CASE STUDY · MANAGED SASE
Consolidating network and security into one SASE platform.
- 22 legacy tools retired
- 18%Ongoing licence costs down 18%
01 · PROJECT OVERVIEW
The client and the brief.
An anonymised mid-market B2B services company. Name withheld under confidentiality.
A single platform with unified policy.
- 1The company ran 3 separate network and security tools.
- 2Each had its own console, its own policy language and its own renewal.
- 3Rules drifted out of step: a site might be blocked in one tool and allowed in another.
- 4Troubleshooting meant checking three places.
- 5Licence costs were rising and nobody could say which tool covered what.
02 · WHAT WENT WRONG
What went wrong, and how we fixed it.
Every engagement hits problems. These were the ones that mattered here, and what we changed so they did not come back.
- PROBLEM 01Parallel-run logs showed that a long-forgotten rule in one old tool had been allowing a legacy reporting job to reach a partner system
It was not documented, and the new policy would have blocked it. We found it before cutover because the log-only mode flagged a blocked connection no one could explain. We traced it with the team that owned the job, wrote a proper rule with an owner and moved on.
- PROBLEM 02The lesson was to treat every unexplained rule as a risk and to run parallel mode long enough to catch monthly and quarterly jobs
- PROBLEM 03A second hurdle was roll-out timing
One office had a fixed contract end date on its old firewall, and the cutover plan slipped by a week because of a change freeze at that site. We could not risk an unprotected gap, so we asked the supplier for a short extension and moved the cutover. The cost was small, and it taught us to map contract end dates and change freezes into the plan before setting dates.
- PROBLEM 04The cost was small, and it taught us to map contract end dates and change freezes into the plan before setting dates
03 · THE PROCESS
How we ran it.
We ran the consolidation as a policy-first project.
- 01Step 1
Audit: we exported the rules and settings from all three tools and mapped what each one actually did.
- 02Step 2
Rationalisation: duplicate rules were merged and unused rules removed. We agreed a single policy model by user group, app and risk.
- 03Step 3
Build and parallel run: the new platform ran alongside the old tools with monitoring only, so we could compare what would be blocked or allowed.
- 04Step 4
Cutover and retirement: traffic moved in stages. As each function was confirmed, the old tool was switched off.
We held weekly reviews with the security lead and a formal sign-off before each tool was retired.
04 · RESULTS
What changed.
Measured against the way the work ran before the engagement began.
- NOW 01
There is one policy and one console.
- NOW 02
New rules have an owner, a reason and a review date.
- NOW 03
The security team reviews exceptions every quarter and removes those that have expired.
- NOW 04
Procurement checks the platform before approving new overlapping tools, and renewals are planned against the architecture, not handled as isolated purchases.
- 2
2 legacy tools retired
- 18%
Ongoing licence costs down 18%
05 · WHAT WE BUILT
How it works.
- Policies written once by role and applied everywhere, whether the user is in the office or remote.
- Rule review: each old rule was tagged keep, merge or remove, with an owner.
- Log-only mode for new rules before enforcement.
- Central logging and alerting, so one place shows what happened.
- Documented exceptions with an owner and an expiry.
- Contract timeline tracked against cutover dates to avoid paying for tools that were already off.
06 · QUICK ANSWERS
The short version.
- What problem did the client have?
- The company ran 3 separate network and security tools. Each had its own console, its own policy language and its own renewal. Rules drifted out of step: a site might be blocked in one tool and allowed in another. Troubleshooting meant checking three places. Licence costs were rising and nobody could say which tool covered what.
- What did Brandsmashers build?
- A single platform with unified policy.
- How was the work run?
- We ran the consolidation as a policy-first project.
- What were the results?
- 2 legacy tools retired; ongoing licence costs down 18%.
YOUR TURN
Have a similar requirement?
Tell us what is stuck. We will come back with a plan and matched, pre-vetted engineers.
