The RTAPHM consortium project “Development of performance‑based service delivery through digitalisation and optimisation of platform availability by data analytics and forecasting” was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMWK) under the V‑3 funding line. The sub‑project “Reliable and secure cloud‑service infrastructure” ran from 1 July 2019 to 31 March 2023 and was part of the larger RTAPHM effort. The consortium comprised a mix of academic research institutions and industry partners who jointly defined the architecture, implemented the cloud platform, and performed verification and validation. The partners contributed to the design of the infrastructure, the development of security models, the integration of services, and the demonstration of the digital platform, while the project’s lead organisation coordinated the overall effort and ensured compliance with the funding requirements.
Technically, the project delivered a cloud/Hub infrastructure that serves as the runtime environment for RTAPHM services. The architecture is built on open‑source components: Kubernetes for container orchestration, Istio as a service mesh, and Kafka for event‑driven communication. These components are assembled into a modern Zero‑Trust architecture that provides cross‑cutting functions and integrates novel security mechanisms tailored to the RTAPHM system. The infrastructure exposes a comprehensive set of interfaces, including external connections to Drone Operation Centers and end‑user applications, as well as internal interfaces for component integration and the embedding of security functions and monitoring tools.
A key scientific contribution was the development of a systematic risk‑analysis method for security assessment (AP 1.7). This method identifies protected assets, evaluates the impact of potential attacks on integrity, availability, and confidentiality, and derives security requirements that are then embedded into the infrastructure design. The analysis covers a range of attack scenarios and informs the selection of security controls that guarantee resilience against identified threats. The project also introduced dynamic monitoring of security properties, leveraging tamper‑proof and auditable data storage to continuously assess the security posture of the platform.
Automated evaluation and calculation of cloud‑architecture options were implemented to support decision‑making. The system automatically scores alternative architectural configurations against defined security, performance, and cost criteria, enabling rapid selection of the most suitable option. This capability is complemented by dynamic monitoring of service delivery, which tracks the health and performance of deployed services in real time and triggers alerts when deviations from expected behavior occur.
Verification and validation activities confirmed that the integrated services meet availability and cost expectations. The project demonstrated selected service scenarios, validated platform availability, and verified that operational costs align with the Service Level Agreement (SLA). These results provide evidence that the cloud/Hub infrastructure can support the demanding requirements of safety‑critical aviation services such as organ transport and maritime rescue.
In addition to the technical deliverables, the project produced several publications and planned further dissemination activities. The consortium’s collaborative effort ensured that the developed infrastructure is both technically robust and aligned with regulatory and operational needs, thereby advancing the RTAPHM goal of accelerating decision‑making and automating aviation services through a secure, data‑driven digital platform.