Illustrative solution brief · Proposed selections
Compare a proposed FreeRADIUS-based admission design with commercial alternatives, then follow a controlled segmentation pilot. The aim is to preserve required engineering traffic while making admission and isolation decisions explicit.
The challenge
Separate unnecessary paths and admit enrolled devices through a maintainable certificate-based policy.
Illustrative 40-user engineering office with managed devices, guest wireless and specialist operational systems.
Separate unnecessary paths and admit enrolled devices through a maintainable certificate-based policy.
A representative wired/wireless admission and segmentation pilot, using compatible retained switching and wireless infrastructure.
Every count, product selection, implementation and financial input below is illustrative. Actual customer results and realized ROI/profit have not been supplied.
Start with the work people need to do, the information they handle and the systems they already use. Check security, compatibility, support and recovery needs before comparing costs.
For candidates that pass the gates, score functional fit 30%, operational maintainability 25%, integration and data portability 20%, three-year total cost 15%, and supplier/support resilience 10%. These are proposed weights, not completed vendor test results.
Run a representative pilot, negative tests and recovery exercise. Price hosting, retention, patching, engineering, support, training and exit. A lower license bill wins only when the complete solution meets the requirement.
Evaluate the open-source RADIUS backend for enrolled devices and explicit authorization. Network admission remains distinct from Keycloak application SSO.
Alternative and decision trigger: Retain a commercial NAC option such as ClearPass when required profiling, onboarding, posture workflows, integrations or support exceed the bounded policy.
Use customer-approved enrollment and trust with documented device identities, permitted VLANs and minimum required flows.
Alternative and decision trigger: Replace incompatible hardware only where the pilot establishes a requirement. A certificate alone does not prove device authorization or segmentation.
Keep management, staff, guest and operational roles distinct. Test actual required and prohibited paths.
Alternative and decision trigger: A new firewall or advanced NAC platform is an additional option when enforcement and operational requirements demand it; this example does not claim feature parity.
An approved device receives a suitable certificate and trust configuration through authorized custody.
The access device submits the admission request; the backend verifies identity, authorization and the agreed certificate-status policy.
The network applies the permitted role and actual routing/firewall policy, then the engineering workflow is tested.
Map specialist applications and management dependencies; confirm network and client capabilities.
Use an isolated, authorized test scope for valid, unknown, revoked and expired identities and unavailable status dependencies.
Back up device configuration; agree maintenance and rollback with the network owner. Expand only after a real client association and permitted-flow test.
Document enrollment, revocation, policy changes, outages, device recovery and commercial-support triggers.
These are required pilot checks, not tests already completed for a customer.
Bounded admission/segmentation operating component; larger NAC feature sets require a new scope and real quote.
USD, 36 months, no discounting or inflation. The commercial assembly is hypothetical, not a vendor quote. Open-source license assumptions apply only to the selected community component; paid platforms, support and hosting remain explicit.
| Input or result | Hypothetical commercial assembly | Proposed L8DT assembly |
|---|---|---|
| One-time setup | $9,000 | $12,500 |
| Monthly licenses | $650 | $0 |
| Monthly infrastructure/storage | $150 | $250 |
| Monthly operating service | $750 | $950 |
| Customer operator effort / month | 6 hours | 10 hours |
| Monthly cash outlay | $1,550 | $1,200 |
| 36-month cash TCO | $64,800 | $55,700 |
| 36-month economic TCO incl. valued effort | $78,840 | $79,100 |
$9,100 over 36 months; 14.04% of the commercial cash TCO.
16.34%. Formula: (commercial cash TCO − proposed cash TCO) ÷ proposed cash TCO. This compares hypothetical avoided expenditure with the proposed component investment.
10 months. Formula: round up positive additional setup ÷ positive recurring monthly cash difference. No interest or time value included.
$700 in year one; $4,200 per subsequent year. Assumes the modeled costs are recognized as operating expenses, equal revenue and unchanged other costs. Capitalization, depreciation and taxes may change accounting profit.
4 additional customer hours/month at $65/hour. Valued effort is not a payroll saving. Economic benefit including effort: $-260. Add 30% to proposed operating-service cost: 36-month cash advantage becomes $-1,160.
Actual implementation, measured ROI and realized profit: NOT PROVIDED. No revenue uplift, avoided breach, uptime improvement or staffing reduction is assumed.
Retained hardware and Windows/PKI licenses, endpoint posture/MDM, advanced guest workflows, cabling and taxes are excluded equally. The commercial alternative is a hypothetical bounded subscription, not a ClearPass quote.
A signed scope and current supplier quotes replace these assumptions before any service commitment.
The intended result
Validate permitted flows, blocked access, exceptions and rollback with the actual devices and applications. Product choices, operating effort and financial results remain proposed or modeled until customer validation.
Define the actual assets, permissions, coverage, costs and acceptance with a Service Champion.