CAS-002 · Question #797
A Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) has requested that a SIEM solution be implemented. The CISO wants to know upfront what the projected TCO would be before looking further into this…
The correct answer is A. Based on cost alone, having an outsourced solution appears cheaper. This question tests TCO analysis by comparing all capital and operational costs of an in-house SIEM product solution against a managed outsourced service over time.
Question
A Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) has requested that a SIEM solution be implemented. The CISO wants to know upfront what the projected TCO would be before looking further into this concern. Two vendor proposals have been received:
- Vendor A: product-based solution which can be purchased by the
pharmaceutical company.
- Capital expenses to cover central log collectors, correlators,
storage and management consoles expected to be $150,000. Operational expenses are expected to be a 0.5 full time employee (FTE) to manage the solution, and 1 full time employee to respond to incidents per year.
- Vendor B: managed service-based solution which can be the outsourcer
for the pharmaceutical company's needs. Bundled offering expected to be $100,000 per year. Operational expenses for the pharmaceutical company to partner with the vendor are expected to be a 0.5 FTE per year. Internal employee costs are averaged to be $80,000 per year per FTE. Based on calculating TCO of the two vendor proposals over a 5 year period, which of the following options is MOST accurate?
Options
- ABased on cost alone, having an outsourced solution appears cheaper.
- BBased on cost alone, having an outsourced solution appears to be more expensive.
- CBased on cost alone, both outsourced an in-sourced solutions appear to be the same.
- DBased on cost alone, having a purchased product solution appears cheaper.
How the community answered
(40 responses)- A70% (28)
- B5% (2)
- C15% (6)
- D10% (4)
Why each option
This question tests TCO analysis by comparing all capital and operational costs of an in-house SIEM product solution against a managed outsourced service over time.
Vendor A's product-based solution requires $150,000 in upfront capital expenses plus 1.5 FTE in annual operational costs, which together substantially exceed Vendor B's bundled managed service fee of $100,000 per year plus reduced internal staffing. The lower recurring cost structure of the outsourced solution results in a lower total cost of ownership across the projected lifespan of the deployment.
The outsourced solution is not more expensive - Vendor B's bundled annual fee plus reduced internal staffing is lower than Vendor A's high capital outlay combined with 1.5 FTE in annual operational costs.
The costs are not equivalent - the capital-intensive in-house solution with higher FTE requirements produces a higher TCO than the managed service option.
The purchased product solution is not cheaper - its large upfront capital investment combined with ongoing full-time staffing requirements results in a higher total cost than the outsourced alternative.
Concept tested: Total cost of ownership comparison for SIEM vendor solutions
Source: https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-137/final
Topics
Community Discussion
No community discussion yet for this question.