An Association is preparing to upgrade their firewalls at five locations around the United States. Each of the three vendor's RFP responses is in-line with the security and other requirements. Which…

Question

Options

• ACorrelate current industry research with the RFP responses to ensure validity.
• BCreate a lab environment to evaluate each of the three firewall platforms.
• CBenchmark each firewall platform's capabilities and experiences with similar sized companies.
• DDevelop criteria and rate each firewall platform based on information in the RFP responses.

• A
  6% (3)
• B
  78% (39)
• C
  12% (6)
• D
  4% (2)

Explanation

When three vendors all meet the stated RFP requirements on paper, the only reliable way to determine which firewall platform is truly appropriate for the organization is hands-on evaluation in a controlled lab environment. RFP responses describe capabilities claimed by the vendor, not actual behavior under real conditions. Option A (correlating industry research) is useful background but does not test the product in your specific environment. Option C (benchmarking with similar companies) provides anecdotal data but not direct validation. Option D (rating based on RFP responses) is purely theoretical and does not verify that claimed features work as described. A lab environment lets the security team test each platform against the organization's actual use cases, policies, and traffic patterns before committing to a five-location deployment.

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