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Smart maritime innovation and network security at Damen

by | Jun 2, 2025

At Damen, they believe that oceans, seas, lakes and rivers offer humanity a growing range of opportunities in trade, food supply, energy and recreation. To make the most of these opportunities, Damen develops innovative vessels and maritime solutions that contribute to sustainable progress.

Quality, sustainability and security are central to this. Not only at sea, but also on land – in their IT infrastructure. For smart, secure and controlled network access, Damen uses network components from HPE and Aruba ClearPass. This keeps the network reliable and efficient, without compromising on security.

“Damen is an international company with many external partners,” says Peter van Hal, project manager at Damen. “A big challenge was that external parties brought their own devices to the yards and offices, which regularly caused disruptions in our network.”

Fabian Kleering, network architect at SLTN, explains the technical solution: “The choice of HPE Aruba was obvious. Damen has been working with Aruba switches and Wi-Fi access points for years. Aruba ClearPass integrates seamlessly with the existing infrastructure and provides powerful links to external systems such as Mobile Device Management, SIEM solutions and firewalls.”

The implementation of Aruba ClearPass means that Damen can now monitor and manage network access worldwide. This zero-trust NAC solution allows them to see in real time who is on the network, and only authorized users are granted access.

“In the old situation, we worked with static port configurations. Now the network automatically adapts to the connected device or user,” Kleering said.

Network policies are automatically applied and malicious parties cannot access sensitive data. For Damen, this is crucial. After all, they build ships that often contain sensitive or secret information – information that should only be accessible to authorized individuals.

With Aruba ClearPass, Damen has a future-proof solution that is being rolled out globally, in as many as 35 countries. This not only keeps the digital infrastructure secure, but also lays the foundation for further technological growth and innovation within the company.