Megaport Limited (ASX: MP1) (“Megaport”), the global leading Network as a Service (NaaS) provider, and Lufthansa Systems, a leading aviation IT provider, today announced a new partnership that will accelerate digital transformation in the aviation industry.

The strategic partnership will see Lufthansa Systems leverage Megaport’s global Software Defined Network (SDN) to securely and reliably move the global aviation cloud from a single cloud to multiple clouds by moving core routing from cloud to Megaport. Megaport will also facilitate a secure aviation customer landing zone to expedite peering with other airlines and exchanging data.

Lufthansa Systems provides IT services to over 350 airlines worldwide. Its Global Aviation Cloud initiative aims to virtualise mission-critical airline applications and transition them to the cloud. Using Megaport’s private connectivity from resilient data centres, virtual firewalls, and virtual routing, Lufthansa Systems can securely and reliably connect airline customers to its cloud-hosted applications.

“With this partnership, Megaport is helping us to interconnect our global deployments in a resilient, diverse and on-demand way,” said Steffen Wagner, Head of Technology Centre of Excellence at Lufthansa Systems. “By using Megaport’s solutions, we’re able to go live with hybrid cloud traffic from existing data centres to Azure and Google Cloud.”

“We are excited to work with Lufthansa Systems as they innovate and deploy critical cloud services to digitally transform the aviation industry,” said Michael Reid, CEO of Megaport. “Our partnership enables the secure, high performance connectivity their customers need to rapidly scale their connectivity and unlock the full benefits of cloud computing.”

Key benefits of the partnership include reduced network costs, improved performance, enhanced security, and the ability to rapidly provision virtual network services via Megaport’s API, used as Infrastructure as Code (IaC).