For the NATO Summit in The Hague in June 2025, Axians designed and implemented highly secure and fully segmented digital infrastructure. This critical mission was completed in record time to ensure the success of an international diplomatic event.
©Aaron Zwaal
In June 2025, The Hague hosted that year’s NATO Summit. With 45 heads of state, more than 6,000 delegates, 2,000 journalists and 90 special guests in attendance, the success of this event taking place under tense geopolitical circumstances was in large part dependent on ensuring impeccably reliable and secure digital infrastructure. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs entrusted Axians with this mission.
“Our mission was to supply a complete, highly secure network capable of supporting every digital component of the summit: audiovisual systems, surveillance cameras, IT equipment, etc.,” explains Jasper van Nederpelt, Lead Consultant Connectivity at Axians ICS Government. The team installed and secured the required IP, DNS and DHCP* services: “We literally built the entire digital environment for the NATO Summit.”
The Axians proposal, selected following a call for tenders, impressed due to the solidity and flexibility of its architecture: a Cisco Software Defined Access (SDA) network, which allowed the creation of several logical networks on the same physical infrastructure. “It was the best solution in both functional and financial terms,” says Jasper van Nederpelt.
The solution was based on advanced segmentation to isolate different user profiles and on Fortinet firewalls to secure internet access and traffic between segments. Authentication was managed using Cisco ISE, and DNS/DHCP services using Infoblox. “We combined Cisco and Fortinet solutions to design a resilient, flexible architecture compliant with the most exacting security standards,” says Jasper van Nederpelt.
Meticulous preparation
The tight timescale required particularly meticulous preparation. With the future summit’s location still a construction site, Axians preconfigured the entire network in-house, ready for an immediate rollout as soon as the building was ready. Multiple Axians Netherlands entities mobilised for the installation, plus monitoring and round-the-clock surveillance via the NOC and SOC**.
“A resilient, flexible architecture compliant with the most exacting security standards”
Submitted to independent intrusion testing and an audit by Dutch secret services, the zero-trust architecture passed every test without further modification. “The intrusion-testing teams couldn’t find a single vulnerability – they actually seemed a bit disappointed…” says André van Grieken, Senior Project Manager at Axians Nederland. “But it came as no surprise to us. We have years of experience in this type of project. It was our 22nd or 23rd SDA implementation in the Netherlands, and we’ve built them even bigger than this.”
Teamwork
The human dimension was also key, with close coordination between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NATO, the American government and the providers. “We quickly formed a trust relationship with the Ministry,” says Jasper van Nederpelt. “They recognised our expertise and had complete confidence in us, backing each of our recommendations with the other stakeholders.”
For André van Grieken, it was the team spirit that made the difference: “We worked hard, but with remarkable team spirit. We proved the adage ‘teamwork makes the dream work’ every day. If we can secure an international summit like this, we can protect any customer.”
*Internet Protocol, Domain Name System, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
**Network Operations Centre, Security Operations Centre
04/16/2026
