I offered an RFP to 4 vendors to supply, configure and implement an infrastructure upgrade for my office. I have 6 infrastructure implementation areas, and all 4 vendors proposed different solutions to each of the 6 areas. With overwhelming options, how can I evaluate the proposals fairly, and shortlist the best vendor? Have any of you guys been through this experience before? If yes, appreciate it if you could share it out. I am really at my wits end. Some details of the options that I am facing with:
1. Firewall with VPN – Retiedge 905, Fortigate 300A, pfSense & Cisco ASA 5510
2. Corporate Antivirus – Panda Business Secure 2008, TrendMicro OfficeScan 8 & Sophos
3. NAC – TrendMicro Network Viruswall Enforcer 1200, Untangle (it’s not even an NAC solution, if i’m not mistaken), Panda Business Secure 2008 & Sophos
4. Infra Monitoring & Management – MS SCE 2007, Nagios & OpManager
5. VoIP Upgrade (currently using CallManager 3.3 and needs voicemail) – Cisco Unity 4.x, Cisco Unity 2.0 & Asterisk
6. Backup solutions – Symantec Netbackup, Backup 3G, Amanda & FalconStar.
Thanks.