The European Space Agency (ESA) is accelerating its data transformation with Suadeo’s unified and sovereign data platform, equipped with on-premise AI assistants to enhance user autonomy. Watch the full presentation by Bernhard Isemann, Director of ESA’s Data Factory, at the Big Data & AI Paris conference. Discover the strategy driving ESA’s Data Factory and the reasons behind its choice of Suadeo Self Data Services®.
Key insights from Bernhard Isemann’s speech
Data Factory: Turning Data into a Decision Engine
ESA’s Data Factory centralizes, structures, and secures information to enable data-driven, real-time decision-making.
Its role is to provide: direct access to managerial and technical data, a Golden Layer structured in a Data Mesh for cross-domain use, and strategic reporting tools for the Board, Member States, and operational departments.
*A reference data layer : the trusted, stable version of the data, fully validated, cleaned, and governed.
Self-Service, Real-Time Data, Governance, and Sovereignty
A large part of ESA’s data is highly sensitive and requires strict governance within a sovereign infrastructure. The challenge is therefore multifaceted.
ESA needs a data platform capable of:
- Connecting to numerous heterogeneous data sources and correlating them,
- Ensuring quality, traceability, and security throughout the data lifecycle,
- Delivering real-time data,
- And maintaining full sovereignty in an on-premise environment.
ESA’s Data Factory also aims to empower business users within a controlled framework. Self-service is a top priority, and AI plays a key role in enabling real-time analytics, provided it is secure and aligned with the organization’s language and context.
A Shared Vision with Suadeo
To achieve this vision, ESA chose Suadeo Self Data Services®, a French data platform covering the entire data lifecycle. It integrates on-premise AI assistants specialized in data management, designed to understand the organization’s specific data landscape and processes.
ESA’s Data Factory commitments found a natural match with Suadeo’s approach:
- Promote self-service data use, with an intuitive interface, a unified experience for technical and business users, and collaborative governance via a Data Mesh structure, all powered by on-premise AI assistants.
- Support evolving business needs through a Kubernetes-based architecture, ensuring scalability and resilience across projects.
Build a data-driven model founded on security, sovereignty, and autonomy.
The ESA brings together 23 Member States, 2 Associate Members, and 5 cooperating countries. For over 50 years, it has coordinated major European space missions, pooled human, technical, and financial resources, and supported a competitive, sustainable European space industry. With eight sites across Europe and 3,000 employees, ESA covers all domains of space activity.
