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January 22, 2026
iboss SASE vs. Legacy Firewalls: A TCO Comparison for K-12
Hardware refresh cycles, maintenance contracts, and staffing overhead make on-premises firewalls more expensive than they appear.
SASETCOFirewalls
The firewall cost is not just the appliance
Districts often compare subscription cost to appliance cost and miss the real operating model: refresh cycles, HA pairs, licensing, routing complexity, remote traffic backhaul, and staff time.
What to include in the comparison
- Hardware purchase and replacement cycle.
- Support contracts and security subscriptions.
- Remote-user backhaul and performance cost.
- Staff hours for policy, reporting, and troubleshooting.
- Risk created by unmanaged off-network traffic.
Why SASE changes the math
Cloud-delivered inspection moves the control point closer to the user and application. Calbrate's work is to make that shift practical, phased, and defensible for procurement.