Netify researches vendors and managed service providers. A research profile does not mean that the supplier is registered or has agreed to respond. Supplier participation is being developed; responses and pricing are not guaranteed.
An RFI gathers information about supplier capabilities. An RFP asks suppliers to respond to defined requirements. Choose the document that fits your buying stage, whether your sites are in the UK or overseas.
RFP Builder
Choose a Short RFP for core requirements or a Detailed RFP for a fuller question set. Both support your own supplier questions.
Best for: Technical Evaluation and Board Approval.
Ready for a full RFP? Step up to the SD-WAN RFP Builder to develop your requirements, choose supplier questions and review your project before publishing it to the opportunity board.
Netify SASE RFI: What to Ask Vendors Before the RFP (2026.1)
A SASE RFI gathers capability-level information from vendors before you run a formal RFP, covering platform scope, PoP coverage, operating model, indicative commercials and reference evidence. Netify's SASE RFI question set covers the five areas below, and feeds directly into the SASE RFP Builder once you're actually ready to go to market.
Platform scope - Ask which ZTNA, SWG, CASB and FWaaS functions are native and which depend on partners. Request an architecture diagram and evidence of production use at a similar scale.
Coverage - Request a PoP map covering your operating regions, with indicative latency to your main cloud services. Check where traffic is inspected and where logs are stored.
Operating model - Compare fully managed, co-managed and self-managed delivery. Ask who owns policy changes, incident response and support, and request an onboarding schedule.
Commercial ranges - Ask for indicative pricing at your user and site count. Record minimum commitments, licence tiers, implementation charges and support exclusions. Treat ranges as estimates until quoted.
Evidence - Request comparable customer references, current certifications and details of material outages or security incidents in the last year.
A healthcare RFI would typically also ask about segregating clinical, guest and IoMT traffic, which is a requirement specific to that sector rather than a general one every buyer needs to worry about.
Turn this RFI into a full RFP → SASE RFP Builder
Not sure which vendors to ask? → Build a SASE shortlist
The Netify SD-WAN RFP Standard
An SD-WAN RFP should request a clear set of information defining your environment, specific pain points and objectives. The Netify RFP Builder enables you to define evaluation priorities (identifying which capabilities matter most, such as security stack integration or connectivity underlay) and pre-filter providers based on geographic coverage and operational model.
What’s Included in an RFP?
- Provider research: compare published capabilities and supporting evidence.
- Sector questions: cover the needs of manufacturing, healthcare, retail, financial services and government.
- Evaluation priorities: state what suppliers must demonstrate and add your own questions.
RFP Question Checklist
The questions shown depend on your scope and chosen RFP depth. These are examples to adapt to your project:
- Deployment: Detail your zero-touch provisioning workflow and timeline from hardware delivery to operational status.
- Resilience: Evidence resilient connectivity options appropriate to each site category, including documented failover thresholds.
- Performance: Explain your path selection algorithms and latency management techniques for time-sensitive traffic.
- Security: Detail your approach to segregating clinical, guest and IoMT traffic streams with auditable change tracking.
- Operations: Describe your diagnostic workflow for distinguishing connectivity issues from equipment or application problems.
How to Compare Pricing in an SD-WAN RFI
Compare the same service scope, units and contract term. Ask for installation, recurring charges, annual increases, renewal terms and the cost of adding sites or changing bandwidth. Netify circuit pricing is requested from the market; it appears in Market responses when available, with a notification to the buyer.
How the SD-WAN RFP Builder Works
Prepare a project in five steps. You can stop at a short brief or develop a full RFP.
- Introduce: Input your industry, company overview and primary contact details.
- Define: Add your sites, circuits, cloud destinations, security requirements and rollout constraints.
- Choose questions: Use a Short or Detailed RFP, bring your own document and add bespoke questions.
- Review and publish: Check the supplier pack and anonymous notice, then verify your work email and company before publication.
- Review responses: Compare supplier evidence and pricing when responses arrive. Participation and response times are not guaranteed.
How to Tailor an SD-WAN RFP to Specific Sectors
SD-WAN evaluation demands vary substantially by industry; it is vital to tailor your RFP to sector-specific constraints.
Healthcare: Clinical System Availability and Isolation
Healthcare SD-WAN evaluation must examine clinical system availability, traffic isolation for patient care versus guest networks, and clinician remote access patterns.
- Can the provider enforce segmented traffic policies with auditable tracking?
- Does the proposal incorporate resilient access options for each site type?
- Detail your approach to segregating clinical and guest traffic streams.
FAQ
What should an SD-WAN RFP include to compare providers fairly?
An SD-WAN RFP should request detailed information defining your environment, technical requirements, and objectives, followed by standardised questions structured to gather directly comparable evidence.
How do I evaluate SD-WAN & SASE capabilities in an RFP?
Ask suppliers to explain each required networking and security function, provide supporting evidence and identify exclusions. Use the same questions and evaluation criteria for each response.