CLDN

CLDN is a logistics service provider operating its own terminals and offering maritime, rail and road connections, with a strong focus on multimodal transport. With operations spread across multiple countries and terminals, CLDN handles large volumes of goods and vehicles each year. This operational complexity places high demands on the underlying IT systems, which are critical for planning, safety and business continuity.

A historically grown IT landscape

Until recently, CLDN managed its entire IT infrastructure fully on-premise, across two internal data centers. Nearly all applications were developed in-house and based on a traditional client-server architecture with centralized databases. A significant portion of these systems dates back to 2008–2012, meaning they were designed according to standards that are now more than a decade old.

As CLDN grew through expansion and acquisitions, this resulted in a fragmented application landscape, with multiple systems coexisting. At the same time, the need for faster innovation increased, particularly around the digitalization of terminal operations, computer vision and machine learning use cases — such as automated recognition of wagons, trailers and containers using cameras.

The need for modernisation

These new use cases introduced new technical requirements. Applications were increasingly delivered as containers, while the existing infrastructure was not designed to support container-native workloads. Initially, containers were run inside virtual machines, but it quickly became clear that this approach would not scale efficiently or remain manageable in the long term.

In parallel, security became a growing concern. The increasing threat of ransomware, combined with management’s focus on improving resilience and continuity, acted as a major driver for architectural change.

OpenShift as the foundation for containerization

After a thorough market evaluation, CLDN selected Red Hat OpenShift as its standard container platform. A full OpenShift cluster was set up, initially in a test and development context, allowing both infrastructure and development teams to gain hands-on experience with container orchestration and microservices-based architectures.

New applications are now developed using cloud-native principles, with containers as the standard deployment unit and a clear separation between development, test and production environments. Today, OpenShift forms the foundation for CLDN’s ongoing application modernization strategy.

With a growing number of business-critical applications, observability became a key focus area. Manual checks across multiple portals were no longer sustainable. As a result, CLDN invested in centralised monitoring and integrated management tooling, providing better insight into application performance, availability and incidents.

In addition, Linux system management was professionalised, including centralised patching and update management — similar to the approach already in place for Windows environments. Authentication, access control and security standards were structurally strengthened across the IT landscape.