- Red Hat teamed with Axiom to launch its edge cloud software into space
- Space-based data centers are an emerging market opportunity that could be worth billions
- Surprisingly, Red Hat's software didn't need too many tweaks to prepare for the trip
Red Hat is teeing itself up to capitalize on a $1 billion+ edge cloud opportunity, but the location of its latest target just might surprise you. The software giant is teaming with Axiom Space to deploy its Device Edge product on a data processing prototype machine that is set to launch into orbit in the coming months and will live in the International Space Station.
While it might seem like a niche application today, the World Economic Forum identified the space-enabled tech market as a $1.8 trillion opportunity. And more specifically, Analysys Mason estimated the space cloud computing market will be worth a cumulative $46.8 billion between 2023 and 2033.
Why? Well, space-based data generation is on the rise thanks in part to new applications and the proliferation of low-earth orbit satellite constellations. Indeed, Analysys Mason tipped satellite cloud data traffic to jump from well under 50 exabytes today to more than 350 exabytes by 2033.
Currently, all of this data has to be sent back to earth for processing. But that’s a problem given the very limited bandwidth available. Thus, these factors are “driving the demand for data storage in space, as well as the associated data processing,” Analysys Mason wrote.
Players like Axiom, Lumen Orbit and Lonestar Data Holdings are leading the charge on this front. But it’s not just the private sector that is interested – entities like NASA and the European Space Agency have both also been exploring space-based compute.
Tony James, Red Hat’s Chief Architect of Space and Science, told Fierce that having space-based compute power will provide a “number of advantages for various use cases” spanning everything from telecom to Earth observation.
He added the collaboration with Axiom is a great way to establish itself as a player in a rapidly emerging market sector.
“From our perspective, it’s feasible to think that to support some of that there’s going to need to be some type of compute infrastructure,” James said. “This Axiom partnership is exciting because we can kind of say ‘hey, we’re doing this already’ and presents the unique opportunity to have some of these conversations as other organizations look to expand into space-based computing infrastructure.”
Software in space
Getting the necessary hardware into space is one thing. But from Red Hat’s perspective as a software provider, preparing to make the leap into the thermosphere wasn’t as big a lift as you might think.
James said that’s because Red Hat’s Kubernetes-based tech was already designed to operate in some pretty harsh and remote terrestrial environments (for instance, at sea or in the middle of the desert). So, resiliency is already baked in, as is the ability to do security and other updates with limited bandwidth.
The exec explained that operating system updates are distributed as container images. This means that instead of having to upload a full operating system image to complete an update, only the changed components have to be transmitted. And once all those changes are sent, the system runs a validation check to ensure nothing was corrupted during transmission. If an issue arises, the system will revert to the last known good state.
In a very traditionally embedded and manual market like space, it’s a big deal to have an autonomous system like this, James added.
Once Axiom’s kit makes it to the ISS, the prototype will be used to test cloud computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning applications to prove out orbital data center capabilities.
From there, it’s off to infinity…and beyond!