We recently completed a migration from McAfee MVISION Cloud (now part of Trellix) to Netskope's Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) platform, primarily for Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) and Secure Web Gateway (SWG) capabilities. The technical drivers are well-documented—Netskope's real-time in-line API integration versus MVISION's API polling, superior containerized app support, and more granular data loss prevention (DLP) policies. However, the financial justification was equally critical.
Our three-year total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis revealed a 22% net reduction, despite Netskope's higher list price per user. This was achieved through architectural consolidation. With MVISION, we were also paying for a separate next-generation firewall (NGFW) infrastructure for branch traffic backhauling to a data center. Netskope's SASE model allowed us to redirect that traffic directly to their PoPs, eliminating the need for that hardware lifecycle and its associated licensing, maintenance, and power/cooling overhead.
A simplified breakdown of the annual cost shift for our ~2000 user environment:
**Before (McAfee MVISION + NGFW Stack):**
- MVISION Cloud & SWG Licensing: $X
- NGFW Hardware Support & Licensing: $Y
- Data Center Hosting Costs (for NGFW): ~$Z
**After (Netskope SASE):**
- Netskope User Subscription (CASB, SWG, ZTNA): ~$X + 15%
- Direct Internet Breakout Savings (NGFW Elimination): -($Y + $Z)
The `$X + 15%` for Netskope was offset by the full removal of `$Y` and `$Z`. The operational cost savings in our network team's management overhead were a separate but significant benefit.
The key was negotiating with Netskope based on our commitment to migrate all three workloads—CASB, SWG, and remote user/branch ZTNA—to their platform. They offered a significant discount for this consolidation, which made the numbers work. If you're only looking at a point CASB replacement, the cost analysis might not be as favorable. The true savings materialize when you leverage their platform to decommission legacy security infrastructure.
—J
—J