Rockwell Collins and Stellar Deliver the Future of Business Aviation Solutions with a High Performance, Ultra-Secure, Scalable Cloud Infrastructure

Feb. 7, 2018
They have launched the Stellar Cloud, a next-generation software delivery infrastructure platform for business aviation solutions, built on the industry-leading and proven Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) infrastructure.

LONG BEACH, CA – Rockwell Collins, a leader in aviation and high-integrity solutions for commercial and military customers around the world, and Silicon Valley aviation technology innovator Stellar Labs, Inc. (“Stellar”) today announced the launch of the Stellar Cloud, a next-generation software delivery infrastructure platform for business aviation solutions, built on the industry-leading and proven Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) infrastructure.

The Stellar Cloud is the preferred infrastructure environment for Rockwell Collins’ ARINCDirect Flight Operations System (“FOS”) and the foundation of future jointly developed next-generation flight operations management solutions. Current FOS customers being hosted by either Rockwell Collins or Stellar will receive a seamless, no additional cost, no hassle upgrade to the Stellar Cloud.

“For more than 20 years, the FOS software has set the standard for business aviation operators. Now FOS customers can effortlessly take advantage of this highly advanced, secure, scalable and reliable application deployment environment. This is a huge win for our customers and one reason why we entered into the strategic partnership with Stellar.“
— Dave Poltorak, vice president, Business Aviation for Rockwell Collins.

PERFORMANCE, SCALABILITY, SECURITY, AND RELIABILITY
The Stellar Cloud delivers the experience and mobility one would expect from modern applications with the performance, scalability, security, and reliability of modern, global cloud infrastructure. Customers upgrading to the Stellar Cloud should expect significant improvement in systems responsiveness with nearly instantaneous response to common user tasks, such as building trips and quotes.

By leveraging AWS’s native auto-scaling, elastic load-balancing, replication, and auto-provisioning of computing resources, the Stellar Cloud scales seamlessly to match both operator growth and peak day demands. The Stellar Cloud offers advanced security and compliance capabilities including data center and data storage localization, continuous security monitoring, and advanced two-factor authentication – all with a 99.9 percent availability guarantee and best in class back-up, failover and recovery services.

“This is the fastest I’ve ever seen FOS run in any environment.”
— Fred Powell, Stellar VP of Operator Systems and FOS creator

OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY
With the Stellar Cloud, operators no longer need to allocate resources toward managing hardware, software, patches, and upgrades. The Stellar Cloud combines the functionality of FOS with next-generation, integrated support access, including knowledge base, ticket initiation, and self-service password management. For operators who currently run and administer FOS themselves, this provides an opportunity to meaningfully reduce the risk of downtime or data loss caused by system or hardware failure, all while increasing efficiency and security.

“The Stellar Cloud is the first step in our transformative vision of a 21st-century business aviation ecosystem. Operators are in the business of managing their fleet and growing their profits. FOS – powered by the Stellar Cloud allows them to focus on their business, and leave the administration, upkeep and advancement of their digital infrastructure to us.”
— David Fox Stellar Labs CEO

ON-RAMP TO THE FUTURE

FOS – powered by the Stellar Cloud is another step in a long-term partnership between Stellar and Rockwell Collins. The companies are co-developing a unified, next-generation, flight planning, operations, and business platform that will combine all of the market-leading flight operations planning functionality of FOS with Stellar’s innovative commerce and business optimization solutions, enabling operators to compete, grow and win their markets. By upgrading to the Stellar Cloud now, current FOS customers are positioned join in this market-making journey, taking advantage of upcoming capabilities like owner access, advanced business intelligence (BI), and operator-to-operator trip collaboration, all integrated with their existing FOS implementation.

“We started Stellar with the vision of transforming the business of business aviation for operators and consumers, and our partnership with Rockwell Collins is instrumental in executing this vision. This announcement marks the completion of the first step of this journey – we’ve taken off, and are just beginning our climb to new heights of achievement. As we like to say at Stellar, the skies are wide open, and we could not be more excited about the future of Stellar, our partnership, and most importantly our joint operator customers.”
— Paul Touw, Stellar co-founder

PRICING & AVAILABILITY

This is a seamless upgrade for Rockwell Collins’ hosted FOS and Stellar hosted FOS customers. Customers can schedule their upgrade with their Rockwell Collins or Stellar representatives. For on-premise FOS software customers intending to move to the FOS – powered by the Stellar Cloud, Stellar is offering the Stellar On-Ramp promotion. For more information, customers should contact their Rockwell Collins or Stellar account representatives.”