Analyst research

The Total Economic Impact™ of OpenVLAN

A commissioned study modeling the three-year financial impact of replacing legacy VPN concentrators, bastion hosts, and ad-hoc firewall rules with OpenVLAN.

Get the free report How the study was built

How the study was built

Not a survey — interviews. The analysts sat down with the people who run networks for a living, rebuilt their costs into a composite organization, and modeled three years of both paths side by side. The methodology is in the appendix, line by line.

✓Interview-based: real migrations, real invoices, real ticket queues
✓A composite organization — not a cherry-picked unicorn
✓Benefits and costs both modeled over three years

study methodology at a glance

interviewsnetwork & security teams12 orgsPRIMARY

composite org2,500 seats · 3 cloudsmodeled3 YEARS

legacy costsappliances + bastions−62%OPS

risk modelexposure misconfigs−45%INCIDENTS

paybackon the investment< 6 moROI 217%

Where the savings actually come from

The headline ROI isn't one big line item — it's five ordinary ones retiring. Hardware refresh cycles, jump-host sprawl, the firewall ticket queue, onboarding drag, and audit-prep marathons. Each is small; together they compound for three years.

# three-year model, composite organization

hardware concentrators + upgrades −$310k

bastions 6 jump hosts, retired −$180k

admin time firewall tickets, onboarding −$540k

incidents misconfig exposure −$260k

audit prep screenshots → log export −$95k

benefits vs. cost of OpenVLAN → 217% ROI

Headline findings

The four numbers buyers quote back to us most.

217%

Estimated three-year ROI for a composite organization.

< 6 mo

Estimated payback period on the investment.

−62%

Estimated reduction in remote-access operating costs.

−45%

Estimated reduction in security incidents from exposure misconfigurations.

What the study covers

Retiring VPN appliances and their upgrade cycles
Eliminating bastion hosts and jump boxes
Time saved on firewall change tickets
Onboarding and offboarding productivity
Risk reduction and audit preparation effort

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Inside the report

The interview base and how the composite was assembled
Full cost model: benefits, costs, and risk adjustments
Sensitivity analysis on seat count and cloud footprint
Appendix you can hand to your finance team

Also relevant

OpenVLAN vs. legacy VPN — a side-by-side on cost and architecture.

Switching guide — how migrations actually run.

Report FAQs

What is a Total Economic Impact™ study?

A Forrester Consulting methodology that turns qualitative interviews into a quantified financial model: costs, benefits, flexibility gains, and risk — each traced back to what real customers reported, then adjusted and modeled over three years for a composite organization.

Who is the "composite organization"?

A constructed company built from the interview base — roughly 2,500 seats across three clouds, with the appliance count, ticket volumes, and audit obligations typical of that profile. It's deliberately ordinary; the model scales down or up from there.

Is the report really free?

Yes. Enter a work email and we'll send the download link. No drip campaign, no "a representative will call" — the form exists to count downloads, nothing more.

Do the numbers apply to smaller teams?

The composite models 2,500 seats, but every cost line scales: fewer concentrators, fewer jump hosts, proportionally less admin time. The pattern — retire N appliances, reclaim their carrying costs — holds at any size; the appendix shows the per-seat math to redo it for yours.

Can we get the model to plug in our own numbers?

The report includes the cost categories and formulas in the appendix. If you want it as a spreadsheet to fill in with your own invoices and ticket volumes, ask sales — they'll hand it over without a discovery call.