The Challenge
Airports are continually changing, with new facilities, carriers, security requirements, and compliance standards all affecting airport technology systems. At Orlando International Airport (MCO), GOAA's IT Department handles day-to-day operations for every system, leaving limited capacity for the design, specification, and procurement work that large infrastructure projects require.
That work covers a wide range of disciplines: physical network infrastructure, cybersecurity, payment compliance, airfield wireless, and the operations tools that keep it all visible. Each project also has to support the airport's mission-critical systems, including CCTV, access control, and common use systems, which cannot go offline while upgrades are underway. GOAA needed a technology partner that could take on that planning and design work across all of those areas, over multiple years, without adding to its own staff.
The Solution
TMC has worked alongside GOAA's IT Department across three consecutive 5-year IT Master contracts, handling requirements definition, design, specifications, bidding, and implementation oversight while the airport's internal IT team stays focused on operations. That work has covered the full range of the airport's technology infrastructure, including:
- Standardization of 200 network infrastructure communication rooms throughout airport facilities, supporting CCTV, access control, fiber and copper, LAN, Wi-Fi, common use, and other mission-critical systems
- Campus outside plant duct bank and fiber design and expansion to close the airport's fiber ring
- Design, site selection, specifications, and bid documents for three MPOE facilities, with capacity for six diverse carrier cages and GOAA server rooms serving the entire airport
- Core firewall replacement with redundant Palo Alto firewalls, plus load balancing replacement design, specification, and award to F5
- IT systems backup replacement, from requirements definition, sizing, and design through training, TCO analysis, and award to Commvault
- IT Network Operations Center requirements and implementation, including ServiceNow application development
- Airfield long-haul Wi-Fi design, specification, and RFP
- Wi-Fi heat mapping, design, specification, and implementation drawings for the on-site Hyatt hotel
- PCI DSS v2 gap remediation, IT and IT security policies, standards, procedures, and guidelines documentation, and a QSA assessment and audit
- Redesign of the Security Badge payment system for PCI compliance, and design, specification, and bidding to move all concessionaires from paper processes to full electronic merchant processing
- A full CSIRT plan, including policies, procedures, training, and rollout
- Cellular application requirements and recommendations for the airport's Small Business Department
- IT staff augmentation covering the IT NOC, IPT, ServiceNow development, project management, CCTV design, SharePoint, structured cabling standardization, and documentation
The Results
With TMC's technology consultants working as an extension of GOAA's IT team, the airport didn't have to build in-house capacity for every infrastructure, security, and compliance project that came its way.
TMC handles the planning, design, and procurement documentation for each project, which means GOAA's IT Department can keep running the airport's systems while projects move from requirements to award. The 200-room communication standard, redundant core firewalls, three MPOE facilities, and a closed fiber ring give the airport a more consistent, resilient network as it continues to expand, with additional technology projects planned in the future.
