Appliance, Software, or SaaS: Choosing the Best Deployment Option

Businesses tend to prefer appliances or software for new solution deployments. There are many reasons why from ease of deployment, to complete ownership of the host and the application. Unfortunately, sometimes departmental whims are not always the best solution for the company. There are several factors from deployment to security policies that may warrant a different choice. As a part of the decision and justification process, this simple matrix enables you to prioritize your requirements and answer questions commonly overlooked during product selection. In addition, answering the questions first can help an eEye Security professional properly architect your solution and provide a more accurate quote for deployment costs. It is important to note that if you are only looking for external scanning, then a SaaS solution is your best choice for regulatory compliance initiatives like PCI. There is no reason to complete the matrix unless business requirements dictate external and internal scanning. Then, choosing the best internal deployment model makes sense. Please score each business criteria below and grade each of them on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = low, 5 = high). Then total each column. The highest score will provide your business the guidance necessary for the correct solution.

Grade	Appliance	Grade	Software
	Rapid Deployment		Lower Cost for Licensing Only
	Easier Maintenance and Lower TCO		Flexible Deployment with Software Scanners including Virtual Machines
	Easier Procurement Process		Limited Raised Floor Rack Space
	Hardened Appliance with Minimal Risk Surface		Existing Server Reallocation and Resource Sharing
	Geographical Deployment		Unlimited Scalability
	Different Budgets, Hardware Only		Different Budgets, Software Only
	Optimized Policy and Server for Operations, No Tweaking		Policy Limiting New Hardware on a Network
	Hardened and Embedded Operating System		Licensing of Operating System and Database (if needed)
	Policy Limiting New Software on a Network		Non-Standard Architectural Requirements and Ports
	Physical Infrastructure Preferred		Private Cloud Initiatives (Virtualized Software Deployment)
	TOTALS		TOTALS

For more information on how eEye solutions can meet your Unified Vulnerability Management needs, please click here. Our solutions are flexible to meet your deployment requirements andeEye can provide software, appliances, SaaS, or even assistance for your virtual machines to stream line your implementation.