A company is preparing to upgrade its NIPS at five locations around the world. The three platforms the team plans to test, claims to have the most advanced features and lucrative pricing. Assuming…

Question

Options

• AEstablish return on investment as the main criteria for selection.
• BRun a cost/benefit analysis based on the data received from the RFP.
• CEvaluate each platform based on the total cost of ownership.
• DDevelop a service level agreement to ensure the selected NIPS meets all performance requirements.

• A
  8% (2)
• B
  4% (1)
• C
  73% (19)
• D
  15% (4)

Explanation

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is the most comprehensive financial evaluation metric for selecting an enterprise security platform deployed across multiple global sites. TCO encompasses not just the purchase price but also licensing, deployment, training, ongoing maintenance, support, hardware, staffing, and decommissioning costs over the product's lifecycle. Option A (ROI alone) is narrower and doesn't capture all cost dimensions. Option B (cost/benefit from RFP) is close but TCO is the more structured and complete methodology for this type of infrastructure decision. Option D (SLA) is a post-selection contractual tool that defines performance expectations but is not a selection methodology. Since the question states all platforms meet functionality requirements, the differentiator becomes the full economic picture, which TCO captures.

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