Gaia-X Tellus Enables Automated Network Access for Cloud Environments
The Gaia-X Project Tellus has completed its implementation phase, delivering a fully automated prototype for interconnecting cloud environments across multiple providers.
Led by DE-CIX, the project is designed to streamline and optimize cloud access for businesses, reducing provisioning time and enabling real-time, latency-sensitive applications, addressing a major challenge in cloud computing — how to efficiently interconnect different networks and cloud services without manual, time-consuming configurations.
“The goal of the Tellus project was to develop a software overlay that simplifies complexity for both providers and users by providing end-to-end connectivity into the cloud,” said Dr. Christoph Dietzel, head of global product and research at DE-CIX.
He explained Tellus can now dynamically configure a combination of interconnection and cloud services in a fully automated manner, cutting provisioning time from several weeks to just a few minutes.
Automating Cloud Interconnection for Distributed and Real-Time Workloads
Traditionally, deploying business-critical applications across multiple cloud providers required enterprises to purchase and configure separate services manually, a costly and inefficient process that made it difficult to guarantee end-to-end performance.
Tellus aims to solve this by implementing a controller and service registry, central components of a super-node architecture that automates service provisioning.
The controller functions as an orchestrator, integrating with APIs to coordinate interconnection services and optimize network routes, while the service registry acts as a searchable repository for all available network and cloud services.
“The search process runs through the controller into the registry and its graph database, delivering the best-fitting solution,” Dietzel said.
This allows enterprises to request specific requirements — such as cost, latency, or bandwidth — and receive an optimized service configuration instantly.
Tellus’ automated infrastructure supports real-time applications where low latency and guaranteed performance are critical.
In robotics, Tellus enables the transmission of hand movements to a robot in real-time via smart gloves, ensuring ultra-low latency for remote operations.
Similarly, in manufacturing, the system enhances digital twin technology by continuously providing real-time insights that improve production efficiency and reduce costs.
“Tellus enables a customer to express requirements in terms of dimensions such as cost, latency, SLAs and bandwidth,” Dietzel said. “This makes it ideal for remote control of robots using augmented reality glasses in industrial and rescue operations.”
Aligning With Gaia-X Principles
A key feature of Tellus is its adherence to Gaia-X Federation Services (GXFS), ensuring compliance with European data governance standards.
Unlike traditional centralized cloud platforms, Tellus supports a federated cloud ecosystem where businesses can choose from multiple cloud providers while maintaining interoperability and security.
“Tellus’ decentralized and distributed approach aligns seamlessly with Gaia-X principles,” said Dietzel. “It employs a system of self-descriptions for interconnection and cloud services, utilizing standardized formats to describe the capabilities and requirements of each service.”
This means enterprises can integrate Tellus into their existing infrastructure while ensuring compliance with Gaia-X’s framework for data sovereignty and security.
“By adopting the Tellus framework, enterprises can deliver predictable, scalable and high-performance solutions for critical, real-time applications,” Dietzel said. “This is a game-changer for cloud automation, reducing the complexity of managing multi-cloud environments and ensuring that businesses have the flexibility they need to innovate.”
As businesses continue to shift toward multi-cloud and hybrid cloud strategies, solutions like Tellus will play a crucial role in enabling efficient, automated and cost-effective cloud connectivity.
With its automated provisioning, real-time optimization and adherence to Gaia-X principles, Tellus makes it easier for enterprises to build scalable, high-performance digital applications.
“Tellus is not just about interconnection,” Dietzel said. “It’s about enabling a collaborative data economy where businesses can seamlessly and securely access the cloud resources they need.”
