Technology that takes you anywhere

A major regional gateway in the South West of England, this airport has ambitious plans to become the UK’s leading short-haul provider and is on track to become the UK’s first net-zero airport by 2030. To achieve this vision, the airport is transforming and modernising its network infrastructure – to enable future-proofed, highly resilient, and secure interoperability. This will also enable the vision of seamlessly delivering new connectivity and advanced services that airlines, retailers, and passengers can consume.

Rebuilding critical infrastructure cabling

For 15 years, Camworth’s structured cabling division had been providing cabling services to the airport and has built up an enviable reputation for health and safety – with zero incidents. As a partner with extensive know-how of the airport’s mission-critical IT infrastructure and complex site requirements, Camworth has undertaken many of the structured cabling projects for the airport.

This has included the precision implementation of high-performance data transmission cables at its three operational areas, including areas utilised by airlines, retailers, office administration building and other services providers, and the airfield itself. The mission-critical work required highly experienced engineers to run cabling under the runway with no negative impact on airport operations or health and safety incidents.

To future proof the capability, range, capacity and resilience of the airport’s systems, fibre infrastructure was installed. To boost security for payment transactions and assure PCI DSS compliance, Camworth replaced all switches and firewalls and assisted with transitioning the PCI application to the cloud. This would ensure that the airport’s payment systems could protect sensitive payment card data and that the airport was fully compliant with PCI DSS data security standards.

With a reputation for getting complex things done well at scale, Camworth has proved its worth as our cabling partner of choice. Their flexible approach means we can action cabling moves and changes quickly to meet all of our needs, while complying with stringent health and safety regulations.

BENEFITS

• Consistent high quality cabling services for all airport operations, including traffic control, as well as tenants (retailers, catering outlets, car parking services).
• Single contact for the entire airport, capable of handling everything from implementing cables to installing display screens, video walls, AV equipment.
• Experts in network security – including PCI DSS compliance.
• High performance secure Ethernet-IP infrastructure that delivers reliable data coverage and is capable of supporting surveillance cameras, card readers and Wi-Fi access points.
• Modular design of cabling systems that will keep pace with future airport expansion plans.

Building a resilient and secure network

More than 8.9 million passengers used the airport in 2018 equating to a 6.2% increase year on year, and a ninth consecutive year of growth. The demands on the network were increasing and it was necessary to refresh older equipment to add resilience and security.

Camworth had become a trusted partner for structured cabling, but they also have experience and a strong track record designing multi-service and secure networks. It was natural that we should ask them to work with our IT team to re-design and refresh the network. The solution Camworth recommended utilising Cisco next-generation equipment not only provided greater cost-efficiencies but added more layers of security.

Initiating a foundation for future growth

Next, the airport wanted Camworth to help it define a truly agile digital network strategy – built on a zero-trust security framework – that would enable it to achieve a streamlined operational model across wired and wireless environments at a lower cost.

To initiate connectivity anywhere in the airport or remotely, in a highly secure and flexible way, Camworth recommended using software-defined access (SDA) technologies to enhance security, automate network provisioning and manage access to applications, services, and integrated technologies from a central dashboard.

Camworth recommended a software-defined networking infrastructure that would address the airport’s multiple needs. The transformative solution features highly dynamic capabilities and satisfies all the airport’s critical requirements with respect to future-proofing, security, segmentation, and the ability to rapidly integrate new users.

This will enable us to make life much simpler for the tenants and Business Partners that operate at our site which includes airlines, logistics providers, and retailers. Rather than having to implement and manage their own IT networks, as they do today, we will be able to offer them a secure, state-of-the-art network and connectivity services with 24/7 inhouse support.

BENEFITS

• Supports easier adds, moves and changes – increased agility and efficiency with automated user policy and network provisioning.
• Enhanced security and segmentation – a true end-to-end multi-tenant environment with full automation in the network that keeps user, device and application traffic separate with end-to-end segmentation.
• Reduced operational costs – up to 30% savings.
• Simplified delivery of services – powerful automation enables the rapid deployment of complex configurations in hours.
• Next-generation secure network access – includes dynamic visibility, zero-trust access, automated threat containment, secure onboarding and provisioning, and consistent policy enforcement.

Having undertaken a strategic review, designed a scalable, secure and future-proofed network – that utilises cost and resource-efficient technologies – Camworth is now helping the airport manage the procurement of the technologies it will need and is supporting the airport’s existing managed service provider with the implementation project.

IMPACT

• Accelerated the airports plan to support evolving business and operational needs.
• Created a blueprint for the physical and digital infrastructure that will enable the airport to embrace technology innovation and achieve decarbonisation goals.
• Highly resilient mission-critical network infrastructure will support increased data capacity throughput as the airport expands its operations.