Schiphol Telematics’ cybersecurity is taking off with Orange Cyberdefense

The Challenge

Schiphol has the ambition to be a Digital Leading Airport. The airport has various (digital) processes in which a lot of data is exchanged daily. This must of course be done quickly, safely and reliably. Schiphol Telematics, a business unit of Schiphol that is responsible for providing network services, plays an essential role in this. In order to guarantee this and to also enable as much innovation as possible, Schiphol Telematics, as a result of an outsourcing process, has been working closely with Orange Cyberdefense since 2020.

IT hardware does not last forever and when Schiphol Telematics' existing firewall solution reached the end of its life cycle around 2020, the company had to look for a new firewall. "Replacing a firewall suite at an airport is a job with a very high impact," says Erik Vollers, Senior Manager at Schiphol Telematics. "It is a lot of work, and the daily operation cannot be allowed to come to a standstill. That is why we contacted Orange Cyberdefense."

The Project

Schiphol Telematics previously did everything themselves. “But technological developments, our customers’ need for fast deliveries and the changing demand for speed and agility from our (internal) customers required a different way of doing business.” Schiphol Telematics therefore outsourced some of its knowledge and expertise. 

“We had to learn to hand over the executive role, but to retain control. We therefore looked for a partner who was just as mature in the sourcing process and could ‘grow’ with us. Orange Cyberdefense is that partner and had to learn to work for us only in an executive capacity and to leave the control to us. They became our proactive managed services provider.”

The fact that this process has ultimately been successful is mainly due to the open communication between the partners. A sourcing manifesto was developed for this purpose with the motto ‘Fix First Discuss Later’.

Orange Cyberdefense helped Schiphol Telematics implement and manage a new firewall environment. The firewall, installed in collaboration with the partners from Palo Alto, ensures that unauthorized access and cyber threats are kept outside. The ‘wall’ also checks and filters all network traffic, both internal and external. In addition to the firewall environment, Schiphol Telematics also needed a new so-called F5 environment. Vollers explains: “This provides the load balancing and the proxy services in the network. 

The F5 environment distributes the processing capacity across multiple servers so that performance, availability and scalability of applications improve where and when necessary.” Orange Cyberdefense implemented the necessary hardware for this, configured the network connections and designed the rules for traffic distribution and security. The migration and integration of these solutions was complex. An airport cannot simply be shut down for a weekend. Much of the implementation therefore took place during the night hours, when there are fewer flights and the network is quieter. Vollers: “You work between 23:00 and 04:00, when there are hardly any flights and no passengers. Then it is either go live, or roll back the settings and continue the next night.”
 

The Solutions provided

Services provided:

• Replacement/ migration to a new firewall suite
• Setup of F5 envrionment
• Implementation in a running environment which permitted no interruption  
• Operation support for the new firewall

Benefits

• Upgrade without business interruption of the running environment
• Future-proof, updated solution that allows for flexibility
• Freeing in-house resources for focusing on ambitious innovation projects