a lot. But also, some of these technologies are about data handling and data handling on scale, big data engines, analytic engines, machine learning, and of course the big buzzword these days is AI. And again, these technologies are largely implemented and deployed from the cloud. And the cloud depends on a network. And the network really has to do two things I think and do them very well. First, it needs to be able to connect anywhere to the cloud so that no matter where you are, you are one hop away from the cloud, but it also needs to be able to extend the cloud to anywhere. And so, this aligns a lot with distributed cloud architectures and the trend towards more and more edge computing and edge cloud instances, even right out to the most remote sites like the ones that are served by SES’ connections.
Karl Horne (26:16):
So if the network needs to then serve that cloud very well, then it has to do things like scale up. It has to do things like provide ubiquitous reach, ubiquitous access. It has to be able to network east to west, as they say in cloud world, so being able to network in a symmetrical fashion from the edge all the way up to the core, or push information from the core all the way up to the edge. It has to really drive and deliver on enterprise or carrier grade cloud connections. These cannot be best effort connections and it has to have a level of dynamic behavior to effectively do what I call follow the workload. Everything happens in the cloud based on workloads, and workloads can be instantiated and released dynamically. They can be replicated for load balancing and resiliency reasons.
Karl Horne (27:16):
They’re highly dynamic and the network has to match the dynamics of workload, instantiation and placement. So we need a network that kind of lives and breathes to be able to follow the workload. All of that is just the base requirements of a network. And in satellite world, in previous years, that was a little difficult to hit those targets, those requirements. But here I think is where mPOWER is a game changer for the industry and for SES because the agility, the scale, the programmability of this satellite fleet really can deliver on those key requirements and be an enabler then for the digital transformation projects that our customers are interested in taking them.
Kevin L. Jackson (27:58):
Wow. No network, no cloud. I mean, you’ve changed my life. Bob Marley and SES are going to be forever linked in my mind. It was so great to learn more about SES and the [inaudible] based services. So we’re coming to the end of our time here, but how could the audience find out more about this sort of revolutionary leap in satellite-based connectivity?
Karl Horne (28:30):
Well, the obvious place, of course, is to start, it’d be to visit our website, ses.com, and then there’s a slash o3bmpower, and you can learn more about the technology. You can see how our customers are leveraging it. We’ve got a really cool little visualization app that shows you how it works and gives you a much more visual experience on how mPOWER’s revolutionizing connectivity really across the various industry segments we serve. So absolutely start there.
Kevin L. Jackson (29:01):
Geez, this was an amazing interview. So thank you very much, Karl, for spending the time to open our minds. No network, no cloud. So in closing, I would like to really invite everyone to check out the wide variety of industry thought leadership like this that we present here at supplychainnow.com. And you can find Digital Transformers and Supply Chain Now wherever you get your podcasts. So be sure to subscribe. So on behalf of the entire team here at Supply Chain Now, this is Kevin L. Jackson wishing all of our listeners a bright and transformational future. We’ll see you next time on Digital Transformers. Thanks, Karl.
Intro/Outro (29:56):
Thank you for supporting Digital Transformers and for being a part of our global Supply Chain Now Community. Please check out all of our programming at supplychainnow.com. Make sure you subscribe to Digital Transformers anywhere you listen to or view the show, and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. See you next time on Digital Transformers.
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Karl Horne is the VP of Cloud Portfolio and Strategy with SES Satellites. He established the “Cloud Practice” within SES to define and execute on product and GTM strategies for Cloud and Digital extensions to the core connectivity service portfolio for all SES markets: Maritime, Aero, Telco/MNO, Enterprise, and Government/Public Sector markets.He added new Private 5G, Managed Edge Compute, and Cloud Peering (e.g., MSFT ExpressRoute) extensions to SES portfolio to better map to Cloud adoption and Digital Transformation projects. He also established a network of Cloud Service Provider and Global System Integrator partners to assemble the most effective solutions and expand channels to market for Cloud and Digital Solutions. Karl is responsible for executing on future portfolio expansions and ecosystem partnerships. Connect with Karl on LinkedIn.
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